PARGING
THE BASEMENT
I recall that when I
first moved to University City Village, my basement badly needed parging. It was overrun with feral cats, newts, neon-green
lizards, and hipsters from Brooklyn. Back in the day there was no such thing as
a friendly neighborhood email list to consult for assistance, so I checked out
the "Yellow Pages", an antique form of paper-based codex. Fortunately
there were several listings and I dialed the number of "Montresor's Custom Parging"
in Upper Darby, advertized in a full-page decorative broadside.
Guido Montresor showed up the next day at precisely
10 am, only two hours late, and I showed him the basement.
"Fuck, mister," he exclaimed. "You don't need no
parging here. Ya need an
exterminator, a baseball bat, and a stonemason."
"That bad, huh?" I replied, a little taken
aback. "How much do think it's going to run me?"
Guido stroked his ample, greasy chin, counted on his fingers, and finally said,
"Thirty large, mister. That's not only for the parge,
but to get rid of all the wildlife ya got down
here."
It seemed a trifle excessive to me, and I said so.
"OK, OK, five large. But it's gotta be cash up
front. In a briefcase."
"Fine, fine," I said, anxious to have my basement parged so that I could get on with renovating my lovely and
elegant old Victorian, which I had recently purchased with the help of my
skilled local realtor and brothel madam, Adeline Dutoit.
"How soon do you think you can have it finished?"
Guido stroked his chin again, stomping on a neon lizard which had scuttled down
the wall, and counting on his fingers. "That depends," he said.
"Course I need to contract with union labor for the exterminators -- the
baseball bat I can prolly get some Samoan day-laborer
-- and actually, I'm a pretty fair mason myself. Know what I mean? All in all,
not figgerin' in overtime or anything, I'd say about
three years. That is, if'n the good Lord is willin and the crick don't
rise."
"My good man!" I exclaimed. "Don't toy
with me. I need to have this job finished within a month. That's when my family
is due to fly in from Majorca, and if there's one thing my wife will not
tolerate, it's a musty basement."
"Tell ya what I'm gonna
do," said Guido with a grimace, or perhaps it was a wink. "I kin tell
you're quality type of folk, and if there's anything University City Village
needs at this point, it's some gentry movin' in. Know
what I mean? That and the market forces. Tell ya what I'm gonna do. You bring
me the ten large this very afternoon, and you arrange with Adeline for me to
spend some time in that quality bordello of hers over on 46th Street, and we're
in business. I'll get my cousin Cassidy over to help me, and we might even have
it done this very evening. Oh, and I see you have several casks of vintage port
stored over in the corner, if I mistake not. Little bit of that there could go
a long way for a thirsty worker, know what I mean?"
He grimaced again, or perhaps it was a wink.
"Ten large, huh?" I said, pondering my net
worth and cash on hand. "Alright, Mr. Montresor. If you can parge
the whole blasted basement by tonight you're on. I'll go max out my ATM and
give Melanie a call."
Guido set to work hauling bags of cement in from his pickup truck double-parked
on Baltimore Avenue, and I strolled down the street to purchase a briefcase. On
the way it suddenly struck me that it was odd that an Italianate mason like Guido
Montresor should have a cousin with the very
Irish-sounding name of Cassidy, but I supposed that it was not out of the
question that the working classes should somehow cross-breed in a town like
Philly.
The other thought that
struck me was how Adeline was going to react to the scenario of having a
coarse, greasy, and, not to put too fine a point on it, rather filthy
workingman like Guido rolling in the linen sheets of her elegant bordello, but
I figured I'd cross that bridge when I came to it. Maybe she had a bargain
basement down in that stone castle of hers, with some Italian or Irish talent.
... to be continued.
Ross Bender