Men
Who Finished Our Basements
Men who finished our basements paced in circles
running Romex in their heads, cold torches of beer
chest high
illuminating the dimmest corners of their imaginations.
Elbows planted on enameled bars of churning Lady
Kenmore’s
they plotted utter encapsulation of laundry rooms, apportioned
generous
slices to well-appointed workshops peppered with
outlets, sanctums
for salty words to spice the buzz of florescent lights on
chains, cornering
darkness under fuel oil tanks, wreathing low hanging
duct work in delicate
whorls of smoke, seeping into the stutter of a thousand
holes
closing ranks around swollen silhouettes of
screwdrivers and channel lock
pliers, the xylophone vibe of box end wrenches. A place for everything
and everything in its place; Playboys tucked away
behind fat three ring
binders, common graves of Hi-Fi schematics and Martin
house specs,
blueprints for A-frames awaiting three acre plots east
of Grayling, no more
likely to see daylight as fragrant mimeo’d diagrams for
trebuchets.
Men who finished our basements ran fingers down the
fluting
of knotty pine panels, snapped chalked lines, shimmed
furring
stripped down to sweaty tanks on sticky August
Saturdays, sawdust
lodged in hairy swale, squinted through skeins of smoke
from dangling
Winston’s, shrieking circular saws commanding attention,
haranguing
the wincing wives of the men who finished our basements
and elbowed
up to laminate wet bars to toast themselves in Miller
Beer mirrors
tinkering the winters away, reluctant vices relinquishing
their grip
on long forgotten stock with a nudge of the screw the
morning you
arrive to consign it all to box or bag. The men who finished our basements
all traces of them erased by young new owners eager for
update, yearning
for dimmable recessed lighting, sturdy constructions to
last the ages.
