IN THE TRADES

Rows of sculpted hedges, slivers of manicured lawns, white wooden fences perfectly painted, electronic security gates with keypads and card swipers, flowerbeds yet to bloom and carpeted in mulch. Hidden-away mansions, cedar-shingled, white trim around windows, spires and patios and roof decks and turrets, half-empty swimming pools green with algae, waterless fountains slick with slime. 

No sidewalks for pedestrians, no cars, no power lines, no birds.

The trucks and vans of tradespeople and laborers drive slowly along the empty streets preparing for the arrival of their masters.

Standing on the second floor balcony above the mezzanine, Martin covers his ears, but the screaming whistle still hurts him. Below, in the foyer, a crew of men shout to hear one another, carrying on a conversation about video games. The loudest among them holds the curved nozzle of an air hose and aims compressed air into a vent in the floor. Wind whips through the grate like flutes hurtling through a stormy sky or train wheels grinding on rusted tracks. The men from the Air Quality Company do not acknowledge the horrible sound. 

Clenching his head, Martin flees, reeling. He has been up since 4 A.M., and he is nowhere near the end of his fourteen hour shift. His feet, wrapped in booties to protect the mansion’s new floors, make no sound as he hurries down the wide, curved staircase, past the men. One of them glances at him.

Larger flexible, yellow hoses criss-cross the floor and descend the housekeeper’s stairwell to the basement, where they exit the mansion and connect to a huge truck idling in the cul-de-sac. The corrugated hoses are the width of Daniel’s head, their ribbed yellow hides like dull leather. They twitch as the massive vacuum pump on the truck surges to maintain its suck on the hidden ducting of the mansion. 

Martin turns away from the large hoses in disgust and rushes out of the basement through the narrow back door.

Outside, light rain, the untouched backyard of the estate, slick with mud and puddles that shine with the chemical sheen of discarded adhesive, paint and solvents. Stalks of rebar and conduit rise from the ground like the roots of an invading crop. Gray sky reflects on the new windows of the mansion. The house both floats and sinks simultaneously. 

Martin crosses the muddy wasteland to find quiet in the pool house. He stumbles inside and shuts the door, sealing himself in, away from the off-gassing. The painters have not worked here yet. There is peace in the raw drywall, the unconnected sink, the empty junction boxes. 

He slumps in a corner, the mansion blocked from view. Across the room, an empty wet bar, a small refrigerator still in the box, cabinets draped in plastic drop cloth. Through the window, a shredded, black contractor bag flutters in a hedgerow. In the distance, like a foreign war, the shrieking of compressed air, arrhythmic firing of staple guns, the explosive bleat of impact drivers. 

In the driveway, the vacuum truck revs its engine. The sound reached Martin like distant wind from the nearby ocean.

Something flashes in the window. A figure in a neon orange shirt runs past clutching his hand. 

Two more men in neon shirts run after him, shouting for the man to stop.

Blood splatters the glass of the pool house window. 

Martin does not move from his corner. The injured worker with his ruined hand, the machine that, in a moment of carelessness, inflicted the injury. That instant when the worker turned away from his task, his attention diverted, then saw in his periphery the blade bite him, rip him, tear him.

Martin’s head lolls back, the whites of his eyes reflecting in the glass. 

So many hours, fearful hours, remain in the day.Will he be maimed, crippled, blinded? Will all of them die here, in someone else’s paradise? He wants to be young again, to be free of worry and fear. Will the wind ever carry anything but the screaming of compressed air and fumes? By now, two men will be carrying their friend kicking and screaming to the hospital. Martin presses his ears until the silence is deafening.

Soundlessly, the two men trudge past the window toward the main house, their brown steel-toed boots splashing mud on their blue jeans, thick hands curled at their sides, faces downcast .

Martin rises and creeps to the door, the single droplet of blood a straight suture down the glass. 

He steps out into the afternoon. In the mud, blood blooms, dissolved by the rain. He follows the trail to an opening in the hedgerow. 

Through the gap in the hedges, another mansion looms.A streak of neon flits in an upstairs window. The wounded man, frantic and feral. 

Inside, hiding from God-knows-what, some terrible threat. Martin crouches low to the wet earth. He would find the man, speak to him. They could help each other. They could escape. 

The ringing in his ears becomes louder. Behind him, across mud and wires, the huge vacuum truck roars louder. Compressed air howls and spits from wriggling hoses. The whole world screaming, at once, all at the same time.

His eyes sting, his nostrils ache.

Martin calls out to the wounded man inside the mansion next door, shouting at the top of his lungs to be heard above the roar of work. 

Quiet, quiet, or they will make us be silent forever.