“But what about the meantime?”
“Just chill for a while.”
“But I got a survey crew coming over from Gainesville this week—”
“Calm down. It’s a political thing,” Roger Roothaus had said. “A long story, and nothing you’ve got to worry about. We just need to chill out for a spell. Take some time off. Go up to Cedar Key and do some fishing.”
“Like hell,” Krimmler had said. “Forget the bridge, I’ve still got serious acreage to clear. I’ve got the drivers ready to—”
“No. Not now.” The words of Roger Roothaus had hit Krimmler like a punch in the gut. “Mr. Clapley says to lay low for now, OK? No activity on-site, he says. There’s a small problem, he’s handling it. Says it shouldn’t take long.”
“What kind a problem?” Krimmler had protested. “What in the hell kind a problem could shut down the whole job?”
“Mr. Clapley didn’t say. But he’s the boss chief, OK? He’s paying the bills. So I don’t want no trouble.”
Krimmler had hung up, fuming. He was fuming when he went to bed, alone in the luxury camper that he drove from site to site. And he was still fuming the next morning when he woke up and heard the goddamned mockingbirds singing in the tops of the goddamned pines, heard the footsteps of a goddamned squirrel scampering across the camper’s aluminum roof—a squirrel, which was a second goddamned cousin to a chipmunk, only bolder and bigger and filthier!
Wretched was the only way to describe Krimmler’s state after the Roothaus phone call; wretched in the milky tranquillity of the island morning, wretched without the growling, grinding gears of his beloved front-end loaders and backhoes and bulldozers. And when the surveyors showed up at the construction trailer at 7:00 a.m. sharp (a minor miracle in itself!), Krimmler could not bring himself to send them away, just because some shithead politicians were monkeying around with the bridge deal. Because the bridge was absolutely crucial to the project; without it, Shearwater Island would forever remain Toad Island. It had been hairy enough (and plenty expensive!) hauling the earth-moving equipment, one piece at a time, across the old wooden span. A fully loaded cement truck would never make it, and without cement you’ve got no goddamned seaside resort. Without cement you’ve got jack.
So why not get the bridge surveying out of the way? Krimmler reasoned. What harm could come of that! It would be one less chore for later, one less delay after the money finally shook loose in Tallahassee. To hell with “laying low,” Krimmler thought. Roger’ll thank me for this later.
So he led the surveyors to the old bridge and sat on the hood of the truck and watched them work—moving their tripod back and forth, calling coordinates to one another, spray-painting orange X’s on the ground to mark critical locations. It was tedious and boring, but Krimmler hung around because the alternative was to sulk by himself in the trailer, listening to the goddamned birds and hydrophobic squirrels. The bridge survey was the closest thing to progress that was happening on Toad Island at the moment, and Krimmler felt a powerful need to be there. Once the surveyors were gone, that would be all for… well, who knew for how long. Krimmler willed himself not to fret about that. For now, perched on the hood of a Roothaus and Son F-150 pickup, he would be sustained by the click of the tripod and the sibilant fffttt of the aerosol spray-paint cans. Briefly he closed his eyes to envision the gleaming new bridge, fastened to the bottom muck of the Gulf with stupendous concrete pillars, each as big around as a goddamn sequoia…
“Hello there.”
Krimmler stiffened, his eyes opening to a leery squint. “Who’re you?”
It was a young man with a deep weathered tan and sun-bleached hair. He wore a navy sweatshirt and jeans, but no shoes. His feet were caramel brown.
“Just a tourist,” he said.
“You don’t look like a tourist.”
“Really. Then what do I look like?” The young man gave a grin that put Krimmler on edge.
“All I meant,” said the engineer, “was, you know, the suntan. Any darker and you’d be speaking Jamaican. Whereas most of the tourists we see around here are white as a fish belly.”