Turn 145 of 233

Take Kimo to the site Monday and push the crew harder on the next house. Kimo starts crawling there. He still hasn't been washed since he was born

Monday morning and the air is already wet at five-forty when Lena pulls into the site. The pad is poured and the studs are staged and the lumber is stacked against the trailer and the crew is stretching on the concrete in the grey light. Kimo is in the harness against her chest and the boy is awake and the humming is going and the humming is the low drone that the crew has learned to work to — a frequency that has become part of the site the way the nail gun is part of the site. Lena's feet are still raw from Saturday's thirty-one miles and the cracks are sealed with new skin but the new skin is thin and the thinness is the thinness she knows. She stretches on the pad and the stretching is the O-line stretching — hips open, glutes engaged, the belly heavy on her thighs — and the crew stretches around her and the morning is the morning.

"New house," Lena says. The voice is loud and the tongue piercing clicks and the clicking has become part of the voice the way the humming has become part of the site.

"Three days. Not three and change. Three. We frame tighter and we frame faster and we don't wait on the header lifts. I'll call them early. Marco, you're on the nail gun with me. Daryl, lumber flow — I don't want any standing around waiting for studs. Frank, saw station — pre-cut everything by six-thirty. Ray, plans — flag anything that's off before we build it wrong. Tuki, cleanup runs every two hours. Walt, inspection walk at noon."

Walt looks up from his coffee. The looking is the looking of a man who has heard a lot of plans from a lot of leads and is measuring this one against the last four houses. The last four houses were good. The last four houses were three days and change and the quality was there and the quality was the quality that got Lena's name on the sign.

"Three days," Walt says. Not a question.

"Three days," Lena confirms.

The crew moves. Frank has the saw running by six-ten and the pre-cuts are stacked by six-twenty-five and Daryl has the lumber flow tighter than Lena has seen it and the tightness is the tightness of a crew that has been pushed before and knows the pushing works. Lena and Marco frame the south wall in forty minutes — the O-line leverage dropping the hips, the belly as counterweight, the nail gun barking in the rhythm the crew knows. The south wall goes up clean and the west wall follows and the header lifts are called early and the early is the difference. By nine the frame is half up and the pace is the pace of a crew that is working harder than last week and the harder is not sloppy. The harder is precise.

Kimo rides the harness through all of it. The boy is two months old and twenty-three pounds and the harness holds him against Lena's chest and the humming vibrates through her sternum and the vibration is steady and the boy watches the work from inside the harness and the watching is the watching of a child who has been on a construction site since birth and the site is his world. At ten-fifteen Lena sets him on a blanket in the shade of the trailer — the same blanket from the balcony, the blanket that smells like milk and salt and the concrete dust that is in everything now — and the boy is on his stomach and the boy is moving.

The movement is not walking and the movement is not rolling. The movement is crawling — the arms reaching forward and the legs pushing and the massive body lurching forward across the blanket and the lurching is clumsy and determined and the determination is the determination of a boy who has been watching walls go up for two months and has decided he wants to get to them. The crawling is slow and the arms are thick and the legs are thick and the twenty-three pounds moves across the blanket one lurch at a time and Marco sees it first and the nail gun stops.

"He's moving," Marco says. The voice is quiet and the quiet is the quiet of a man seeing something that is new and small and important.

Lena looks down. Kimo is six inches from the blanket's edge and the edge is concrete and the concrete is the site and the boy is heading for the site. She picks him up and puts him back in the center of the blanket and the boy starts crawling again immediately — same direction, same lurch, same determination. The humming gets louder when he crawls and the louder is the louder of a boy who is excited about the thing he has just learned he can do.

"He's crawling," Lena says. The voice is thick and the thickness is not from the piercing.

"He's two months old," Daryl says. The slow nod is slower than usual and the slowness is the slowness of a man processing something that doesn't fit the schedule.

"He's big," Frank says. Frank says nothing else. Frank is wise.

The boy hasn't been washed since he was born. Two months of milk and sweat and the Florida heat and the concrete dust that is in everything and the boy smells like Lena smells — salt and skin and the deep musk of a body that lives outdoors and doesn't shower. The boy's skin is healthy and the boy's skin is dark and the boy's skin is the skin of a child who has been in the sun and the wind and the rain and the skin has not been washed and the skin has not needed washing. The body does what the body does. Kimo crawls and the crawling is the crawling of a boy who is building his own curve and the curve is steep and the curve is his.

By noon the frame is seventy percent up and Walt does the inspection walk and the walk is the walk of a man checking corners with a level and a tape and the level is plumb and the tape is true and the corners are square. Lena follows him with Kimo back in the harness and the boy is humming and the humming is the drone that the site knows.

"Three days?" Walt says.

"Three days," Lena says.

Walt looks at the frame and looks at the crew and looks at the 600-pound woman with the rainbow hair and the tribal ink and the baby in the harness and the baby who is crawling and the man who has been building houses for thirty years nods.

"Three days," Walt says. The nod is the Walt nod and the nod is enough and the structure holds.