ʃ The Thick End of the Wedge ʅ
When Jeff and I opened a home repair business back in the late 80s, we were working out in Blackhawk, about 30 miles east of San Francisco. The community was just a few years old then, but had assimilated some of the previously established well-to-do neighborhoods around its edges. I would guess that at the time there were only two or three thousand houses all told, built on just about as many acres, with an equal amount of land devoted to Mount Diablo State Park. The builders often managed to work around the existing oak scrub of the old Blackhawk Ranch, so the neighborhood was a lot nicer than some of those cookie-cutter developments you see, particularly the ones that end up being shaded only by saplings and utility poles. The developer, Ken Behring, also tossed in a couple of stunning museums, a handful of gourmet restaurants, a multiplex theater, several boutiques classy sans tags price, and a grocery store with gold-plated carts that caused food budgets to combust at ten paces. I was worried that I would paddywhack a knick-knack in one of those multimillion-dollar mansions that would end up costing me more than a yacht.
Which explains my agitated mindset as I was driving us over to a moderate castle in need of repair. I was humming a little tune entitled, “Don’t Touch,” the chorus of which is, “Don’t touch,” accompanied by several verses, all of which are simple variations on the classic, haunting lyrics, “Don’t touch.” Simply put (for once), I was worried almost sick that I was going to break something that would cost us 100 times more than we would earn at that job. Plus our next job. Plus any other money we might earn in our combined lifetimes.
As we approached a fork in the road, Jeff said, “Left.”
I was distracted, that’s true, but I was also in rapport with my brother, my navigator, and I knew instinctively which way he wanted to go, so we kept on talking about our wealthy client, and all of the opportunities that this new job would open up for our new home repair business. I casually peeled off along the left fork.
Or rather, make that the right fork.
The conversation stopped. Jeff sighed, and I smiled resignedly. I’m always a safe driver, but we both know that I shouldn’t talk while I’m trying to follow directions. If the conversation is at all interesting, my auto-pilot engages, and I end up at home, work, or some other automatic, preprogrammed destination, without regard to where I really wanted to go.
We approached the next fork, and Jeff said, “Okay, we can still get there if we just go left here.”
This time I was determined to pay attention. Jeff had said “left,” so I would go left. I wouldn’t think about how our performance on this job would affect the future of our business. I wouldn’t think about accidentally causing thousands of dollars’ worth of damage to the house. Everything would be fine.
To confirm the directions, Jeff continued to say, “left… left… Left!”
Yes! I would go left. I would refuse to think distracting thoughts. I would go in the direction where I knew the house was.
And after I went left, something in the way that Jeff was burying his face in his hands and screaming made me remember that he was the one who knew where the house was, not I, and that I had once again gone right. I started giggling at the absurdity, and Jeff was laughing, albeit ruefully.
Okay! Enough messing around! I swore it wouldn’t happen again. This time I was going to get it right.
And I don’t know what to tell you. All I remember is that I was approaching the next fork, trying to follow Jeff’s instructions, when he started pointing across my face, crying desperately, “Leeeeft! Leeeeft! For God’s sake, go le-he-he-heft!” So I went where he was pointing.
Left. Piece of cake.
Why didn’t he just say so?
I suspect that sometimes my passengers must get really frustrated with me.
* * *
So, where were we headed? Ah, yes. For disaster.
We finally pulled up in front of an imposing two-story house out on the edge of the neighborhood, one that looked older than the typical Blackhawk mansion. It was Tudor Revival, maybe ten years old: decorative half-timbering filled with stucco above and brick below; a steeply-pitched roof with plenty of gables; a flattened, pointed arch over the front door; and lots of tall, narrow windows complementing a sizable bay overlooking the generous garden.
Coming up the walk, we could see that this house wasn’t just some contractor’s cheap-o knock-off. There were Pella windows, dragon-pride light standards, and a stonework hood mold and label stops over the massive, many-paneled front door.
Real panel doors are made of just that: real panels of beveled wood, sandwiched together and held in place by a substantial grid of heavy planks. If the door is old and dry, then the frame won’t be as tight as it used to be, and the panels will slide around. The differences in weathering along the edges of these panels will make the door look sloppy. (The panels get a farmer’s tan.) This door needed some loving attention. Doors like this also needed big knockers, and not just for the sake of the joke.
Our prospective employer answered this very door, and despite my expectations to the contrary, she was not wearing one-of-a-kind Paris fashions and cascades of expensive jewelry; in fact, she was decked out in jeans, loafers, a regular old cotton blouse, and a baggy sweater. Lo and behold! She dressed like a normal person. As we talked, she also seemed to act like a normal person, so in surrender I mocked myself mercilessly (and silently) for being paranoid; nonetheless, I was still nervous about shattering a Ming vase with the ill-tuned harmonics of maniacal laughter (or the occasional flying hammer, for that matter).
The short interview went well enough that she put us right to work. It was clear that she wanted to see how we would do on a couple of small tasks before entrusting us with anything important, which was neither unusual nor unreasonable. We were young and not licensed, so we were used to being tested. We just realigned some sagging crank-out windows without breaking the glass, and we installed a new faucet in the entry hall lavatory without gouging off the gold plating.
Simple.
So far, I hadn’t broken anything. She was happy, we were happy, and she gave us a list of improvements to make over next few days. Jeff and I prioritized the tasks, then at the very end of the list, I penciled in a quick note to myself: “Knocker?” I thought that if she was still happy with our work when we were done with her list, then she might trust our advice on a couple of other aesthetic upgrades. The knocker would be our last task… our way of leaving with a classy flourish.
So, we returned the next morning to get some medium-sized jobs out of the way. We patched potholes in the driveway, replaced missing bricks in the walkways, installed some fancy faucets out in the backyard, destroyed some bamboo that was tearing up the walk, and painted the dragon light standards.
This last task was a bit tricky, because some of the poles in the backyard were on a hill so steep that the ladder refused to stay put. I had to dangle from a dragon by one hand while painting with the other. None of the dragons snapped off, and as an added bonus, I discovered that deer poop is barrel shaped. Turns out that deer from the State Park regularly wandered through the backyards of their wealthy neighbors. Nifty.
What was nice was that all of this work was outside. No fragile crystal. No delicate tapestries. No priceless Louis pick-an-ordinal-number furniture. And there’s nothing safer than fresh air, plenty of sunshine, and bricks… sturdy, rough-and-tumble bricks, far away from the windows. No need to be extra, extra careful and all of that.
But after those chores were done, there was work to do inside.
* * *
All of the formal rooms on the lower floor had ponderous wooden sliding doors with solid brass hardware. The wheel brackets at the tops had come loose over the years, and the doors were hanging askew in the walls. Over time, they had been rubbed raw in places, and were deeply scarred in others. We considered working on the doors while they remained in place, but the angle would have been awkward, and there was going to be quite a bit of dust, plus we were going to be using some (ob)noxious chemicals that demanded a highly ventilated application. Nothing provides better ventilation (on a budget) than being outside.
The problem was that the path to the front door had been diabolically lined with expensive antique booby traps. Our employer was convinced that moving those priceless precarios out of the way would be too risky, and her alternative plan was that Jeff and I would simply take each of the sliding doors down in turn, then gracefully waltz them through the Gauntlet of Fragility, gliding right on out the front door (backwards and in high heels, as the saying goes.)
Jeff shot me the “She’s crazy” glance. We both knew that it would be abominably stupid of us to take that kind of a risk even once, much less a dozen times. It would be better if we simply refused, even if it meant never again working in Blackhawk for multizillionaires who paid us so well.
So naturally we tried it.
Now imagine a pair of teacup Yorkies using our legs as an impromptu obstacle course, followed by the juggernaut plunge of one of those massive oak doors, precariously freed from its shackles, smashing shriekingly through mahogany-and-glass cabinets stuffed with formerly heirloom china. Picture the two of us sparkling in a rainbow shower of cut crystal.
That is precisely the vision that kept running through my head the whole time that we were moving those doors, first outside, then back inside.
I have never, ever, been so glad to get a job over with.
* * *
Despite my anxiety, I must say that when we were done with the refinishing, the doors looked fantastic, all the more so because the china cabinets and their contents were still intact (unlike my nerves). But there is one home repair principle above all others that you must keep firmly in mind, and that is: the leg bone’s connected to the thigh bone. The doors looked so good that the trim around them was shabby in comparison.
So at the owner’s behest (we had been ready to leave) we refinished the trim, which was connected to the baseboards, which ran into the kitchen cabinets, which connected to further baseboards (and other doors and trim), which touched the stairs (including steps, railings, and balusters). This is the way in which we worked our way upstairs (to more doors, baseboard, and trim), where I saw my first ever bidet. First deer poop, and now the bidet. I love a job where I learn new things.
The good part of the indoor refinishing task was that the sanding was very light, so we didn’t have to wrestle any other battering rams through the Corridors of Doom. The bad part, though, was that the chemical fumes were thick and toxic. We managed to make it through the job with no more than headaches and dizziness, but even those symptoms didn’t get too bad as long as we gave in to occasional fits of vomiting. Once again, I managed to avoid breaking anything, and to my everlasting gratitude, I found out that a certain type of wood stain can easily be cleaned off of a certain other type of medium-shag, bright orange synthetic carpet. My only excuse for dripping on the carpet in the first place was that it was hard to see exactly where I was painting when my tunnel vision went blurry.
When we were done with the rejuvenation, all of the wood throughout the house was gorgeous, but I was so tired of working there that I could have spit Dutch oil.
* * *
Still, we were nearly home free. The only wood left to address was the outside of the front door, where we would rehabilitate the loose, discolored panels. As it turned out, our employer didn’t even want the panels tightened, so we wouldn’t have to do any involved reconstruction. She just wanted to have the wood rejuvenated, and the color evened out. I was relieved, and still a bit woozy from the chemicals, so I failed to adequately inhibit my big fat mouth and said, “You know, what this door really needs is one of those knockers with the door in it that you can look through.”
She thought it was a great idea.
I was happy, she was happy… but Jeff was not happy. He was smiling at her, and scowling at me.
What an idiot I am.
We had been so close.
We had almost escaped without a single, solitary scot.
Oh well. When it comes right down to it, I had to say something. If we had left that house without at least mentioning how badly the front door needed that knocker, I could never have forgiven myself for that breach of professional ethics.
Well, not really forgiven.
Okay, not soon.
* * *
All right everybody, now is the time to remember that this was not just any old door; this was a Blackhawk door. It was part of a Blackhawk house. It had a Blackhawk owner.
It was (relative to other doors) rare and valuable.
The more I thought about this, the more I worried.
And I couldn’t back out. We had our fledgling reputation to maintain.
We had ordered the knocker from the manufacturer, so I had an extra week to balance all of my worries against echoing counter-worries.
I could clearly picture the jigsaw getting away from me, scarring its way through several of the beveled panels (leaving us with no way to match the color, even if we were able to replace the panels themselves). I took a deep breath, and calmed myself with the thought that I would simply use a handsaw.
Then I envisioned the panels splitting and splintering under the pressure of the handsaw, so I Zenned myself with thoughts of carefully taking my time with a delicate, fine-toothed Japanese cabinetry saw. Those bite when you draw them toward you, rather than when you push them away from you, and their tooth offset is very slight, so their bite is more like a gentle nibble. I wouldn’t saw; I would persuade.
In this way, every time my brain splashed me with one of these horrifying scenes of garish carpentry mayhem, I would counter with a practical solution. I was balancing the unrelenting drive of my hyperactive dramagination against the forceful demands of a brain whose work ethic has always been set to five-and-a-quarter clicks upwards of “Protestant.”
I could handle these mundane scenarios well enough, but what if the diamond shattered into a heap of worthless fragments? What if I cut the red wire instead of the blue wire, and the timer suddenly started ticking furiously towards zero? How much would it cost to reconstruct the door if I severely damaged a panel? Would we even be able to find a replacement panel with the same amount of weathering?
What if we just had to out-and-out pay for a whole new door?
So now you know why I’m not a surgeon.
* * *
The day finally arrived, followed closely by the hour, then the minute, and finally the moment. I stripped off the wrapping and showed everyone my knocker. (Forgive me.)
We had tried to convince our employer that cast or wrought iron with a nice dark patina would be consistent with the look of the door, but the knocker she wanted was bright and brassy. It consisted of a fancy exterior plate with a grille, a humble interior plate with a door, and much to my disgust with the manufacturer, a cheap-ass, squared-off, aluminum tube that would go into the door between the plates.
Jeff and I both tried to convince her to let us fabricate a matching brass box to go inside of the knocker, but she wouldn’t hear of it, saying that no one would be looking in there anyway. I really don’t know what she thought the door on the knocker was for other than to look through there, but I just shut up (for once) and went outside to get to work.
I started by scoring a deep rectangle on the outside of the door. (On purpose.) I carefully drilled a perfect, small pilot hole inside the corner of that scoring, and then slowly enlarged that hole until it could accept a small saw blade. Gently, and with considerable concentration, I cut out the oblong that would hold the knocker.
As you know, the door was made from beveled panels sandwiched together, so when I was finally done with the cut (and was breathing once again), the block that I had detached from the exterior panel fell out cleanly on my side. I lightly tapped the interior block and it fell into the house, leaving behind one short, fat splinter of wood on the far lower left edge of the hole. All in all, I was relieved that the task was going so smoothly. My worrying had paid off, because I had planned for every contingency. All I would have to do was to get rid of that little splinter, and then I could insert the aluminum box (pleh), and screw the knocker into place.
One tiny, precise, last tap, and finito! No more risk of breaking anything. No more chance of our company losing far more money than we had earned on the job. We would be happy, our employer would be happy, and she would recommend us to all of her rich friends. We would soon be successful enough that we could hire subcontractors to experience this diamond-cutter’s stress for us.
Not that I was allowing myself to be distracted by these sorts of thoughts. Certainly not at such a crucial moment.
With loving pride, I selected my favorite wood chisel, one that had belonged to my grandfather. With craftsmanlike attention to detail I gracefully angled it down and to the left, through the hole from the outside. I lightly, carefully chipped at that fat splinter.
It didn’t move at all, because I was being such a fearful featherweight. I told myself to stop being such a big baby, straightened my shoulders, and tapped it manfully.
That was it. The final stroke.
What I hadn’t noticed (from my foreshortened perspective) was that the splinter was actually more like a wedge, and rather than chiseling it away cleanly, the little bastard remained perversely attached to a thick, eight-inch wooden dagger that tore off the inside of the (rare and valuable, as you no doubt recall) door. I watched this flying wedge in aufgerissenen Bauerntölpelverwunderung as it traced a low, smooth arc through Hell’s (antiquity-lined) Entry Hall, went sliding icily along the parquet floor, and finally came to a dignified rest against the far wall with a nearly inaudible bling. This tiny noise dislodged flights of wingéd moneybags from my condemned belfry.
* * *
I had been so close, and it was all gone in one eensy, weensy tap.
So much for our business.
So much for our life savings.
* * *
When I started to breathe again, I saw a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. Actually, it was just the light shining into the entry hall from behind my ruefully shaking head. As Jeff kept a lookout for our employer, I draped a cloth through the hole to disguise the wound, creeping into the house under the baleful glare of her ancestors’ portraits. Retrieving the wooden dagger, I snuck back outside and smoothed off the offending ridge. I glued the wedge back onto the door, clamping it in place with anal-retentive wolverines. Finally, I applied several generous coats of prayer.
After the prayer dried, there was no visible seam. In fact, when I screwed the knocker into place, the fascia covered almost all of the dagger anyway.
I had re-nosed the Sphinx, but I still had to tell our employer what happened, show her the new knocker, and explain about the damaged panel. To my great relief, she decided that there was no way to tell where the wedge had peeled off, so she let me off the hook.
She forgave us at least in part because I had done a nice job of recovering from the disaster, but I think that she still felt a little bit bad about the chemical poisoning, and she was also thoroughly relieved that we had completed our work without domino-ing a hallful of statuary.
She was happy, Jeff was happy, and I was so happy that I le-he-he-heft the home repair business.
And, well, ok, just once more… but only because you insist:
Knockers.