Chapter 4 - The Brotherhood in Hardhats
At 8:15 p.m., as Erin and I were beginning to pack the untouched barbecue into aluminum catering trays to donate to the local homeless shelter, the heavy double doors of the Elks Lodge flew open with a loud bang.
I froze, half-expecting my father or Uncle Ned to stumble in, smelling of beer and offering some insulting, half-baked excuse.
Instead, a booming voice bellowed through the hall:
"What kind of two-bit party starts without the ground crew?!"
Standing in the doorway was Hank Kowalski, my co-op line crew foreman. Hank was a fifty-year-old bear of a man with graying stubble, hands the size of dinner plates, and a faded Carhartt ballcap. Behind him filed eight more linemen from the Ozark Electric Co-op, accompanied by their wives, partners, and teenage kids—nearly twenty-five people in total. They were dressed in clean flannel shirts, jeans, and work boots, their faces split into wide, grinning expressions.
"Hank?" I stammered, completely blindsided. "What are you guys doing here?"
"What are we doing here?!" Hank scoffed, marching toward the table and pulling off his cap. "Nadine down at the diner told us you rented the Elks hall for your thirty-first birthday and to celebrate that book of yours hitting the big lists! We were finishing up an emergency transformer swap out on County Road 44. Took us two hours longer than expected to wash the grease off our knuckles, but we weren't about to let Joplin's finest scribbler drink his own beer alone!"
Behind Hank came Nadine herself, the seventy-year-old owner of the café where I wrote every morning at five. She carried a three-tiered chocolate cake decorated with small plastic power poles and miniature open books made of sugar.
"Look at this spread!" shouted Dave, my bucket truck partner, eyeing the glistening brisket and ribs. "Devon, you crazy son of a gun, you bought the whole cow!"
Hank suddenly stopped, his sharp blue eyes sweeping across the thirty-eight empty chairs on the other side of the room, the untouched name cards, and the glaring absence of anyone sharing my last name. He looked at Erin, who gave him a subtle, sorrowful shake of her head.
Hank understood immediately. In our line of work, you learn to read a hazardous situation without needing a warning sign. He didn't ask where my parents were. He didn't ask why my sister wasn't sitting by my side.
He simply slammed his heavy palm down on the head table, rattling the silverware.
"Alright, boys and girls! Grab a plate, grab a beer, and form a line!" Hank shouted, his voice filling the empty room with genuine warmth and roaring life. "Tonight we celebrate a man who risks his neck keeping the lights on in this county, and who writes stories that make us proud to be working men! Dave, fire up that jukebox in the corner! Devon, pour me a cold one before I faint from hunger!"
Within five minutes, the silent, humiliating graveyard of the Elks Lodge was transformed into an explosion of laughter, clinking beer bottles, and classic rock. Nadine hugged me tightly, whispering that she had read my book three times and cried on chapter twelve. My fellow linemen passed around my novels, demanding I sign their greasy, dog-eared copies with personalized notes.
May you like
Erin stood beside me, laughing as Dave showed her photos of our truck stuck in a six-foot Missouri snowdrift last winter.
For the first time all night, the hollow ache in my chest receded. These were the people who actually had my back when forty thousand volts were buzzing three feet from my ears. This was my real family.
