It's Not 2am Anymore ©

Here is the post I wrote the other day but didn’t post because I wrote another one in the morning.
To be honest with you I had to read it in the morning to see what I had written.

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Here I am, it’s a little after 2 am and I am attempting to write a post.
Why?
Who the fuck knows, I have nothing better to do I guess and Frick is tired of playing spin the cat on the computer chair.
Actually I think he likes it because now he jumps on the chair and hooks his nails into it then looks at me with this “LET IT RIP!!!!!!!” look on his face.

Mike called me today to tell me about his new job.
Yeah he started a new profession or should I say went back to an old one.
Painting was messing up his back; he is getting older as I keep telling him.
He used to brush it off but this past weekend proved my point to him.

One of the guys was in a jam and needed a house painted before 4pm the next day so he calls his buds, which are all painters by some chance, retired for the most part but painters by trade just the same.
Being true friends, the buds rally to their friend’s call for help.
At 20 an hour that is.

4pm Friday, Walker is over at Archie’s for a visit.
Archie was standing, holding the now empty bottle of Metaxa in the air re-enacting the battle of Thermopylae.
He, as Leonidas thrashes out striking down at the mighty Persian hoards but his bottle of Metaxa shattered against their shields, the wall and that’s why the 300 Spartans really lost the battle.
Yeah that’s fine Arch but I’m not sweeping up all the dead Spartans your spread all over the floor.

That’s when the phone rang.
Buddy called looking, begging for help and Archie told him, he was to pissed to do anything and it was true.
We drank two bottles of brandy and beer in about 3 hours.
Buddy begged and Archie told him that he would make some phone calls but that’s all he was going to do.
In the end, with a lot of begging they had gotten a crew together.
One by one they showed up when the call went out that a friend needed help.
At 20 bucks an hour of course.
Cash.

Mike at 49 is the healthiest one of the bunch and he can barely move because his back is killing him.
If he stands up to fast and erect he drops the brush out of his hand and to the floor, which only delays him because he has to go get a rag and clean up the floor now.

Then Archie is going.
For 20 an hour he will go anywhere and he doesn’t care if he is 58 with two busted knees and drunker than a skunk.
Personally the drunker as a skunk part was doing all the thinking.
The man’s knees are so bad when he stands everyone jumps and dives to the floor because his knees crack so loud they sound like gunshots.

Rick at 54 has everything wrong with him.
Most of his life he has been a labourer of one sort or another.
Jack of all trades master of none..
You need a crash test dummy, just call Rick and he will put stickers all over his body and get into the car to drive off of a cliff.
It’s taken its toll on his body but he’ll do any thing for a buck and Archie is paying him 10 bucks an hour to work for him, so he’s in.

Archie asked me to go paint with them to but I reminded them about the last time I went to help
They all paused for a bit then all nodded their heads simultaneously.

That’s when the phone ran again and Archie told buddy that he had a crew together and would go help him.
He told him I was there to if he needed one more but buddy reminded him about the last time I went to help.
It really wasn’t that bad.
How the fuck did I know if I painted “Walker was here” in black paint on the bedroom wall it would bleed through 24 hours later when the white paint I painted over it dried.

That’s when Arch squawked out WHAT!!!
Then there was a flurry of swearing, which is normal when two Greeks are talking calmly.
It seems they had to go start work at 3 am after a drive of fifty miles to get there.
These guys are usually passed out in bed by 8 pm and he wants them to start painting at 3 am.
That went off real well with the boys but they all agreed then they all took off to get some sleep before they went to work.
I think it was trying to sober up because they had been drinking and getting stoned all day.

Now I did have a roll in this little adventure that they were setting out on.
In fact I had the MOST important roll.
I phoned them all at 1:30 am and woke them up.
See, I did my part and I did it for free.
Have you ever talked to the living dead?
Oh yeah, I knew it was going to be an interesting story to hear later that day.

Did I say day.
I meant two days because that’s when they finally emerged from their hibernation after and one of them is still MIA since being dropped off at home that evening.
One slept for 14 hours while the other one was scared to get out of bed because he couldn’t feel his legs any more.

Mike said for fifty miles they talked while he drove about how they were going to walk in there and paint the thing then be out of there before the sun rose in the east.
After arriving and seeing the size of the house they knew they would be lucky if they were out of there when the sun went down in the west and they weren’t.

Mike walked into a room at one stage and one of them was on his belly on the floor painting baseboards because his knees and back hurt so much and the other was sitting on a chair rolling the wall because his legs hurt to much.
It was 8pm when the finally finished it all, 4 hours late but done perfect.

It’s one thing painting your house and another doing it for a living and this battered bunch of nuts had no place doing what they did and I don’t think it was the money that compelled them either.
That was just a prize.
I think it was to show that they could still do it.
We’re all young at heart even when the body disagrees with us and subsequently has to endure our futile attempts to prove otherwise.

I don’t know how many times I have fucked myself up because I forgot I wasn’t 20 any more.
Like the time I decided to pick up the fridge and found myself clinging to it sop I won’t fall on the floor because I pulled my back out of place.
If anyone were to look through the window they would have thought I was screwing the fridge.
Maybe we want to show that we are still useful, who knows, but the pain is real and the painkillers are damn good to.
I can see them twenty years from now taking on a similar job but by then one will probably sit in a wheelchair holding a paintbrush down to the baseboards while another one pushes the chair to paint the baseboards.

I wonder what they will say when I ask them to help me pain my house?
Ok I am going to bed now and looking at this tomorrow

No peeking

Have a nice weekend

Walker