The house on the hill needed a new roof and because Ray was behind in his bills he'd agreed to work for minimum wage, an offer he now regretted as he shouldered the heavy shingles up the ladder.

"Get those damn shingles up here," his boss said. "Gotta get her done before it rains."

Ray looked up and saw nothing but blue sky and a few cotton-candy clouds. Nothing on the horizon either. Rain? It wasn't supposed to rain for days, but that kind of talk was typical of Mr. Granger, a narrow-faced man who had struggled out of the Atlanta ghetto by working long hours. He had owned Granger Inc., a small roofing company, for as long as Ray could remember.

Mr. Granger pointed at a spot near the ridgeline. "Start a new pile."

Ray dropped the shingles near a bricked chimney that poked through the tarpaper like a tanned thumb. He rubbed his back and looked at the broken swing-set and the ramshackle fence that bordered the highway. Kids must be long gone from this house.

"How's the wife?" Mr. Granger said when Ray returned with another load. "Heard she got herself a job out at the dye plant working second shift."

"Pregnant and worried." He grunted and the shingles landed with a thud. Lucy was three months pregnant with their first child, and for the last month she'd been listing things they would have to do to baby-safe their house. Pick up the small items on the floor. Plug up the electrical sockets. Lock anything poisonous in the utility room. Fence in the yard. Ray had laughed and asked if she expected the baby to come strolling out of the womb. She'd burst into tears, and he'd begged forgiveness and promised to go to the hardware store and price fencing-material.

"I wondered what got you off your sorry ass. You haven't worked in a month of Sundays."

"I've been studying for the Bar."

"You may have been studying at the bar but you haven't been studying for no Bar. Hell, you didn't even graduate high school, if I remember right. If you'd been a son of mine I'd have whipped your ass and made you go to school."

"I quit drinking." Ray said and climbed down the ladder. The shingles smelled oily and felt rough in his hands, and he winced when they dug into his collarbone. Maybe he hadn't been studying for the Bar, but he'd passed the GED last month, and he'd been accepted at the community college in Gainesville. Lucy had baked him a chocolate cake with pineapple icing in celebration. On top of the cake she'd written in big, loopy letters, "Do the right thing," a saying they'd adopted the day they found out she was pregnant. He'd found power in those words, enough to try to become a better man.

A harsh sound interrupted his thoughts and he glanced at the highway. Tires squealing, a small car swerved, then jumped the guardrail and hurtled toward a metal light-pole near the corner of the fence. The front bumper struck the base of the pole, and the car folded with a metal-ripping shriek.

"Car just hit that pole!" Ray ran up the ladder.

Mr. Granger wiped his brow with the back of his hand, bent over, and hammered a nail into a shingle. Another nail and another. Another shingle and more nails. Wiry shoulders bunching with the rise and fall of the hammer.

"Mr. Granger?"

Mr. Granger twisted his head, lasered his dark eyes, and muttered, "You don't get paid to stand around."

"Shouldn't we go over there? Or call somebody? At least call . . . Maybe they're hurt bad. I think we should call."

Mr. Granger bared his teeth in a rigid smile. "Look, somebody will call. The ambulances will come and whoever the poor sonuvabitches are in that car will be taken to the hospital. Now get back to work."

Ray glanced at his watch--2:17. The ambulance would be coming from Gainesville County Hospital, a five-minute drive down clogged city streets and another ten minutes on Interstate 181. Then another mile on the highway.

"I'm going over there--"

"Damn it, Ray, if you leave this job, you're fired."

Ray picked up a shingle and held it stiffly, hearing a siren in the distance. Ears straining, Ray silently implored the emergency vehicle to move in a westerly direction. It didn't, but soon another siren sounded, this one blaring louder and louder until the state trooper wheeled his car to the shoulder of the highway. He unfolded out of the driver's side, walked over and leaned through the jagged hole that used to be the windshield, and then went up to the highway and set flares and directed traffic. Another trooper arrived and talked to the first trooper, but the second trooper didn't go down to the car. A fire truck with long ladders arrived next, and finally the ambulance, twelve minutes after the crash.

Ray had never seen Mr. Granger work so hard. Head down. Grunting like a weightlifter. Hammer powering through the air. Yelling for more shingles.

A truck with yellow flashing lights from the Georgia Power Company pulled up, and a man climbed the pole and disconnected the wires. Two firemen cut off the mangled roof and hauled somebody out on a stretcher and up to the ambulance, which, after its rear doors were closed, drove down the highway with red lights flashing.

Mr. Granger continued to hammer nails. Ray continued to carry shingles. The fire truck drove away, and they didn't speak. The Georgia Power Company man climbed up and reattached the wires. He climbed back down, and the Georgia Power Company truck drove away, and they didn't speak. The tow truck came and hauled the smashed little car with its flashy rims away, and Ray and Mr. Granger didn't speak. And soon, except for their not speaking, it was like the accident had never happened. The sky was blue with puffy white clouds-cars and trucks drove up and down the highway--Mr. Granger hammered--Ray carried.

At five o'clock, they knocked off and Ray drove past the scene of the accident. Two black marks stretched across the road, and the base of the metal light pole was scarred with angry red streaks. A horn tooted behind him, the driver gesturing for him to speed up. He wanted to say, "Somebody wrecked here today, and they're probably dead." He wanted to shout it, but he didn't.

***

It was eleven-thirty when Lucy crept into bed. Her hair smelled musty, and he wondered if she'd started smoking again. He gave her a peck on the cheek and rolled back over hoping she didn't want to ask him about his day. Talk. Talk. Talk. That's all she wanted to do since she'd read that marriage book. Communication was the key, she said. Talk it out, she said. She stretched her arm over his shoulder and whispered in his ear, "Honey?"

He mumbled something and hugged his pillow. He'd got the scoop on the accident from the radio: Today, on her way home from school, Rebecca Rhodes died in a car crash on Cold Springs Highway.

"I thought of some names for the baby," Lucy said, her voice clear and sure. She turned on the lamp; he rolled to his back. Her cheeks had rounded in the last month, and she often had a look about her that made him think she knew something he didn't and never would, no matter how hard he tried.

Tonight, she just looked tired. She held a cigarette to her lips, thumbed a lighter, and inhaled.

The radio announcer had continued in a monotone voice: Homecoming queen. Honor student. Accepted by Stanford and had planned a communication major.

She balanced an ashtray on her belly. "Brandy if it's a girl. Steven if it's a boy . . . after your dad."

"I thought you were going to quit smoking. I thought we'd agreed. You quit smoking, I quit drinking."

He could tell by the way her eyes lowered he'd hurt her feelings. She turned away and flicked off the light. Ray felt her sink into the mattress and when her breathing slowed and she began to lightly snore, he got up and sat next to the window.

Memorial service to be held at First Methodist.

He tried to think of something good, something to take the place of the announcer's voice.

He thought about the baby for awhile, and then he thought about Lucy.

Graveside service for the family only. He went to the fridge and popped the top on a counterfeit beer. He tilted the can, sipped, then spat in the sink. Grimacing, he poured the amber liquid down the drain and tiptoed back to the bedroom.

He tossed and turned for the rest of the night, not falling asleep until the early morning hours, when, all too soon, he woke to the smell of frying bacon and ground roast coffee-his favorite breakfast. He pulled up his jeans, buttoned his shirt, laced his work boots.

Lucy's ponytail fell over her shoulder when she leaned forward and poured him a steaming cup of coffee. "Granger treating you all right?"

"I'd like to knock his teeth down his throat if that's what you mean."

Her eyes tightened at the corners. "We need that money."

She put four pieces of bacon on his plate. Crispy. Just the way he liked it. Then she loosened her fist and dropped a wad of crumpled cigarettes on the table. She stared at the table, at him, at the cigarettes. "Everything's going to be fine."

The thoughts that had kept him awake tumbled out before he could stop them. "How do you know? How do you know everything's going to be fine? Maybe it won't be fine."

Her back straightened, and for a moment he thought she was angry, but when she spoke her voice trailed to a whisper. "You'll see, hon."

He arrived at the job to find Mr. Granger nailing shingles. Mr. Granger nodded when Ray crested the eve; he nodded back and went for another load. The morning wore on, and it was eleven o'clock when the first visitor came to the pole. The young man laid a wreath at the metal base and stood with his hands behind his back. Another man showed up a few minutes later and was joined by two young girls. And that's how it went throughout the day. Silent people gathered in a semi-circle around a silent pole.

Rebecca Rhodes.

Mr. Granger bent to his work, head down, and almost spitting the nails into the shingles. Raise the hammer. Bam! Bam! Bam! Lay another shingle. Raise the hammer again. Sweat beaded his forehead. His breath came in ragged gasps.

Rebecca Rhodes.

And still the people kept coming to the pole. At three o'clock and when her name would no longer stay in his throat, Ray touched Mr. Granger on the shoulder. "She died, you know."

Mr. Granger glanced toward the highway, then stood and pointed the hammer at Ray's chest.

"Shingles."

"She was going to Stanford."

"Get me another load."

"Rebecca Rhodes." Ray clenched and unclenched his fists.

Mr. Granger dropped the hammer to his side. "What?"

"Her name. Rebecca Rhodes." He shoved his hands in his pockets. "She was on her way home from school."

"I'm not going to tell you--"

"We should have helped." With that Ray spun on his heel and headed down the ladder.

A silver-haired woman, face and hands scoured by time, stood hunched between the pole and the highway. Her eyes shifted when Ray walked and stood to her right, but she said nothing. The pole towered overhead, and he felt dizzy watching the tip wave against the blue. He closed his eyes but opened them when the woman spoke, "Did you know her?" She bent and straightened a wreath that had fallen on its side.

"No . . . No, I don't guess I did. But I hear she was a fine young woman, honor student and all."

"My Rebecca had a pet iguana. Bet you didn't know that." The woman clasped her hands at her waist.

"No ma'am, I didn't know she liked lizards. How about that."

The woman gathered her skirt and turned to go but stopped when he said, "My wife's pregnant."

A semi whipped by, and the wind from the big rig knocked over the wreath. Ray picked it up. He stared at the old woman and tried to think of something else to say. She took the flowers out of his hand.

"Go home to your wife, mister," she said.

§ § §

TJ Forrester is represented by Creative Media Agency and has a creative non-fiction book making the rounds. He has published short stories in UpDare? and Storyteller.

This piece was first published in INK POT #1 - 2003, a literary journal.

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