easy money

the toothless wannabes were just a side show,contruction was all about the creativity to me, the chance to express myself three dimensionally. it's not really anymore than that. i got a chance to use a lot of my talents everyday and make money doing it. all that fresh air, working on my tan and getting paid for it. i looked like one of the gypsies, long hair kind of american dreads down to my shoulders, no shirt, cut off jeans and tennis shoes, socks by god, and some sort of talisman around my neck, beads, a tooth, a chunk of silver. call it the loin cloth years, i felt like a damn savage out there, a natural man in his natural environment. i've still got the assorted scars from not wearing shirts or pants, you can follow the trail of them from ankle to shoulder. my old partners used to ask me " don't you think you should put something on, we're going into a nice neighborhood." i never answered them and nothing more was said until the next time we went to a nice neighborhood, which was hardly ever. once we were in a wealthy upscale town in the East Bay and the partners were licking their lips thinking about all that money we were going to make, all those rich people just waiting to give us their work and their cash. I was tearing out dryrot at a newly married couple's home and i had cut a big hole in the bathroom floor and was cutting out some damaged beams below and it was summer and hot, the air wasn't moving down there and i was sweating like a pig so i decided to take my clothes off, you know to keep cool, so i'm working down below naked with only my shoes and tool bag on and i had to get some nails so i crawled to the hole i'd cut in the floor and stood up to refill when the new young bride walked in and saw me standing there naked and gave a scream, the doors slams and that was the end of the nice neighborhood and all that easy money. i sure did break my partners heart. but like i told them it was hotter than hell, what was i supposed to do, and anyway i had my shoes on. jgk