vituperation

jesuschristimalmostforty.

I held the handset pressed to my ear, vaguely apprehensive in that way you get when you want to ask a stranger for a favor. What if he was an ass? What if he got angry when he realized what I’d done? What if he told me to stay the fuck away?

As the ringing continued, a new thought: What if he doesn’t answer?

He didn’t. I hung up the phone after six or seven rings and decided to try again in an hour. If I could wait that long. I was so excited by my discovery—and its potential—that I was nearly beside myself, despite my slight nervousness at calling a stranger.

My phone rang. I checked the caller ID and saw that it was the number I’d just called. Time to go for broke.

“This is Fred,” I said when I picked up.

“This is Tim Askew. I think you just called me,” the man on the other end said.

“Hi, Mr. Askew. My name is Fred And3rs0n, and I believe you own some property across the street from me down in Smallville, on Main Street.” Mr. Askew lives in Otisburg, the nearest full-fledged town to Smallville (but it’s still a little bitty place). “At least, your name was on the property record I saw when I looked it up online.”

It dawned on me that I sounded like some sort of creepy stalker.

“Anyway,” I continued. “There’s an old abandoned house over there, and it’s got the same kind of lap siding that my workshop has. When we cleared a lot of brush away from the workshop, we found that some of the lower boards are rotten because the brush was holding moisture in back there. I was wondering if you’d be willing to sell me about ten boards off the side of that old house so I can keep the original look of my workshop instead of having to redo the whole thing in vinyl or Hardiplank.”

What I didn’t tell him was how I knew the lap siding was the same. This weekend, I was mucking about outside my workshop, pre-prepping it for painting, when I discovered the rotting boards. Until then, I thought they were just mildewed. Robyn’s dad and I talked a lot about how to repair it, but the thought of putting new stuff into the 70+ year old building stuck in my craw. Later in the afternoon, we all walked over to the abandoned house to show it to Robyn’s parents, and I noticed right away that the siding was identical: same width, narrow at the top and thicker at the bottom. It looks like it would fit perfectly on my workshop.

“I would if I still owned it,” he said. “But I sold it to a guy who bought it to harvest the lumber out of it. I still own all the other property, but not the piece with the house.”

My heart sank.

“Do you by chance know how I can get in touch with him so I can see if he’ll sell me a few boards?”

Mr. Askew gave me the name of the buyer and told me how to find him.

“I think he’s gotten about all he wants out of that house,” he told me. “Just gonna let it collapse now.”

“That’s sad, because it’s such a beautiful house. My house was built in the 30’s, and I’m pretty sure it’s older than mine.”

“That house was built in 1876.”

I had a small holy shit moment while I contemplated that.

“Wow,” I said. “It looks pretty incredible for being so old. I’d just about kill to be able to go through it and photograph it.”

“You’d better be careful over there. It’s pretty dangerous.”

“Oh, I’m not going in it. There are signs everywhere, and I’m a big believer in property rights.”

We said our goodbyes and hung up. I’ll need to call him again when it’s time to hit him up for some of that land.

Finding the owner’s number was a snap, and I called right away, spazzy and nervous all over again. When I got him on the phone, I launched into my tale a second time — the brush, the lap siding, the rot.

“And I’d like to try and keep the original look of my workshop if I can,” I said. “It would be so much nicer than vinyl or new wood.”

“Well,” he said. “I have plans to use that siding myself on something I’m building.”

Goddamn.

“But, it’s a pretty small building,” he continued. “And if I remember right—I haven’t been out there in a while—most of the siding is still on the house.”

“Yes sir, it is.”

“Tell you what. Give me the weekend to get out there and look around, make sure there’s enough siding for my building, and as far as I’m concerned you can have whatever’s left. Just check back with me next week after the holiday. Would that work for you?”

Hells yes, that would work for me.

I gushed my thanks profusely. We chatted about the house for a bit. He told me about a whiskey bottle they found sealed up in one of the walls, a bottle over 130 years old. He shared a story about another old house he bought for lumber harvesting, and how they discovered all the beams and rafters were held together with wooden pegs.

Old world craftsmanship was the bomb.

“There’s one more thing I’d like to ask you, if I’m not being too forward,” I said as our conversation wound down. “Feel free to tell me no and you won’t hurt my feelings at all.”

“What’s that?”

It pained me to keep pressing for more after the man had offered me the wood for free, but this was important. I took a deep breath.

“May I have your permission to go inside the house and photograph it while it’s still in good shape? I’m fascinated by it and would love to capture it before it’s gone.”

He thought about it for a moment.

“You go on in there and take all the pictures you want,” he said.

to be continued…