Mountain Man and City Girl

 (This entire 17-part story can be found in the “travel” category.)

It was easy to quickly settle into a routine in St. Thomas.  The first 40 jobs we had with Willie’s construction company were all putting roofs on houses.  These unfortunate folks had open sky above, and every time it rained it poured into their houses.  To take care of everyone ASAP, we would rough frame a temporary roof, then cover it with those big blue tarps.

Lumber was in short supply, with plywood impossible to get.  So the best we could do was get some 2×4’s and 2×6’s and nail enough of them over the top of the house to hold the tarp.  Working six days a week, 10 hours a day, we had everyone closed in within two weeks.

A few days after starting the job, the French guy who was the foreman had a blow-up with Willie.  All I know is that Willie showed up at the job I was doing, pulled me aside, and asked me to become the new foreman.  Wow.  Five days into the job I was replacing the French guy who hired me.  Fate, huh?

A couple days later, Blake and I were hanging out in the town square one evening when two 21-year old “continentals” stopped to ask directions.  It turned out that Aaron and Doug were taking off a few semesters from the University of Minnesota.  “You guys looking for work?”, I asked.  “Well, yeah,” Aaron replied.  The next morning they began working for Willie.

As foreman, my life just became easier.  We now had 14 workers, plus myself.  That allowed me to put Aaron and Doug with one seven-man crew and Blake with the other.  The local guys needed motivators - or was it my spies? - to keep them working when I wasn’t on sight.  I drove the small pickup truck that had in the near past picked me up hitchhiking.  Now it was mine to use in the day to shuffle the guys from job to job and bring them materials.

Once we had the 40 homes under cover, it was time to actually build new roofs.  The rest of each home was concrete or block - because of hurricanes and termites - but the roofs were wood covered by rubber roofing material.  A gutter system ran rainwater into a cistern (sort of a closed-in basement) where it would serve as the home’s potable water for drinking and cleaning.  So sloping and building the roof and gutter system just right was important.

In the US Virgin Islands, the lumber companies don’t have delivery trucks.  Instead, a dozen guys with trucks of various sizes and descriptions sat under a tree playing cards until someone needed a load of supplies moved.  They’d throw a price at you, then negotiate, and finally a deal would be struck.  It was free enterprise at its best.

I went into the lumber company as we neared the new phase of actually building the roofs and ordered $9,000 worth of plywood, 2×6’s and 2×8’s, nails, rolls of rubber roofing, and guttering.  Then I hired a truck and we pulled up to the supply door.  I handed the worker my receipt.  “We don’t have any of this except the nails and gutter,” he calmly said in that laid-back Caribbean manner.

I exploded.  “You mean, you guys just took my $9,000 and you don’t even have the stuff?”, I asked in disbelief.  “It’ll be coming on the supply ship Thursday morning.  Come back then,” he stated, still not the least bit concerned or apologetic.  Thursday 7am came and I was there with a driver and truck, again.  “Sorry, the ship came but we didn’t get the materials we ordered.  Someone else got to them first,” a different laid-back employee stated.

I was disheartened knowing that so many families were counting on us to rebuild their roofs.  I found out that the next ship with our supplies was due in Saturday morning.  I quickly devised a plan.

On Saturday morning, I took the six largest, toughest natives on our crew.  One was named King, and he was 6-foot-6 and 275 pounds.  Another weighed 400 pounds.  I pulled up to the dock right next to the ship and implemented my plan.  I marched up the gangplank, my crew of rough characters on my heels.  I showed my receipt for the materials and announced that we were taking our stuff.  We didn’t wait for the shipmates to agree or debate.  We started passing the lumber and supplies over the side of the ship into our big truck. 

In 20 minutes, we were on our way with a truck full of building materials.  Who says the spirit of Blackbeard the Pirate doesn’t live on?

- Mountain Man

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 21st, 2008 at 12:28 pm and is filed under travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.