Never Again – 26

 

Two days after Joseph's talk with Steve, Cal reappeared and immediately called a meeting for all of the people who worked for Rebuild NOLA. As soon as everyone was seated or standing along the walls of the largest room in the Rebuild headquarters, he held up a thick folder.

"We now own the apartment complex and have all the paperwork needed to start refurbishing it."

A cheer went up from the men and women. Only then did Cal break into a wide smile, his glance landing on Joseph for just an instant before it returned to the group as a whole.

"I'll supervise there. Steve will handle the day-to-day on the houses we're still working on until they're finished. I'm pulling Dan, George, Lars, and Joe off of them to work with me."

Well, at least he's apparently not regretting our last meeting, was Joseph's immediate thought when he heard his name called. Hopefully.

After that, Cal had Steve briefly go over what still needed to be done on the houses to get everyone up to speed, and then the meeting broke up. All the men left with the exception of the four Cal would have on his crew.

"This is going to be a big job," Cal told them. "The biggest one we've done so far. So we're going to have to plan things out down to the smallest detail."

With that said, they moved to a smaller room where he had the building plans laid out on a large table. For the next hour they went over them inch by inch. Then they headed out to the site.

It took most of the rest of the day to set up the chain-link perimeter fences and the various workstations. Cal seemed to be everywhere at once since this job was ten times as big as any of the ones for the houses. He helped with a recalcitrant area of the fence and explained how he wanted the workstations set up. At one point he handed Joseph a list, telling him to check that all the supplies he'd ordered had come in, before dashing off to do something else.

Joseph had the feeling they wouldn't have broken for lunch if he hadn't taken it upon himself to call a local deli for food to be delivered. When it arrived, Cal seemed ready to protest they didn't have the time before thinking better of it. He grabbed one of the subs, scarfed it down in half the time of a normal man, and was on his feet and back to work seconds later.

"He's going to kill himself if he doesn't slow down," George grumbled. "Or us," he added with a small grin.

Lars nodded. "I've never seen him this excited and I've been with Rebuild almost from the start."

As the newest member on the team by far, Joseph couldn't comment other than to say, "He probably considers this the first step to getting more buildings and wants to make sure nothing goes wrong."

The other men agreed, but from the look Dan gave him, Joseph wondered if he'd spoken out of turn.

As they returned to work, Joseph saw Dan grab Lars' arm and whisper something to him, glancing back at Joseph as he did. He had the feeling whatever Dan was saying, it wasn't complimentary.

By the end of the day, everything was set up. Cal did a quick walk-through, said they'd done a good job, and told them he'd see them in the morning. As everyone walked to their vehicles, he came up beside Joseph, asking quietly, "Do you have time for a beer?"

Since it was the first time today he'd actually spoken to him other than to give orders, Joseph was surprised at the question but replied by saying, "Sure. Where?"

"Do you know Makey's on Royal?"

"Vaguely. It's not too far from here. Right?"

"Right. Just take St Claude, hang a left at Piety and a right on Royal."

"I'll find it. See you there in fifteen."