Hearsay and Nicknames

The company had just picked up a new guy, Harold. The work he did was mediocre at best, but he consistently plugged away at his craft all day long. Those sinks weren't going to hang themselves. Harold seemed like he might. None of the men in the crew had heard of him before, from foreman right on down to apprentice. All they knew was that Harold was quiet and kept to himself, or so he had until the morning coffee break of his third day on the job. That's when he decided to form his first complete sentence. He'd come to regret it.

"I found this Fifty on the floor near the toolbox," Harold said hesitantly as he raised a crumpled bill in the direction of the foreman.

Everyone looked at each other from behind the coffee cups and egg sandwiches they had raised to their mouths to break the tension. Who did this guy think he was?

"That's mighty white of ya, Harold," was the boss' reply. "You hang onto it until the rightful owner asks if anyone's seen it."

During the duration of the break no man's eyes traveled to Harold's end of the room. No one pretended to care about him anymore by trying to pry him open with questions. The second he parted his lips and pulled that fifty-dollar-bill from his pocket he'd sealed his fate. They didn't know what to make of a man dumb enough to cough up a gift from God in the form of cold hard cash. Something was fishy about this one. He was no ordinary plumber, if there was such a thing.

The rest of the day went along with fewer jokes and problems than usual. Productivity almost doubled, in fact. The building wouldn't be completed for another three months, but those bathrooms would be ready with fixtures set in half that time. The sinks would be mounted, the toilets would be bolted down And maybe the owner of that lost money would come forward. Harold was banking on the fact that no one would.

But Harold was wrong. Marty "Shakes" Raskell, the biggest drunk in the local, was on the job. A man with a liver as masochistic as his would resort to anything to feed his extra hunger. It was said that he'd frequently arm wrestled men for their paychecks and squandered the winnings at the bar in one sitting. Some even claimed that apprentices' wallets tended to disappear when Shakes was on the job, though no young buck was ever dumb enough to file a grievance. The man was six-foot-four and could lift a twenty-one-foot length of six-inch cast iron pipe with one hand. His drinking habit, his strength, and his determination to fund the former were legendary throughout the members of the hall. That third honor was about to bite Harold in the ass, and hard.

"Hey, Harry. Thanks for finding my money," Shakes said in his farce Southern drawl. He was from the sticks and tried to distance himself from the city boys he worked with by conjuring an accent.

"The name's Harold," he croaked weakly.

"Well whatever. I appreciate your honesty," he spat as he reached his enormous hand towards Harold.

"No problem, pal," Harold winced as he dug into his pocket for the cash and handed it over.

It hadn't turned out like that before. He'd always been the hero. He'd always gotten to keep the money, and was always one of the last to be laid off.

He'd been defeated. The plan had blown up in his face, which dropped faster than his outstretched hand. It looked like he'd died a thousand deaths. Harold was beside himself, but couldn't get the words to leave his lips, and even if he could he'd be pounded to death by Shakes. That was one mess that the apprentice would refuse to clean up.

Three o'clock came and the foreman went around telling the men to pick up their tools. After such a hard day's work he figured they deserved to go home a little early, and one of them even had his money coming early. Harold knew what to expect when he saw the foreman approach him with the dreaded white envelope. It wasn't pay day for the rest of the men. Someone had caught wind of his scheme. It'd spread through the hall like wildfire. He'd never work out of the union hall again. A career destroyed for an hour's pay.

"I can't have a liar on my crew, Harold. Here's your money. Don't bother coming back."

Harold didn't bother to respond. He'd seen where speaking had gotten him. He gathered his tools and walked out to his truck, never to be seen on a construction site again.

Later on at the bar the truth came out. Shakes was there with the other mechanics, the apprentice, even the foreman. After the third round Shakes stood up and made a declaration:

"This one's on Hundred-Dollar Harold!" he proclaimed as the pitchers were filled by the barmaid.

The apprentice leaned over to the foreman seated at the stool next to him and asked what Shakes was talking about.

"Marty saw Harold yank that Fifty from his own wallet, throw it on the floor, and pick it up when I walked into the room this morning. That sorry excuse for a plumber was trying to secure his job by making himself some sort of saint since the quality of his work was not enough to earn him a long-term gig with our outfit."

"So that bum lost his job and fifty bucks all in the same day," snickered the apprentice. "But why's his nickname going to be Hundred-Dollar Harold when it was only half of that?"

"You haven't been in the union long enough, kid. Everything's exaggerrated, even the stories you hear about certain mechanics hitting apprentices up for beer money."

The corners of the foreman's eyes smiled brightly in the dark bar room as he sipped his beer and watched the apprentice turn his head back to the center of attention for the moment. He could practically read the young man's thoughts: Marty Raskell was alright after all, at least compared to that faker Harold.

The world was safe for another day.