The Magnificent 7, no err 4.

I meant to follow up with this a year and a half ago,to complete a post on a expedition to Savannah.
Spring 2005 March, conditions cloudy,phone rings from a customer .Man owns a development on a island off Savanah, needs screening 11' tall and 580' long put up on his boatyard before the weekend.The pay is good, I negotiate it high because I know the girls are gonna want to stay on the beach if we go.I begin with assembling the strike team,Kara a 5'9" brunnette with a husky low voice, the looks of a Liv Tyler and the temperament of sleep deprived badger with its head in a bag of hornets.A fast worker and even faster tongue.So sharp that I have warned her that one day her razor tongue was gonna cut out her teeth. Mickey, the long standing semi-reliable pill and alcohol addicted ex-dancer,Pamela Anderson post opt body and the focus of a redillin addicted 5 year old boy in the middle of a Shriners Circus grand finale.She has been known to pick up her 6' 4",189lb husband and use her 5'4" 135lb mass to throw him over the back of the couch , down the stairs ,and into the basement garage of their modest split level.M.J.,my ex-girlfriend before the trip,think of young "hot lips Houlihan"(Loretta Swit) Tiny, unevenly tempered between engaging exuberance and whiney pesimissim raised to just under supersonic speeds.
The deal was worked out as schedules were made, bags packed and a plan was as usual half formed because I know things will change,never stick to a plan in this business as things WILL change regardless of how well it is thought out.I make a sorta of idea in my head and then proceed trusting to luck,skill and random miracles to propel this outfit into its next job.And to crash out of it on the other side all the while exuding a Errol Flynn devil may care attitude to the general public.
The Plan:
Two trucks, Me in the Big ford, Kara and Mickey in her boyfriends Dodge Dakota,pick up MJ after she gets off work,leave at 6pm from Atlanta and go down to the Tifton plant to pickup the screen at 8 am in the morning, staying at a hotel in Tifton that night so we can be over in Savannah by 12 the next day to start work.The plan was for about 10-11 hours of work since the customer sent some vague pictures of the terrain and we assumed that there would be problems .That would mean about 55' per hour due to height of the fence.Work from 12 to 6-7pm and finish the next day.That left two days for r & r at the beach on Tybee.
HOW IT REALLY WORKED:
MJ is about as punctual as a Nigerian government official on a fact finding trip on corruptipn..Departure time from Atlanta 8pm.Arrived late in Tifton,that morning a major front pushes across to stall over South Georgia, we have 3 inches in 4 hours.Soaked when we load the fabric at the plant and then we literally have to slip and slide our trucks all the way across Ga to Savannah.I call ahead and the customer meets us at 5pm at the jobsite in the drizzle that the front has now become.He shows us the fence while we come to terms that we are sweating into our rainsuits more than they are shedding water,and then there are the gnats.Now I have always heard the tales of the South Georgia gnats and carried a few memories of them from my youth on fishing trips with my dad when he was sober enough not to drive the neon green 73 4 door Torino with the vinyl, green seatcovers into the pond that he was checking out for the states next fishing report.These gnats in Savannah however were a locust plague of bibical proportions,eyes nose,moth,hair,skin,ears everything was up up for grabs.I felt like the Texas panhandle and they were the illegals swarming Brownsville.
Our customer assumed by the lateness of the day we would be starting tomorrow as all at once the chorus went up,no it will be finihed today.He looked down the long row of fencing ,at the black silt that passes for dirt on Skidaway Island, at the drizzle falling from the sky with renewed fervor,slunk back to his truck and contemplated the girls dubiously as they began setting the ladders that sank a foot or more into the rainsoaked black muck that surrounded the fence.
"LET THE GAMES BEGIN" Then it began,gnats in every crevice,MJ crawling under the fence to secure the center seam ,me throwing ladders up and down,Mickey losing work boots, giving up and working barefoot,Kara's hoarse cries to keep going, the sun racing down to leave us in the dark with only the idiot rap hum of the gnats,mud and black silt in our mouths.By the dark hour of 8pm we had finished.Done.Perfect.The packing up. The throwing away of some clothes the girls didn't even want back.I rang up the customer (Who had left hours before)to notify him of our completion,as he asked after a stunned pause if I was kidding him,did it look good? etc..Confidently I told him if he found any problems to let us know and I would like my check on the terms we had agreed on.On Completion.
"Are We Having Fun Yet"
Traditionally I try to set up out of town jobs like mini-vacations.Set a fee for the girls, put in my markup, include hotel,fuel,food etc...As we assumed it would be off season in April we thought a hotel would be no problem and ended up at the worst motel I think that has ever operated in Georgia,You remember passing those half-closed motor lodges on ML King(any city).Vagrants and whores wondering around aimlessly outside,busted out lights on the marques offering 1959 area rates?Cracked concrete pools with green water and trash floating in the slime?Doors nailed up and spray painted walls?THE WALDORF compared to this place.But hey the girls insisted on being out on Tybee and walking across the road to the beach.
The shower was green in spots and not because that was ever the intended color scheme but the girls went next door for supplies and bleached it out.The carpet was more a mosaic of unidentifiable stains and gum(?) clumps than woven threads.The pillows where I swear 1/2" thick and no one even considered sitting on the speads.Sheets appeared to be clean and the ice bucket had a 6" crack on one side.
By now it was 10pm and we went looking for food on Tybee,but the Crab Shack was closing and the only thing left was the stew to which everyone greedily slurped up. Kara though underage was given a consolation draft beer.Some were still hungry so we went to the only other joint on the island at which the gap-toothed locals stared at us until the weeble wooble shaped waitress informed us that everyone not over 21 would have to leave .This caused Kara (a few months short of her 21st)to launch into one of her turrets syndrome cursing attacks that resulted in the waitress becoming so shocked she crept back to the bathroom and peered over the broken swinging door until Kara left the bar.Exhausted we all slunk back to the motel,waited imjpatiently for beach bum and his emaciated toothless skag to vacate the doorway while canoodling,and crashed onto our waifer thin pillows.
OK I GUESS THATS FUN...(?)
That morning the restaraunt next door was offering a breakfast special served by surprise! ,that woman from "Throw momma from a train"Or maybe it was Danny Devito's offspring with Rosie O'Donnell.I went down to River street with MJ to catch the sites and Kara and Mickey hit the liquor stores and the beach in that order.They proceeded to get drunk and accost every attractive person on the beach between 15 and 45 ,regardless of sex,social or financial status,and with or without their children in tow.Although either girl is highest end of physical 1-10 scale, so fierce was their come ons,flirts and sexual intimidation that even the boldest scurried like beach crabs from there combined powers.MJ and I returned in time for the girls to return from their triumphant reduction of everyone on the beach to cowering ninnies,beach patrol et al.
A little sobbering with food at a beachside grill restored our systems from the egregious affront of Ms .Momma from a Train.Next it was time for MJ and Mickey to pair up as they combined their powers for evil instead of for good by going to a little beach dive and bringing down the chaos on the oh so unhip locals.I exscused myself and went to see friends in town who had recently had a baby, a HUGE BABY HUEY BABY. I sat there as the mother attempted to restrain this Marlon Brando in diapers that alternately frowned,smiled ,drooled and gurgled like a mood ring mated with a friendly oyster.The phone rang with Kara's impatient rasp wishing me back as she had left the local beach dive after MJ began dirty dancing and Mickey had picked out some of the slower witted beachnecks for a game of tease and quash.
I returned to Tybee ,picked up Kara and we went to a small grill on River street and talked about nothing important and had some drinks.Finally Mickey began calling demanding to get into the hotel room and and when we returned we found her laying face down at the rooms door,mumblimg about the whorishness of MJ to wonder off with a 21 year old stud.He was going to walk her back to the hotel, oddly enogh this should have taken 3 minutes.I told the incoherent Mickey that MJ was a big girl and she would have nothing to worry about, and we all went to bed.Well,almost, about 30 minutes later Mickey shot out both her arms and nearly disclocated Kara's jaw as she was sleeping next to her."Get up "she said,"We gotta rescue MJ ,she's gonna be gang raped by the locals".Mickey then threw off the cover,and bound out the door wearing a tee-back and black tank top barely restaiming her huge cans.Shouting"SHIT!Shit!SHIT" out the door Kara ran after her equally atirred.More modestly dressed I ran next to the doorway to see them wrestling in the moonlight,Mickey howling like a bobcat and Kara pushed up against a powder blue 78 Granada that hadn't had a set of matching hubcaps since the Carter administation.As I watched Kara wrestle Mickey into submission I looked around for all the guests to be poking their unshaven(male and female )faces out the door or at least the bulky dwarf of a night manager to call out for quiet.Not a sound.Not a light came on.Nothing.Nothing out of place here....
Once Kara had put Mickey back to bed we sat up for a while contemplating what restraints would work best to keep Mickey from breaking out Godzilla style.Just then MJ returned from the beach,fully dressed but spreading sand under her clothes on every step.To this day she still insists that the walk back to the motel took 3 hours.
The next morning I'd had enough of the fun,we packed and left ,and I hope we touched the locals the same way they had touched us.BAD TOUCH!
After Action Report:
Kara carried black and blue marks all over her body for months after wrestling Mickey.Mickey insisted the highlight of the trip was her and Kara's shower together (to save time....?) after their beach foray,MJ gets teased by her 18 year old neice for still getting phone calls from her now 22 year old beach boy(she's 33).All I got was a check and a stupid t-shirt.