DAY 117:  Tuesday, February 2, 2010:  Your only dance move is “The Jello”.

Severance Pay: Continued from Day 116 . . .

Earlier that Day:  A cold November wind blew across the sprawling construction site, grains of sand whispering off a huge steel Caterpillar blade parked close to Randy.  The bitter and bow-legged survey foreman turned away as the youngest Farrenza brother sent another stream of tobacco spit into a shallow foundation hole to repeat his mantra of the day:

“You fucking suck.”

Randy shrugged with an uneasy smile.  “I can’t help it if some pissed-off maniac messes with our points and benchmarks.”

“You could’ve set a traverse up on that highway bound across Buckland Drive, instead of pounding rebar over here in the dirt.  I still don’t understand your reasoning.”

“We wanted to get closer to the hole, without having traffic in front of the survey gun.”

 Vinny looked away, toward the road.  “That bound’s way up on a goddamn slope, and the slope puts you over everything.”

“Try working on a slope all day, shooting steel for sick accuracy.  You end up in spinal traction.”

“Fucking Faggots.  I’ve seen Ferg do it for weeks at a time; no problem at all.”

“Ferg’s not with us any more.”

“No shit.”

Randy looked across the road.  “Neither is the bound.”

Spit flew.  “Uh-huh.”

 “I think he tapped our points and screwed with bench marks, because we let ‘em go.”

“Yeah?” Vinny asked, watching Randy carefully.  “You got any way to prove it?”

“Vandals don’t know this crap, and the way it was done . . . had a lot of tact to it.  He had to know what to hit, and why.”

“Hmmm . . .” Vinny looked around at his crew, who were looking around at the surveyors, who were frantically trying to set points off a bound further down the road.  “You think this boy’s really messing with you?  Why the hell would he do a thing like that?”

“Hard to say . . . he passed on a fat severance agreement and walked the hell out.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah,” Randy said, reveling in the drama.  “Ferg tossed a chair through Rourke’s window and stepped right though.  Haven’t seen him since.”

“You’re fucking kidding.”

Randy shook his head.

Vinny spat and thought about it.  “I kind of like this guy.”

Randy was speechless.

Vinny thought some more.  “Hell . . . I’d like to throw a chair through all of your windows, right about now.”

A club cab pickup slowed coming down Buckland Hills, getting ready to turn.

“Here’s our concrete boys,” Vinny said, breaking away.  “They’re gonna be ripped.”

Another strong breeze kicked up, singing through the parked Cat.  “I better go check on Fiddles,” Randy said.  “Make sure he’s not playing with himself.”

Vinny headed over to the concrete boss like a human lawn sprinkler shooting dirty water, thinking about future problems if Ferg was on the warpath and hitting sites.

And just like that, a spinning cement mixer slowly made the turn off Buckland Hills, raising dust and possible solutions, in a very violent world.

To be continued . . .