nails and more
Johnny the Hammer runs Piranha Brothers Construction with his partner Crazy Eddie. They fight tooth and nail, but for a time in those halcyon years when most of Seattle and half of California were migrating north like spawn crazed humpies, they had enough work that they could run a house or more each and stay out of each other’s hair. Well, at least Johnny had hair. Under his baseball cap, Eddie was bald and pale as an ostrich egg, although not near as smooth. More than a couple of times he’d been coldcocked by beams coming down on his noggin in mishaps and the result was he had permanent lumps in that hard skull of his that never subsided.
Johnny says that’s what makes Eddie so damn stupid — all the sense he ever had got knocked out of him early. Still, he builds a better house than Johnny and even though Johnny hates to admit it, he calls Eddie when some blueprint gets overly complicated or a fancy roof design’s flashing gives him too long a pause. Besides a magnetic attraction to toppling 6×6’s, Eddie’s got a head for details and complexity. Can’t read well, but he visualizes every stud and roughout as if he had a photo developing in the darkroom of his brain.
Johnny must’ve told this story a hundred times of Eddie getting all excited about the new shop that opened on the South End. Nails and More. This was back in the days when the two still could call themselves friends, still worked on one house at a time. If they had one to work on…. Eddie had been arguing with the counterman at the Lumber Yard over some charge he had questioned and, by god, he was ticked off by the end of the argument and eager for a new vendor. Any vendor. Even if it meant driving off island and paying cash.
One morning he took off mid-hammer stroke on the McMansion the Crosby’s of Palo Alto were having Piranha Bros. build on the bluffs of the west side and drove his one ton old Ford up toward Elger Bay Store where the sign he’d noticed that morning had finally seduced him with its siren call: NAILS AND MORE GRAND OPENING
He was hoping a little too hard the ‘MORE’ was lumber and possibly even some electric and plumbing.
Maybe it was too little coffee. Maybe too much. When he got inside the door and before his eyes could adjust from full sunlight, Sherri, the new owner, greeted him with a Come right on in, I’m Sherri and you’re my first customer and I’m not going to charge you for this visit. On the house!
Hoo boy, Eddie couldn’t believe his ears. Visions of free shingles, siding, 2×6’s, bandoliers of nails for his pneumatic —- all floated up like a Christmas in Camaloch. When his eyes finally adjusted, he realized his mistake. Couldn’t come right out and admit it, naturally, so Eddie, indeed, unwittingly became Sherri’s first customer. Full nail trim and cuticle treatment, but he passed on the ‘More’. “Gotta get back on the job,” he mumbled and fled into the sunlight.
Eddie dated Sherri for awhile that year and it was remarked upon by all the Piranha Bros.’ crews how, despite the cuts and callouses, Eddie’s hands were as immaculately manicured as a golf course green. Course, never in his presence.
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