Read Online Bittersweet Sands by Rick Ranson - Free Book Online

the plywood of the bottom scaffold.
    The only movement for several seconds was the clatter of dust, falling debris kicked up by the projectile and running boots. Two lightbulbs that were left intact swung in a disjointed circle, making jerky shadows on the walls.
    Twenty men looked down from the railings at the silver pipe speared halfway through the plywood scaffolding.
    â€œEverybody okay?” Pops shouted up at the silhouettes.
    The shadows shifted as the men solemnly looked at each other. A couple of arms far above waved the all-clear.
    â€œWow. It missed everybody,” Dougdoug said.
    Pops shouted up to the heads. “Nobody tells! Nobody tells Safety fuck all!”
    And they didn’t.

Day Six

( Big Mistake )
    Gwen Medea got the name Secretary Scary on her first job from a crew of sheet metal workers after she destroyed the career of a tin basher.
    For weeks after that job began, Gwen had been the recipient of every form of lurid observation by a fat, forty-year-old chicken farmer turned tinsmith.
    Silent and cringing-timid when alone, in front of an audience he became a clown performing for the dubious enjoyment of his fellow construction workers. The man was the embodiment of the reason all oil companies had adopted zero-tolerance harassment policies. Gwen and the other secretaries were amazed that someone had married the idiot and actually had to kiss that mouth.
    As the days went by, the comments progressed from off-colour to lurid to downright graphic. Gwen dreaded that it would only be a matter of time before he would no longer be satisfied with simply verbalizing his smut. She had to fight back.
    Her chance came on payday. At last coffee, the entire crew crowded around her at the lunch trailer, waiting for their weekly paycheques. With shaking hands, she began handing out the pay envelopes. Gwen had made sure Potty Mouth’s envelope was the first one she would hand out. She wanted the entire crew to be close.
    As Gwen handed her torturer his paycheque, she held the envelope long enough so that the man looked directly into her eyes.
    â€œDo you know the difference between this cheque and you?”
    The sheet metal worker blinked.
    â€œI’d blow this cheque.”
    Then she released the envelope.
    The brutal laughter from the crew made it very plain that they had grown tired of the simpleton’s comments, and they immediately sided with the young woman. They were as relieved as she was when she fought back. Like a flock of pigeons, they pecked at him, never letting him forget his humiliation.
    Primly, Gwen turned and left the men to their merciless laughter. When she was alone in the washroom, listening to her distant phone ringing, her emotions erupted. She held the scratchy toilet paper to her eyes and mouth as her body shook with fear and release. An hour later, she left the cubicle.
    She next gathered the other secretaries and together they went not to the foreman, not to the general foreman, but all the way to the supervisor of the entire jobsite.
    The supervisor was not a stupid man. Faced with his entire secretary staff standing over his desk and furiously describing Potty Mouth’s antics, and knowing that these ladies could instantly shut his job down if they quit—and make his life miserable in a hundred different ways if they didn’t—it was no contest.
    Construction workers are usually laid off in groups of threes and fours as a project winds down. But when there’s plenty of work left and only one man is let go, there’s a reason.
    Next morning before work, Potty Mouth’s foreman walked up to him and said, “Get your gear, you’re done.”
    They say that his coffee was halfway to his lips and the mug stayed there for half a minute.
    Nineteen men sat in that lunch trailer, and not one spoke on his behalf.
    Every secretary on that project stamped DO NOT RE-HIRE in red capital letters on Potty Mouth’s personnel file. The same rubber