Patterns - An Academy Story

Construction Zone - Part 2

North's POV

The morning after the family meeting I headed in to town to pick up Silas. The morning was bright and clear, and there wasn't much traffic on the road. Mr. B sure surprised me with this assignment. Surveillance is fine, but getting to build shit was more fun than work. I swung the Jeep in to Silas' parking lot and saw him waited outside the door of his second floor apartment. He grinned as when he saw the Jeep, grabbed his bag and headed down the stairs.

As soon as he climbed in to the Jeep and fastened his seat belt, I pulled away from the curb. We were both looking forward to getting our hands dirty this week. "Let's do this" he said, grinning at me. "Let's go play with some power tools." I smiled back. "Hell, yeah. This is gonna be great."

After driving north for a while on the highway I pulled off on to the surface streets. This was a quiet section of Charleston. Older homes, a bit run down. You could get a good deal on a house in this area, fix it up and flip it. TV shows make renovating a house look easy. It wasn't. I pulled up in front of a small bungalow. Pickup trucks in the driveway. Yup. This is the place. We could hear the sound of hammers and nail guns. This was more like it.

We climbed out of the Jeep. I looked at Silas and nodded towards the house. "Let's go find Liam and find out what they need us to do"

"Sounds good to me brother"

We headed up the path to the house, looking around. Nice old house. Good character. Some family will like calling this their home. Right away we spotted Liam Anderson in the front living room. "Hey, Liam. How's it going man?" I asked the older man, walking over to him. "We heard you could use some help on this project."

"Yes we certainly could use the y'alls help on this project" he said as we all shook hands. "We have a great young family we want to move into the house. Timing is tight, and we'd love to have them in by Christmas. North, I know you and your family have flipped houses before so you know what kind of deadlines we're up against." I nodded to him.

He mentioned to Silas that they were glad he was able to help with the plumbing.

I looked around as we walked through the different rooms. He commented that they were finishing the sheet rock in some downstairs rooms today. Dusty work.

We made our way from the front room, through the dining room in to the empty kitchen. You could see where everything was plumbed. Liam told us that the cabinets would be there that morning, and the counters that afternoon. "After they're installed, we can get the appliances hooked up and the sink installed. Lily and Henry will be here with the grout for the backsplash tiles in a little while." He laughed. "No matter how many trips you take to the hardware store, you always need to make at least one more." Ah, yeah, I forgot that his team had 4 dogs and 1 bird. I couldn't understand sharing a bird long term, but if it worked for them, cool. Short term, well, yeah, Silas and I had shared a bird a couple of times, I remembered with a grin. Fun times.

We followed Liam through the kitchen door opening down a short hallway, past the stairway. "We're at the roughing in stage on the two smaller bedrooms upstairs and the upstairs bathroom." So far, so good. The house was more than halfway done. We could make this work for a Christmas move-in.

I could hear talking and the sound of power tools coming from the front rooms. Silas and I move out of the way of a guy carrying some sheet rock. A girl's voice calls out from the room "Dave, bring that piece over here? I'm ready for it on this wall." Si and I stick our heads in the room and see this woman on a ladder, holding a large battery screw driver. That can't be safe. What the fuck is she doing up there on that ladder. Before I could step in and help, Si held his arm back. I looked at him and he silently said "watch." With the help of two of the guys, she lifted the panel of sheet rock in to place and started screwing it down. I could hear Si chuckling, and I looked back at him. "ómorfi kopéla me ilektriká ergaleía." (beautiful girl with power tools) I laughed and nodded. "Pós sas óti eínai séxi." (that is sexy)

Liam joined us in the room and saw what we were watching. He looked at us with an amused expression on his face. "I don't believe you've met my daughter, have you?" he asked. 

F*ck me. His daughter?