Cobalt

"Good morning, Mr. Fred. Here you go, Skip.  Lovey packed a little treat for us."

Big Bill handed me a napkin wrapped slice of buckwheat cake soaked in black strap molasses.

I scooted over in the pickup seat to make room for Big Bill.   Splitting the cake into three pieces, my grandfather poured us a shot of java.

I was almost over my two weeks of soreness that came every summer, when school let out.   Bricklaying was a fierce occupation.

We were bricking a Methodist church in Texico, New Mexico, the last town before Texas.

Big Bill was like an uncle to me.   He was six foot six and weighed three hundred, all muscle. Skin, real black, except for speckles of pure white.  Where he'd gotten burned by nitrogen fertilizer in a farming accident.

We didn't have a mortar mixer, mayber they hadn't been invented. Big Bill was our mud man.

He used a huge hoe in a mud box.   Seven by four feet, chopping mortar and sand and water, back and forth all day.   Finding the perfect consistency.

When the hod carriers came with their wheel barrows, he would shovel them a full load.

Keeping mud for four bricklayers was no easy task, but Big Bill just grinned and kept chopping.   By nine, he'd strip to the waist and tie a red bandana around his forehead to keep the sweat out of his eyes.   His muscles rippled actoss his back and arms.   Shining in the sun, he took on a cobalt hue, like burnished steel.

Granddad had hired a Mexican bricklayer a week before, he'd been riding me about being the boss' grandson.

"You aren't even dry behind the ears, pendejo. This is work for men," he taunted.

I let it slide.   Big Bill wanted to have a word with him, but I'd seen my granddad restrain him.   If it wasn't such a big job I knew he'd have gotten his walking papers.   The Mex was a fair brick mechanic, if he would just keep his mouth off me.

After a couple of more days, it became a splinter beginning to fester.

"Oye, cabron, if it wasn't for your grandpa and that big nigger I'd spank your ass."

"Chinga tu madre, you pepper belly son of a puta.   Are you all talk?" I replied.

His first punch caught me under the chin and lifted me off my feet, his second grazed my forehead on the way down.   As I hit the ground I rolled away from his kicks. Grabbing a handful of dirt I threw it in his face, knowing I was in trouble, I looked for something to even the odds.   Grabbing a short handled shovel, I swung with evertying I had.   A sickening crunch came from his breaking ribs. His nose exploded as I hit him in the bace.   Standing over him I held the shovel ready to chop off his head like a rattler.   The entire earth was trembling in slow motion.

Feeling two hands grab each shoulder, one black the other white.   I dropped the shovel.   My heart was pounding loud in my ears.   It took a minute for me to get my breath.

"Don't ever call my uncle a nigger, he's not even black."   I booted the Mexican in his broken ribs.   Before they dragged me away.

That evening we pulled up in front of Big Bill's.

"Wait a minute, Mr. Fred."

He returned with a small box.

"This is for you, Skip."

Opening it, there lying on prple velvet was a Silver Star.   A paper read, awarded to Sergeant Bill Jenkins for courage above and beyond the call of duty.

"See you all tommorow," he called and vanished inside.

"Yes, sir," I said into the night.