Approx. 3700 Words

One Day

By

Matthew Simpson

 

Most newbies didn’t last a week of shoveling the foundation or carrying bags of cement up and down the site of the new houses. Caleb had made it almost a year. His body ached most mornings after the ten-hour shifts of laying the foundation of some rich snob’s soon-to-be bachelor pad. But he had adjusted to the pain, and on the rare occasion he woke up well-rested, he felt an ounce of longing for the ache. Oddly enough he never adjusted to waking up early every day. No matter how much sleep he had gotten, he always felt like a zombie stumbling out of bed. Luckily, summer had started and the early morning sun annoyed Caleb enough to get him up.

On-site, Caleb got into the groove quickly. Most guys agreed that to stay sane you had to have a groove to “conserve brainpower.” Shoveling, pouring cement, and carrying pounds upon pounds of equipment. It lost its novelty quickly. After the first hour of casual chit-chat and gossip exchange, the men got into their grooves. Many seemed to be in a completely blank state of mind, a kind of hypnosis where they were functional and attentive, but on autopilot. Most likely due to hangovers. A few would slip earbuds in after the Supervisor turned his back. Caleb didn’t need the earbuds, as he constantly had a song on loop in his head. Which would it be today? Journey: “Any Way You Want It.” They were a popular choice for his brain. While he felt the crushing pain in his shoulders as he carried cement to what would be a rich man’s master bedroom, the chords of the chorus swarmed his mind. G chord. D over F Sharp. E minor. C chord. Then the B Chord. A truly wonderful progression. Whenever he was out at bars with the men, he would look away at the awful cover bands performing the song. Somehow the lead guitarist would always screw up the solo, and Caleb imagined rushing up, taking it away, and showing everyone just how it was supposed to be done. 

Around eleven o’clock, the men would get antsy as the hour before lunch loomed over. Without a doubt, someone would ask if they could get lunch earlier. Every excuse had been tried: They were on a diet; their wife had screwed up their sandwich, they had a coupon for three dollars off at Arby’s. The pleas always ended the same: A laugh from the Supervisor, and a loud baby cry of “Wahhhhh” across the whole site. After the cry, an uproar of laughter and reinvigorated spirits pushed the men through until lunchtime. During lunch, some would scurry off to their trucks for some quiet, while others gathered around in their tribes. Caleb had been taken in by the older workers, though Jackson was the only one he found any enjoyment in talking to.  Jackson was in his late forties, twenty years older than Caleb. His body was withered, and his face deflated. Around his eyes were massive wrinkles that should’ve only been visible if he squinted tightly. 

“Whatcha think of that new kid over there?” Jackson grunted. He pointed at Elliot; a young guy fresh out of college who said he was looking to “find his dream career.” Elliot ate alone every day, scribbling away in his little notebook. 

“Seems nice, I guess,” Caleb answered. “Definitely looks the best out of any of us.”

“True, he’s still got that baby face to him. Kinda, like you did.”

“Did?” Caleb asked. He couldn’t have aged that much. 

“Relax kid, you’re not dying of ugliness yet. But you can see some of them wrinkles forming in the corners of your eyes. Maybe you should try that anti-aging shit,” Jackson laughed. He scanned the construction site and promptly took out a bottle of Budweiser. It was already half-empty. As soon as Caleb’s eyes caught it, he sighed.

“So, still quitting?” he asked lightly. Jackson gulped the rest of the bottle down.

“Yeah, I am this time, I promise.  It’s just... Goddamn Marlene keeps bitching at me about me doing it around the kids and, I don’t know, it just makes me want to do it more,” he said with a hard laugh. “But I know this time I’m gonna make it.”

Moments like these made Caleb embarrassed to be seen with Jackson, but he knew every other guy at the site would have a similar story. All of them were over forty, most divorced or in the process of separating. About half of them had been to prison. Most of them came to work hungover or teary-eyed, and shielded any sort of regret by exclaiming how great prison was and how it made them tougher, and how they should steal something again so they could go back to those good years.  Caleb knew there was nothing he could do for Jackson except play along with the idea of him quitting alcohol. 

 Every Friday Jackson and some others went to the bars and “relived their glory days.” Many nights ended in fights swiftly followed by drunken apologies. Caleb only went out a few times a year with them. Every time the conversations would turn to complaining about women or their failed aspirations. Jackson said once that he’d always wanted to be a painter. That he could paint life any way he wanted, and nobody could stop him. Once, Caleb asked him what stopped him from pursuing the job, and Jackson shrugged.

“So, coming to the bar tonight?” Jackson finally asked Caleb.

“Not tonight. I’ve got plans,” he lied.

“Like what? Finishing your startup company? Oooo, are you making the next Google?” Jackson laughed. Caleb sensed malice shielded behind the humor. 

“You caught me. You want in?”

Jackson seemed to appreciate the joke. “Sure thing, kid. I'll be your manager. We'll split it 60-40.” 

Caleb was lucky he didn’t have some dream passion or ideal job to chase after. He didn’t waste all his energy fantasizing about some abstract future that could never exist. While it’s true many he went to high school with had already climbed the corporate ladder, there were also plenty still working the same cashier job in pursuit of their “dream job.” He knew a few of those cashiers that DoorDashed or got a second job or lived with their parents to survive. But Caleb didn’t. Caleb paid for his one-bedroom apartment on his own. He paid for his car, his food, his phone, and his furniture. All on his own. His days weren’t spent scheming about the next move to become a musician or actor. He wasn’t on every social media app desperately begging people to see his creations. He didn’t force himself to go to awful networking events where he had to pretend to be friends with people he didn’t like just to have a slightly better chance to get an opportunity to advance his career. 

 

 Caleb’s nights were peaceful, full of microwavable meals and re-runs of his favorite TV show: House M.D. The silence after an episode had ended was uncomfortable, as the noise of the air conditioning or the neighbors upstairs filled the room. The neighbors always had people over, probably people from work. Caleb had never invited anyone from work over, not even Jackson. It felt strange to bring that world here. It was best they remained separate. Occasionally he would have visitors. A one-night stand here and there. A parent came by to inspect the place and see if he needed any help. Old high school friends stopped by and chatted about the good ole days. While Caleb agreed the stillness of his apartment was for the best, he did catch himself imagining house parties in his living room. He would be surrounded by old and new friends, gathered around the living room talking and laughing, exchanging old and new stories of their lives, sharing personal moments.  There would never be a lull in conversation.  Never an awkward silence someone tried to fill with an unfunny joke. At some point, Caleb’s old friend Dominic would hand him a guitar, and the two would spontaneously sing and play among the crowd, both getting showered in applause from the audience. Of course, for Dominic that could be his everyday life now. Dominic and Caleb had formed a cover band in high school and were a great hit around their small town. Bars, coffee shops, and the occasional public park gig filled their hearts with hope that this could be their full-time job. 

Caleb forced himself to wash the dishes. Van Halen kept his mind occupied this time, humming the guitar riffs as he made sure to get all the soap off his plates. A knock on the front door interrupted his performance.  Odd. No delivery driver dropped off things this late. He peeked through the peephole and wished it had been the noisy neighbors upstairs. After a moment of silence, accepting his fate Caleb opened the door with a big smile.

Dominic greeted him with a hearty “C’mere you!” He pulled Caleb in for a hug and patted him on the back three times. “How you been, buddy?” 

Caleb took in his designer clothes, gold rings, and custom-made sunglasses. Somehow it annoyed him that anyone at the construction site would give their left foot to afford any of those things. “I’m alright. How about you?” he said, with a hint of sarcasm.

“I’m good. Good. Can I come in? Did I catch you at a bad time?” Dominic replied, still with a friendly attitude. 

“Oh yeah, sure. Everything okay?” Caleb asked as he let Dominic inside. As he passed, Caleb noticed Dominic’s gray Mercedes out in the parking, parked right next to his orange Honda Accord. 

“Everything’s great. I was just in the neighborhood and thought I’d drop by. Haven’t seen you in a while,” Dominic said as he examined Caleb’s apartment. It probably was blander than whatever mansion he lived in. 

“Aren’t you on tour?” Caleb asked. 

“Nah, we finished that up last week. Now it’s time for a much-needed break. How are things at the job? Still in construction?”

“Yeah.” Caleb sensed Dominic’s sly ways of insulting him. 

“Cool. I hear the money’s pretty good there. And those guys can be pretty funny.”

“Yeah, they’re great. Don’t know what I’d do without them.”

Dominic nodded with a smile as the conversation fizzled. Caleb felt the urgency to fill in the void with questions about Dominic, but he couldn’t give him the satisfaction of being able to brag about his band’s record deal or adoring fans. Instead, Dominic’s eyes caught an acoustic guitar in the corner. He gasped with excitement and practically ran over to it.

“Oh man, you still have this?” he asked with glee. He picked it up and examined it. The strings were fresh. No dust was on it. Caleb cracked a smile at the sight of Dominic wielding it like a new Christmas present.

“Yeah, it’s a good one,” Caleb said. Dominic smiled at him and handed him the guitar.

“Let’s play something.” Any excuse ran through Caleb’s mind. It’s late. He’s tired. The neighbors will hear and complain.

“Ah, I don’t know—”

“—C’mon, man. We’ll play something easy. How about uh… Any Way You Want It? You couldn’t mess that thing up if you tried,” Dominic said. 

What harm could it do? If anything, it could get Dominic out of the house quicker. He tuned the guitar, shuffled into a comfortable position, and eyed Dominic. They glanced at each other for a moment, nodding their heads to the tempo of the song as they had done before in band rehearsals and right before their first song on stage. Caleb mouthed “One, two, three, four…”

He hit the G chord and they were off. Both were in perfect sync for this acoustic cover. Dominic’s voice gave a gritter, rougher tone than the original song, but it worked well. For three and a half minutes, Caleb wasn’t a construction worker with a sore body. He didn’t live in a one-bedroom apartment with blank white walls and microwaveable food. He didn’t go to work because he needed a job. He was now a member of Dominic’s band and every day was full of creating new music that could influence people’s lives for the better. The bandmates loved him and gave him a pleasant public welcome on their first tour together. The crowd cheered for Caleb as he shredded every guitar solo, and the thought of a construction site never entered his mind.

 

Fridays became Caleb’s favorite day. After work, Dominic would come over and the two would play until three in the morning. The evenings were full of laughter, good drinks, and beautiful music. Soon they had an hour-long setlist of covers, with a few of their old original songs sprinkled in. In between takes, they reminisced about old days in high school and enjoyed theorizing where their old classmates ended up now. From what they knew, only Dominic had become famous from their high school. Everyone else faded into their regular jobs. 

At the construction sites, Caleb needed the groove more than ever. For some reason, it was lost like a ship in the night. The songs he played with Dominic looped in his mind as his fingers tried to air guitar to the music. The Supervisor repeated multiple orders at him, all passing right by as Caleb’s mind fluttered between performing songs with Dominic’s band and writing beautiful pieces of music in the studio. After each warning, the Supervisor said, “Get your head in the game.” That phrase had become Jackson’s favorite to repeat during lunch. 

“Still dreaming of making that next Google, huh?” Jackson said one hot afternoon during lunch. 

“Why’d you give up being a painter?” Caleb replied, annoyed.

“Wasn’t in the cards for me, kid. Ain’t for most people. Life’s barely long enough to get good at just making money.” He took a bite of his peanut butter sandwich. “But I got close man, I got close. Sold a couple when I dropped out of college. But I knew I wasn’t the best. Kept making the same screw-ups over and over again, and people noticed. Sales didn’t last long.” Jackson paused and looked down at his shoes. He looked like he was reliving the memory. “But hey, I think you got to Elliot. Heard he put in his two weeks yesterday.” 

Caleb looked over and saw Elliot eating alone again, his face buried in his journal. “What do you mean?” Caleb asked.

“Supervisor said he’s trying to become an actor or some bullshit like that. God knows what he’s gonna do for a job.”

“Maybe he’ll figure it out,” Caleb said. He couldn’t help but smile at Elliot. 

 

Fall came and the upstairs neighbors had moved out due to noise problems produced by Caleb and Dominic’s midnight concerts. The duo was a force to be reckoned with. It occurred to Caleb that he hadn’t thought about Dominic’s past in a few weeks, and that was strange. Somewhere along the way, the begrudging awkward mood of playing with Dominic had faded, and now he saw the same guy he had started a band with years ago. Dominic was no longer “the one who got into music school.” He mentioned his time there was miserable, as professors tried to force formulas on creativity. Caleb never visited Dominic while he was in college. After Caleb’s rejection from the school, any reminder instigated a lack of motivation to continue playing the guitar. Instead, Caleb bounced around jobs. Retail, fast food, warehouses, grocery stores, and then construction. 

On one Friday evening in November, Dominic canceled their usual plans. He texted asking if Caleb wanted to play at a public park nearby. On the car ride with Dominic, Caleb hoped nobody from the construction site would be at the park, but it was unlikely since all of them were estranged from their kids. The sun was setting, and it made the yellow-leaved trees glow in the park. As they approached the park, Caleb caught a glimpse of kids and their parents running around the park. There was quite a crowd there, with many parents taking a seat on a bench to catch their breath from too much playful exercise. A perfect crowd in need of music. The park inched closer as Caleb’s heartbeat rose. The excitement of a new crowd pumped in his veins as the thought of the crowd cheering his name played on repeat in his mind. 

Dominic never slowed down. He passed by the park and turned left at the next traffic light.

“You missed the turn,” Caleb said as he looked back at the potential adoring fans they passed by.

“Figured we’d take a detour first. There’s something I wanna show you,” Dominic said with a sly smile on his face. They drove past downtown, past the rich side of town, and pulled up to a recording studio. Caleb knew the place but never dared to visit for fear of being seen by Dominic. 

“Whatcha say we record some?” Dominic asked as he got out of the car. Caleb felt his heart race. The thought of entering that studio and meeting the other band members exhilarated and terrified him. But his body felt numb and unresponsive. He was unworthy to be there, as everyone in Dominic’s band had gone to music school together. They were talented. Why would they want to meet this outsider? Caleb must have sat in the car there longer than he thought as Dominic knocked on the window and motioned for him to get out and follow him inside.

Caleb complied and went into the studio. It had a small lobby with comfy couches, a refrigerator, a desk, and a computer. They went down one long hallway and passed by recording rooms, all of them decked out with a huge mixing board. On the walls were records of the band’s previous albums in sleek glass mounts. Caleb checked the ceiling and saw cameras at the end of the hallways and wondered if anyone was watching him, judging him for being there. It felt like his music school audition, where he went into a little room where three old judges sat in silence and watched him play and didn’t offer any feedback on what went wrong. Dominic led Caleb into a recording room where the three other band members sat. The bassist, drummer, and lead guitarist.  They sat on a couch, glued to their phones. When Caleb and Dominic entered, they jumped to their feet to greet them. 

Caleb shook all their hands but didn’t feel them. He heard them maybe talk about how much they were impressed by what Dominic had told them, but their words were garbled and messy. These people didn’t feel real. Caleb had seen them on TV playing songs on late-night talk shows, and now they were here offering him a job. But why would they offer him a full-time position as the rhythm guitarist? Why did they want to play with him today and practice one of their new songs? Why did his eyes shift between the sheet music and the band members during rehearsal? Why did they call him an awesome player even though he messed up on every single song they played?

And why did he say he’d think about the job offer?

 

During lunch, Caleb wondered if Jackson could offer any wisdom. He stared at him, eating the same peanut butter sandwich, fully accepting that he could’ve been in Italy painting the sunrise and selling it for millions. 

“Hey. Can I ask you something?” Caleb asked.

“What’s on your mind?” Jackson said as he slurped down a Coke.

“Let’s say… Someone came to you and told you that they’d let you be a successful painter right now. Would you do it?”

Jackson burped. “Right now? Shit, man, that sounds like a pretty good deal to me.” Caleb saw the album covers, and the tour dates laid out. But Jackson continued. “But I’d probably be miserable painting. You can’t let anything distract you. No TV. No women. Then you gotta be a personal salesman to get people to care about some shitty drawing you did of a bridge or something and maybe they’d buy it from you. Only thing to rely on is luck.”

The album covers became hazy. The tour dates are blurred. “You wouldn’t do it?” Caleb asked.

“Nah. Besides, with all that time alone I’d spend way too much money on this.” He pulled out a Budweiser and took a huge gulp. “I know, I know. I promise this is the last time. It’s just… Marlene will not shut up about getting the kids to bed on time. I mean…”

Jackson’s words trailed off as Caleb looked around the construction site. He saw men settled into whatever stage of life they were at.  It was a job and it had to be done. Caleb considered running away and heading straight to the recording studio. The band would be a success, and they would travel the world and make ten albums, and then have a reunion tour for the twentieth anniversary of their first album together. Caleb eyed his car and felt his feet begin to leave the ground.

“Woah, woah. Look who it is!” Jackson said roughly. “Goddamit I knew it! I knew it!” he said with his grouchy laugh. Caleb looked over and saw Elliot talking to the Supervisor. His hair was messy and overgrown. His beard was unkempt. “That son of a bitch Grayson owes me ten bucks! I knew he’d be back!” Jackson got up and headed over to Grayson to collect his well-earned money. 

Caleb couldn’t take his eyes off Elliot. He’d been gone for nine months, and Caleb never saw an advertisement for a movie Elliot was starring in. He saw the Supervisor hand Elliot his old vest and hat. He saw Elliot go back to his truck and call someone, presumably a parent or partner to inform them he’d made it here safely. He saw Elliot eat lunch without scribbling in his journal, staring into the distance with the same numb stare as the rest of the men out here. Caleb considered calling Dominic but figured it’d be best not to bother him.

​

                                                                         The End