Mrs. Gardiner had me secretly come over and bid on the master bedroom, but when she pitched the job, Mr. Gardiner put his foot down.. He’d do it himself and save the money. The problem? He’d been saying that for months. Against my better judgment, and because I needed the 500 bucks, I went in on a weekday while he was at work and applied her requested “Solace Shade” to the walls.
Her next plan for painting behind her husband’s back was more ambitious. They were leaving town on an upcoming weekend, and she wanted to epoxy the garage floor in their absence. I hesitated, but agreed to a weekday meeting and took a look. It was one of the most orderly of the countless garages I’d seen, a two-day job requiring an acetone wash for adhesion and a slam-dunk roll-out the next day. Mrs. Gardiner definitely wanted me to include sprinkling the decorative silver flecks into the wet epoxy.
She had a side door key and a $1000-check in hand. If I’d agree to take the job, she promised to have the two-part epoxy material onsite, hidden behind some other paint in a wall cabinet. In 1978, a grand paid my expenses for a full month. I said yes, thinking fuck Mr. Gardiner, and wondered if I could be sued.
The Saturday morning of the planned start, everything was as promised. I powered open the garage door, did a quick sweep and then got to work with the horrible acetone. It was weird being at the Gardiner house alone, considering that the old man hadn’t given his blessing. I imagined them pulling into the driveway, having decided to come home early, him behind the wheel with growing anger, her stone-faced and scared in the passenger seat.
The last thing was to unplug and pull out the big freezer unit on the back wall, remove a dead mouse and clean a surface that hadn’t been in years. Out from the wall, the appliance cord wouldn’t reach the outlet, so I grabbed an extension cord. The freezer resumed with a hum. I peeked in to see a load of frozen meat cuts; beef, pork, and lamb.
With acetone eating away at the stained concrete floor, I lowered the garage door and drove home to a six-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon.
Sunday morning, I mixed the epoxy, and rolled and sprinkled. I was anxious to be done with the Gardiners, having decided that painting without the consent of all parties was no way to run a business. I painted behind the freezer, pulled the extension cord, pushed it back, plugged it in and touched up the skid marks. The floor looked showroom fresh as I lowered the garage door, with silvery flecks catching rays of sunlight in a sea of “Hazelnut Brown.”
Monday morning, I got down to Wells Fargo and deposited Mrs. Gardiner’s check. She called around six that evening. Something had tripped off power to the garage. The freezer had been off for hours by the time they returned home, and water was leaking onto the newly-epoxied floor. I heard Mr. Gardiner’s strident yell over the line.
“Thank you,” said Mrs. Gardiner, her voice cracking, and she hung up.