39. Days Gone By

[lloigor]

 

Ginnie was pleased with the turnout today.  She had gotten up at the usual ungodly hour and did her chores and teaching with Betty, who had shooed her out the door early to come down and supervise the work.  She was surprised at having six men to get started, and Carl had pointed out that it might be better to spend time clearing and levelling a pretty big area in front of the door so that if the rains and snow came hard, they wouldn’t have to dig it out again.  

“OK, we can do that but could you spend some time clearing out the area around the door first?”  She really wanted to get in and take a look at what the inside looked like.

“Uhhhh,” Carl took a minute to survey the site.  That didn’t really fit in with his plans for the day, but not throwing giving Ginnie a bit of a say in how things went was a recipe for disaster. “Gimme a minute to think.”

“I want to get in there as soon as possible” said said Ginnie, crossing her arms (never a good sign), “It can’t be that big a deal, just do it.”

“Ginnie, give me a minute to think about this” said Carl.  He continued to survey the site, figuring out how to best move the mass of dirt and vegetation around the entry to the vault so that it could be used.  Evan and James had brow-beat him into taking charge.  In the 87th, he was known as the “king of the Hesco’s”.  Even long serving NCO’s deferred to him when discussing how to move large amounts of dirt and rocks when digging into a firebase.  “If this place is going to be used long term, we need to level this area for around fifty meters around the door.  We are going to be needing to move a shitload of dirt to do that.”

“Look, I want to get into the door Carl.”  Ginnie voice went up a couple of decibels.

Carl didn’t even hesitate, “You’ll get into you damn door, but I am not going to move the same dirt twice so you can be a part of the plan and be patient for a day or....”, he held out the shovel to her as an offering.

“Fuck that.”

“Figured you’d feel that way. Once we get the vegetation cleared off around there, I’ll send one of the guys to help you dig out the area immediately around the door with a ramp so that folks can get in and out.”

“Why don’t I go talk to Evan, He’ll help me.”

“Go for it, but Evan knows the score and he will need to get gone to start setting up for his job pretty soon.” Carl pulled back the shovel and leaned on it.  Giving Ginnie the lopsided smile that let her know that he wasn’t going to be doing things her way.  It was the smile that convinced her to shut down their short-lived dating experience in high school.

“Dammit Carl?”

“Ginnie, just chill out, we’ll get it done.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Look, there is more than your shit that has to get done, Evan needs to go out and directly scout those oak stands, James has to start training up one of the guys to walk a patrol and I get to play junior backhoe for today.”

“But all of you are here now.”

“You have three hours of all six of us, then four are taking off to get their afternoon jobs done and there will be only two of us here.”

“Carl, I need you guys to do more than that” said Ginnie, obviously getting annoyed at having her will thwarted.  She crossed her arms and glared.

Carl turned about thirty degrees so that Ginnie wasn’t directly in front of him.  He took a couple of deep breaths and surveyed the area around him.  The area toward the house where it needed to be lowered and levelled was, by eyeball, around a thousand square yards and (again by eyeball) would have to lowered and average of a half yard, so they were talking about moving 500 yards of dirt and rock.  

“No,” Carl said. “We’re just the strong backs and the weak minds here, we got at least a week of digging and moving dirt and rock to make this area usuable.”

“Look Carl” she said.

“Look Ginnie, you aren’t going to bully me here,” he said simply. “You don’t get your way here.  We’ll get you into the door by tomorrow noon.  That’s it, then we have to get back to doing what needs to be done.”

Ginnie stomped off to go over to Evan...Carl just watched, the wind masked a lot of the words, but he saw Evan shake his head and point at Carl.  He saw Ginnie waving her hands in front of her.  Not a good sign.

James was waiting as Ginnie stomped over to him.  Evan had wandered over closer to Carl and waited. “I think that I will not be eating at Carla’s for a couple of days,” Evan said, while Ginnie was gesticulating wildly. “I got a couple of cans of Spam and was thinking about making a big batch of musabi”.

“Save the spam” Carl said, “Grandpa and Grandma said to invite you over for dinner, Grandma got a recipe for birria from Carlita and she is celebrating the death of that billygoat that was always pissing her off.” Carl laughed out loud.  “I thought that I would piss myself when she was talking to Grandpa, he wanted to just castrate him to settle him down, I thought I would bust a gut when she said ‘Bill, I want that bastard dead’.”

“Ought to be a great meal,” Evan laughed, the dinner sounded a lot better than cooking and when he had had his seats redone on a visit to Nogales, he had tasted birria and liked what he tasted. 

“Grandma says to come hungry and bring a tupperware for leftovers.” 

Evan finished filling up the wheelbarrow and watched Ginnie stomp off, heading back home. “Okay.”

James and Jim shot them a grin from across the area that they were marking out and preparing for levelling.  Chuck came over from where he was pounding a stake into the ground marking the southern limit of the plan.  

Carl spoke up over the wind.  “Guys, got a minute.” Evan and Carl turned toward him.

“I’ thinking we ought to take a harder look at how we want to do the site.” said Chuck.  He looked across the site and pointed to the west. “I think that the water will want to pool up and make the place a bog unless we give the water someplace to go.”

“Hmm, just a minute,” Carl yelled and then motion James and Jim to come over. “Take a break, time to talk.”  He looked around for Thao Zeb (Chuck’s cousin) but he had vanished.

The two wandered over and joined them, Zeb walked around the clump of bushes, still fiddling with his zipper, he saw the movement and joined them.

When everyone was there, they just stood for a minute looking around. Chuck took out a a pipe and tamped some tobacco into it and spent a moment getting it started.

“You’r smoking a pipe?  Gonna grow a beard next and start playing with electric trains?”  Zeb looked at his cousin with disgust.  

Carl grinned, and James and Evan cracked up, Jim just looked confused.  Chuck flipped his cousin off and turned to the rest of the crew, “This is how I quit cigarettes, I guess that I like fiddling around with it, lets me deal with the energy better.”

Carl just laughed, “It’s a dam sight better than these two hillbillies and their Copenhagen.  Don’t sweat it, we’re outside.”

They stood around for a moment and just relaxed.

“OK, Chuck brought something up,” Carl said. He turned to Chuck “What you thinking.”

“I took a basic civil engineering class when I was a sophomore, basic stuff, but I think that if you look at this site, and we just clear the area like we are doing, we will have a swamp when we are done.” He said.

“I’m hearing more digging,” Zeb said grumpily.

“OK, lets say we don’t care, what will happen?” Said James

“Anybody who wants to get to that door will have to wade through standing water and a clayey, goopy mess whenever it rains or snows.” Replied Chuck with a grimace.

“Well, Ginnie is pissed now, she would be furious if that happened,” Said Carl.

“Exactly,” Evan chimed in, “but not only that, the fact that Yhoundeh mentioned cleaning that out specifically means that it is probably as important as the fieldwork we are doing.”

“There is that.” Carl said.  He turned to Chuck “Since you are our engineer, what do we need to do?”

“Hey, I’m in engineering too!” Protested Evan.

“Electrical.  You make fun shit Evan, you don’t have a clue on how to make anything actually useful, have you taken any Civil?.”

“No.”  Evan could come damn close to a pout.

“So what do we need to do Chuck?”

“We finish up clearing today, I go back to my shop and put together a dumpy level and a staff and we can survey this place tomorrow and figure out how to drain it.”

“Ginnie is just going to say we are stalling, how do we deal with that?”  The question caused all five men to pause.  The morning had been less than calm and now they needed to figure out how to prevent another day of ‘unpleasant’.

Carl finally spoke, “Here’s what I think, we spend the rest of the day clearing out a path into the door, and make sure that we can get her into the door first thing in the morning.” He paused, obviously thinking hard about things.  Then Chuck and James spend the morning doing survey, Jim and I will go in and help her with any heavy lifting, and Evan and Zeb prep for doing a full scouting on those oak groves and that place on the side of the hill.”

Six men nodded and looked at each other.  Assent was silent.

“So now we start digging?”

“We start digging,” Carl said, “Not that bad, clear out six feet around the door and a ramp so that if any of the old folk want to come and look, they can get in and out easy.”

“Can we get a couple of wheelbarrows?” asked Evan and Chuck, almost simultaneously.

“Why don’t I run into town and get a couple, who wants to come with?” was Carl’s reply.

“Why don’t we all get back to town and grab a bite?” said James.

Evan just looked at the where the door lay half-hidden by dirt and detritus. “If all we are doing is clearing out a path in for Ginnie and whoever is working with her, I say that there only needs to be two people working here this afternoon.”

“Gotta agree with you there.”  Added James.  “That way Evan can set up for tomorrow’s scout into the oak grove with Zeb, I can take Jim on the daily rabbit hunt, and Carl and Chuck can come back with the wheelbarrow and clear the path into the door.

Carl looked crestfallen. “Just like in the army” he announced. He genuinely looked aggrieved and dejected. “Filling Hesco’s again, I must have filled more of them than anyone in the army.”

As they turned to walk back to town, Evan reached over and put his hand on Carl’s shoulder.  “It’s just because you are so damn good at it.”  

James started laughing. “I can even remember when it started, we were at that firebase and all we had was some old DVD’s and a laptop to watch to keep from getting bored, and you decided that ‘Cool Hand Luke” was the best movie ever made and then the next day when they coptered in the empty Hesco’s you made it a game to see how fast we could fill them.”

They continued their walk back to town.