I parked my truck next to the box of bees I had as a colony on the property, checked the landing board to witness pollen coming in, walked through the front door into the house under construction and climbed the step of planks up the scaffolding in front of the fireplace. My trowels were in a neat pile, clean, just where I left them a month ago, and the water buckets had settled out and the firebrick dust and cement wash was a thick layer of sediment on the bottom of the buckets.

Garcia was there ahead of me and had a brick batch of mortar almost ready with a fine consistency and with perfect moisture content. I took my small water bucket outside and washed it out and brought in clean water for my trowels and my hands. I don’t wear gloves.

I looked at where we left off on the Rumford fireplace. The blacksmith had finally delivered the custom damper. The new damper was painted black and fresh looking, and it was set on the brick of the throat of the fireplace. I checked to see if the handle worked the opening plate well enough. The swiveling plate controlled the amount of air going up the chimney. Yeah, it worked, but the handle was too short. And, with the owner – who is also the financier – at my elbow, I took the opportunity for one craftsman to bitch and bitch about the craftsmanship of another craftsman of a different guild not present, as is the wont in the real world, and pointed out all my objections before moving forward, regardless. Not perfect, a little TOO tight, “the guy must be…”; we had a good laugh. It will work. We are moving on. Doesn’t need this. Didn’t need that. Redundant. And what the hell took him so long? Although I didn’t care in the least, as the blacksmith’s tardiness was my freedom to plant tomatoes and beans and squash. It all works out if your boss is understanding.

I dunked some firebrick in the fresh pail of water. The air bubbles escaping from the dry bricks sounded like the fizz of a drink as yet not invented. I had to concentrate now as I had not done this work in a long time, and I needed to lay out the smoke chamber and other incidentals, including how the owner wanted to attach the mantel. The best way to get started is to start.

I troweled out a band of mortar and set in the damper and tapped it here and there to get it level and in position. On the extension of this layer of fresh mortar, I fleshed out my dimensions and drew lines for the firebrick of the smoke chamber to follow. Bricks laid. Now some living room wall stone, now a couple matching corner stones at the edge of the fireplace. All good so far. We kept testing the damper’s door to make sure it would not hit the brickwork when opening.

Once I get going, I don’t take breaks, preferring to push through to the end and get done and get out of there, and when I start saying “I think I have to go home and mow the lawn” the owners get a bit perturbed. LOL! But others take a lunch, and while they were sitting on the pile of cement blocks in the middle of the living room, I said, “I would take Zuckerberg in the Thunder Dome over Musk.”

That set the conversation ablaze.

“Zuckerberg has a couple black belts and just won rounds in a tournament.” “Musk claims training in martial arts too and street smarts! Ahahaha!” “Musk must have a hundred pounds on him.” “But I think Zuckerberg would have the stamina.” “I would watch it.” “I would watch it in a heartbeat, but I would never PAY to watch it.” “Wouldn’t it be for charity?” “You kidding?” “Biggest, most ridiculous fight in history!” “I don’t care. I really don’t care. Let them at it.”

Then, of course, we talk about the stock market, a sure sign of a market high when plebians like us talk market. “Where is all this electricity coming from? Utilities are so underappreciated and ripe for consolidation. Look at PPL, it’s down, near a three-year low and carries a 3.6 dividend.” “Look at Steel Connect.” “My ABEV hit its sell price. Sold half.” “It’s so confusing right now.” “Yeah but when the VIX is this low, something cracks.”

I climbed down from the scaffolding and had Garcia hand me trowels of cement, just on the tip, while I crawled on my knees into the firebox and, working over my head, sealed the lower rim of the damper before it all dried too much. Cursing and awkward, I was starting to get hot and complained about the AC, of which, of course, there was none, and I had Garcia open a couple windows; and Moose, a carpenter of extraordinary strength, brought an electric fan into the room and plugged it in which was very unexpected and extremely kind, as I never expect my incessant complaining to produce anything.

We got the damper in, brought the smoke chamber up to the point of the tip inward and laid some nice stone across the lintel and into the corners of fireplace column. When the mortar is done, I’m done. To be continued God knows when. (That’s just an expression.)