Lovett DePaul, Working Man

My perusal of Saturday morning's newspaper was interrupted by the telephone answering machine broadcasting BF's plea for temporary help.

BF is an acquaintance of mine: mid-fifties, never married, and, in the year I've known him, down on his luck, due to a few poor choices. But for the grace of God...

BF runs a "business" from the back of his pickup truck, waterproofing foundations for houses under construction. He gets jobs word-of-mouth, and last weekend he had a doozy: two solid concrete foundations, side-by-side, a pretty tight deadline, and a helper that couldn't make it.

(Construction Aside: Apparently, solid concrete foundations are more deadline intensive than concrete block foundations because the excavator can backfill them immediately, whereas concrete block foundations cannot be backfilled until the walls and roofs are in place or else the walls will collapse. The waterproofer can take his time with them. I've now told you more than I know about the "construction bidness". )

BF wondered if Lovett would be interested in pushing a paint roller for a couple of hours, and I wondered the same thing as I walked to his room to ask him, my houseshoes clicking across the hardwood in rhythm with the clacking X-box controller in Lovett's hands.

But he was interested. I got him to call BF for details and directions to the job site, and I dropped him off a few minutes later with instructions for BF to keep an eye on him.

I must say I had mixed feelings as I drove away. Lovett had already made me proud by taking down perfect driving directions to the site. This was no small feat, given that I've instructed him on how to take out the trash twice a week for the past 187 weeks. But it struck me halfway home that this wasn't some piddly little chore around the house. This was A Job. A.Real.World.Job. An if-an-OSHA-inspector-appears-then-someone-could-go-to-jail job. As I tried to pray for Lovett, I was both excited and frightened for him. Excited, because of the "rite of passage" freedom that is tasted once someone starts earning his own way, a freedom I hope Lovett becomes addicted to. Frightened, because I've been in The.Real.World. long enough to know what a shock it can be to someone as privileged as Lovett. He goes to the pantry when he's hungry and he gets something to eat. He flips a switch and a light comes on. Every time. He turns a faucet and water comes out. Every time. I'm not sure he knows that two-thirds of the world lives on less money than the cost of the electricity to power his X-box and TV. That they work hard and still can't get ahead. Like BF, who not only operates from his truck, but sometimes also sleeps there.

It also frightened me because Lovett was venturing out from under my world view. Is he ready for that? Have I prepared him enough to handle the things the world will throw at him? Have I let my obsessions that he flip a light switch off once in a while and that he put empty food wrappers in the trash can instead of on the kitchen counter and that he wash the woefully overpriced blue jeans he bought with his Christmas money at [trendy with the hip kids boutique] at least once every twelve times he wears them get in the way of preparing him for reality? It didn't help much when I got home and told Zelda where Lovett was and she asked me what I had sent him for lunch. Lunch?

So I busied myself about the house, washing the windows and puttering in the garage, expecting Lovett to give it a couple of hours and call me to come get him. By four-thirty, I began to wonder about him, so I drove over to the site. There he was, rolling away. I could tell they'd made great progress that day. BF thanked him for his hard work and paid him. Then BF began to make statements like "I don't hold grudges," and "I've already forgotten about it," and "it takes time to learn these things."

On the way home, I asked Lovett about BF's parting discussion:

C: What was that about?

L: BF is a little grumpy.

C: Grumpy? What was he grumpy about?

L: He said I was too slow.

C (feigning surprise): Slow? Really? What else?

L: And that I wasted waterproofing stuff.

C (masking shock): Really? What does BF do when he gets grumpy?

L: He yells.

C: He yelled at you?

L: Yeah.

C: How did that make you feel?

L: I was like, whatever. I tried not to get mad.

C: But you kept going?

L: Yeah.

For the rest of the evening, Lovett said things like, "I'm not trying to talk about BF, but..." as he expounded on another life lesson learned on the job site. The most substantial? At lunch Sunday:

L: I don't mean to talk bad about BF...

C: ...but...

L: ...but he doesn't think much of Mexicans.

C (recalling his own subjections to BF's Latino-disparaging comments): What gave you that idea?

L: He was always fussing about how they poured the foundation. Not very nice.

C: What did you think when he said things like that?

L: Made me angry.

C: Did it shock you that someone would talk like that?

L: Yeah.

Let me tell you, I felt validated as a parent. Zelda and I grew up among some of the most bigoted people imaginable, and rather than dismissing them with a flippant "well, that's just the times they came from," we've worked hard to eradicate those thoughts, feelings, and words from our home. It hasn't been easy, but nothing worthwhile ever is.

I was so proud of Lovett that after lunch I drove him to [trendy with the hip kids boutique] and let him blow most of his pay. I didn't even give him the requisite DePaul lecture about the value of money and how it is a lot easier to spend when someone else earns it and, my personal favorite, wait until you have a full-time job and have to work every day.

I just let him enjoy the fruit of his labor, and I enjoyed mine.