I hired a guy to do some brick work. The job was to demolish a small wall and knit the bricks back into the façade. No more than a day’s work for a journeyman. My guy knocked the wall down in under an hour, and then he disappeared. I knew he liked the sauce, but he seemed to be on the way back up so I thought WTF and gave him a try. I still feel bad about it. He looked like a guy who could use a win. I haven’t seen him for a couple of weeks and I could be wrong but I’m betting that he lost another round with the bottle. At least I knew enough not to pay him upfront.

He left me with a proverbial hole in the wall, and a neighbor who said “I told you that guy was no good”. I had a couple of options. One: Hire a legitimate masonry company. Assuming I could find one interested in cleaning up someone else’s mess. For sure I’d have to pay through the nose and maybe wait weeks to get the job done. Worse, I’d be subjected to the dreaded Mike Holmes syndrome. “This is what happens when you don’t hire qualified people, blah, blah, blah.” Option two involved rum, ice, and some Diet Coke. An impromptu front yard Olympics with the gold in brick tossing awarded for taking the windshield out of a BMW. It sounded like fun, but there were a few obvious problems.

In the end I did what anyone with possession of a large hammer and an angle grinder sporting a diamond tipped blade would do. I did it myself. I won’t bore you with the play by play as I pounded and ground brick into clouds of acrid dust on what turned out to be the hottest weekend of the year.

There is something elemental about working with your hands. The slap of the mortar as you mix it, the weight of a brick as you coax it in place. The gentle taps with the trowel handle to level things out. The feeling of satisfaction when you step back, looking over your work as you wipe the grit from your palms.

I make a living with my mind and my mouth. Asking questions, developing strategies, suggesting answers. It’s an OK gig but it’s difficult to assess an end product that only survives until the next big priority. A brick wall on the other hand is either level with nice equal mortar joints or it’s crap. It’s a demonstration of skill, good or bad, that can easily outlast its creator.

You can skate around a lot of things, but you can’t bullshit masonry.

 

Tags: ,