[Castle In the Sky - 1] Renovation Exhaustion

Clifton Fuller broke through the wall and turned his head from side to side.  It’d taken less than half an hour to tear the wall down. Ever since he was a child he always wondered what the inside of Castle Manor looked like. But he wasn’t allowed to even go up the hill. His mother had always been bitter against the Roddicks but never told him him. Even as an adult when he asked, she merely walked away muttering how it wasn’t any of his business.

When he told her he was doing some renovations to the house, she almost blew a lid. But he was a businessman and as much as he hate seeing her so upset, he had bills to pay. Stepping through the large hole in the wall, he pushed the goggles to the top of his head and placed the giant hammer on the floor. Kenneth Roddick wanted the two rooms merged into one large room which made no earthly sense. The rooms were giant enough on its own. But, the rich always lived in excess.

“Whoa!”

Clifton spun around. Kenneth was stepping through where the wall used to be with a bewildered look on his face. Clifton arched a brow.

“You asked me to take down the wall. Why are you shocked?” Clifton wanted to know.

“There’s a giant hole.”

“Um. Yeah. That’s what normally happens during reno–are you feeling okay?”

Kenneth almost stumbled over the sledgehammer but caught himself to nod. “Yeah. Sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude I just heard a loud bang and was curious as to what it looked like.”

“Well, this is it.”

He watched Kenneth walked around the dusty room for a bit before turning to head into the other side where his tools were. The fact was his mother was not a fan of this family for a reason so the less time he spent with any of them, the better. Still it was kind of stupid hating someone with no reason. Taking a breath, he hunched down before his tool bag and dug around in it for the measuring tape. he needed to see how much more of the wall he needed to take out before he can make the two ends like the drawing he’d designed.

“You don’t talk much, do you?” Kenneth asked.

Clifford pulled the measuring tape down from where he’d been holding it and walked over to Kenneth. “Here,” he said, handing Kenneth one end. “Hold here.”

He then turned back the other way, dragging the other end to the curve in the wall. With the pencil that had been sitting behind his ear, he marked the wall then turned to Kenneth. “Let go.”

Kenneth released it and the tape measure slid easily back into the holder. “That wasn’t what I meant.”

“You hired me to do a job, Mr. Roddick…”

“Mister? Just call me Kenneth. My friends call me, Ken.”

“That’s just it. I’m not your friend. You hired me to do a job, with a deadline and I’m doing my damndest to meet that deadline. If you want a conversation, you’ll have to either wait until the job is over or go to hell.”

Kenneth nodded but something flashed in his eyes. Clifton felt like a jerk but he just couldn’t help himself.  “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be a jerk.”

“It’s fine. I have to head out. Lock up when you’re done.”

He left Clifton standing in the midst of a mess of his own making. Clifton hung his head, shook it then went back to work.

By the time it got dark outside, he was still not over what happened. He wasn’t normally a rude person but after growing up for so long hearing nothing but bad things about the Roddicks that reaction just came out.  He drove by a car heading up the hill and thought it was probably Kenneth and he felt even worse. But he didn’t stop to check or turn back.  At the foot of the hill he headed left toward the center of town.  When he was close enough, he made a right turn onto Dearburn. He parked before his house and sat in the car, his body throbbing and eyes burning from the lack of sleep.  He wasn’t sure his legs would hold him up if he tried walking to the house.

Still, he grabbed his tool belt, bag and lunch pail and pushed from the front seat. After ensuring it was locked, he made his way inside, chucked everything to the floor and climbed the stairs to the bedroom. Though he had time to strip down a shower didn’t happen.

He merely collapsed, face first, on the bed