Cari Smith

One Swift Swing of the Hammer

The hammer felt heavier with every nail. Sweat gathered at the back of my neck, trickling down between my shoulder blades as the sun climbed higher in the sky. I wiped my brow with the back of my hand and squinted at the rows of trusses stretching above me. This was supposed to be summer vacation. Other kids were at the pool or sleeping in, but I was stuck on this roof, building a garage I didn’t care about with my dad and brothers—none of whom I liked very much at the moment.

My father was a self-employed roofer who loved a good family project. He valued the family bonding time and work ethic it gave to his kids. It gave him opportunities to talk about life lessons and interact with his kids on a level most dads didn’t. Hard work pays off, learning new things is good for you and will help you in the future, and learning to work with other people (annoying younger brothers included) is a priceless skill – were just a few of the gems I heard on a regular basis. I usually enjoyed our time together. However, as I lined up another nail and swung the hammer, missing the mark and smashing my thumb yet again, I silently wished he cared a little less about my character.

We built the garage from the ground up.  We laid our own foundation (another not so happy tale), framed it in, and put up the trusses.  For anyone who hasn’t had the pleasure of building their own garage or other large building, when the trusses are put up, a 2” x 4” board is nailed across the beams lengthwise to space them appropriately and keep them in place until the 4’x8’ sheets of plywood, which make the rooftop, are put into place.  On this not-so-happy morning, it was my job to put nails at 8-10” intervals on the boards that were already tacked into place to firmly secure them to the trusses.  It was not my favorite job, as my hand-eye coordination was not great – my thumb usually paid the price.

Tony, my brother two years my junior, on the other hand, always got the easy jobs, and today was no exception.  I had been waiting for days, perhaps weeks, to get the easy job.  It seemed as though my age and experience, which my father had told me was going to help me in life, was my worst enemy.  Every time I looked at Tony he was just standing by Dad, waiting for the next piddly errand to run while I labored under the already hot sun hammering away nail after nail after nail.  This process was broken up only by the periodic missed hit, followed by yelling and cursing from me, and a stifled giggle by Tony, which only made me dislike him and his pathetic job even more.

As I nursed my throbbing thumb, I looked at him, glaring, and saw him get yet another easy job from Dad.  I had been working hard all morning, and we were ready to add the next row of wood sheeting to the roof.  Tony had been given instructions to pull up the 2x4s that had been holding the trusses to the appropriate spacing but were now in the way.  I smirked as he set to work.  My job wasn’t easier, as I had hoped, but at least Tony wasn’t just standing there anymore.  I, in the meantime, continued my monotonous job of nailing. 

My pleasure increased, as it seemed  Tony wasn’t getting very far whenever I glanced back at him.  How hard could it be? I thought. 

“What are you doing, Tony?”  I taunted in his general direction.  “Dad finally gives you a real job, and you can’t even do it right?”

“Shut up, Cari.  This is harder than it looks.  I know you couldn’t do it!” he yelled breathlessly back as he strained to pull out the first spike.

“Why would I want to?  I’ve already got a job and if you don’t hurry up, I’ll have to do your job for you, too.  I’ve been doing everything all morning anyway,” I retorted, rolling my eyes.  I was so tired of his smart mouth.

As I got back to the task at hand, I noticed Tony switch strategies.  He had been trying to dislodge the nails from the top of the 2×4 to no avail.  He was now standing on the crossbeam of the rafter, facing the 2×4 that was about chest high to him.  He had the hammer in both hands and was swinging it between his legs and up to the underside of the board in the hopes of lifting the board, and the nail that held it in place, freeing it from the truss.  I snidely thought, as my own thumb throbbed, It sure would suck for him if he missed the board.  I turned my body slightly in morbid anticipation of the worst.

Not three hammer-swings later, my wicked intuition became reality. The board had started to get pretty loose, so Tony had started swinging harder. The next sequence of events unfolded like the action part of the movie when everything changes to slow motion, so you don’t miss one detail of the best scene.  I don’t know if the board shifted or if Tony’s aim was off, but as the hammer came up slowly from his legs into an arc toward his target, the next swing missed the board entirely. 

The head of the hammer landed square – right between his eyes. 

Hard.

He stood stunned at the blow, and I could almost see the neuron’s firing as the signal of EXTREME pain shot through his nervous system.  The slight delay made the scream that followed all the more intense.  The hammer dropped silently to the ground below as Tony put both hands on his forehead to stop, or at least minimize, the throb that must have pounded within his head. While sudden death was out of the question, it seemed as though he was definitely going to have one heck of a headache.

Having left my compassion elsewhere that day, I laughed with as much vigor as my brother was crying.  It was quite possibly the funniest thing I had ever witnessed.  Even today, that image makes me smile.  I feel a bit evil and cold-hearted to say that, but it’s the truth.  If I couldn’t get the easy job, this was a pretty good substitution.  It was as if all of the unfairness of the day and the weeks prior to this event had suddenly vanished and had been made right again.  Even my thumb felt better.

It was this scene, Tony crying as hard as I was laughing, that my father saw as he responded to the yell of my brother.  “What the hell’s going on over here?” Dad exclaimed as he came on the scene.  I was initially blamed – as laughing at another’s misfortune at our house usually meant you were to blame for the injury.  I pleaded innocent and was found not guilty based mostly on proximity; I was too far away to have caused the injury.  Tony was in such pain that finding fault was not as important as surveying the damage done and determining the next course of action. 

As a result of his misfortune, Tony was excused from the day’s labors, but that was ok.  I had been waiting for the easy job.  I still didn’t have it. But I no longer had to watch Tony do the easy job all day, either. The day was hot, and the sun was unforgiving.  My crap job remained crappy.  My other family members continued to bug me. Despite the sweltering heat, though, I remained on the roof working away and smugly smiling. I’m certain that Dad had a different lesson in mind for me to learn that morning than the one I walked away with, but this particular gem has served me well, too.  “Life isn’t fair” was a lesson taught often at my house, but “Good things happen to those who wait”  was the one shouted from the rooftop that day with one swift swing of the hammer.