The men wade in the concrete in rubber boots, less walking through mud as through butterscotch pudding. It laps in ripples around their legs, as they stand wide, smoothing the thick pool with their squeegees.
Neighborhood children pace the adjacent street anxiously, hungrily, wanting to touch it, to cleave it with a stick, to leave their marks upon it. They hang and ring around like vultures, one driving a mini John Deere gator, its motor and tires whining as badly as its driver. He outlines the edge of the street, inches from the drive, leaning in.
Neighborhood children pace the adjacent street anxiously, hungrily, wanting to touch it, to cleave it with a stick, to leave their marks upon it. They hang and ring around like vultures, one driving a mini John Deere gator, its motor and tires whining as badly as its driver. He outlines the edge of the street, inches from the drive, leaning in.
A dark-haired fellow on his bike, getting a tow from the gator, is also trying to get a touch. They are rebuffed, driven away, by the woman with a broom whose back is turned, looking through her third eye. No concrete demarcation for them.
The men, a generation removed from Amish, are rapt to their work. They wield their tools like spatulas, more focused than grandma, forming the concrete cake. They ice, they trowel, they spread and smooth. Pudding puddle no more, the dug up ground with all its buried treasure is a memory, invisible, preserved under the hardening composite above. A worker's cigarette butts smoked down to the filter, small leaves, gravel bits start to collect on the surface.
One neighbor child is hopeful, and has brought and offered freezer pops as a reward to the concrete crew, but the gleam in his eye dashes when kidded about the loss of a finger if the surface is compromised. He had badly wanted to write in the goo, and took off dejected. When will he ever have a chance to touch virgin concrete? Woe is he.
The children stick toes out to it, and sticks, testing. Later they try quickly jumping on and off, as if that, perhaps, would leave less of a mark. The drier, the whiter it becomes. Later, spinning, dust-smoke saws are brought to cut grooves to keep
it from cracking later.
The men, a generation removed from Amish, are rapt to their work. They wield their tools like spatulas, more focused than grandma, forming the concrete cake. They ice, they trowel, they spread and smooth. Pudding puddle no more, the dug up ground with all its buried treasure is a memory, invisible, preserved under the hardening composite above. A worker's cigarette butts smoked down to the filter, small leaves, gravel bits start to collect on the surface.
One neighbor child is hopeful, and has brought and offered freezer pops as a reward to the concrete crew, but the gleam in his eye dashes when kidded about the loss of a finger if the surface is compromised. He had badly wanted to write in the goo, and took off dejected. When will he ever have a chance to touch virgin concrete? Woe is he.
The children stick toes out to it, and sticks, testing. Later they try quickly jumping on and off, as if that, perhaps, would leave less of a mark. The drier, the whiter it becomes. Later, spinning, dust-smoke saws are brought to cut grooves to keep
it from cracking later.
No marks, no names, no autographs were left behind. Faceless, ageless, the concrete will stand, anonymous, no memories of families, no hands for children grown to touch later, no ghosts to see, no urges indulged.
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