Marvin&Company: Stories About Death And Entrepreneurship

We are arguing about a map. I’ve spent half a year completing a housing condition survey of the entire West side of Saratoga and now that the map is complete you don’t like where I’ve drawn the target area boundaries. A brilliant idea, I thought, a bit of gerrymandering to ensure a high score on the grant we’re about to submit. I’ve created a target area that includes the lowest income areas with the worst housing conditions and I’m too proud of my work to consider who that choice has left off the map.

You’re listing names now: all the people who need roofs and furnaces and accessible bathrooms, elderly ladies who make you cookies and tea, who you’ve told you would try your best to help. I’ve unintentionally excluded them in favor of statistics, and you are enraged. Your fists pound the table and your eyes are on fire. I’ve never seen you so upset – although this is nothing compared to our years of arguments to come.

Too angry and hurt to say anything, I walk out. Through the back door and down the street, headed toward the project we’re currently managing. It’s an abandoned building, torn apart with two walls and no roof, on its way to becoming three rent controlled senior apartments. While grinding my teeth and imagining witty comebacks, I’ve overlooked the fact that I walked down the street and onto an active construction site in a dress, with no shoes.

You follow me, of course, because you always do, and for the next decade you always will.

We’re calmer now, making tentative eye contact. You, a mountain man in a purple polo shirt, smiling in mild frustration. Me, blue silk skirt and bare feet, balanced precariously on a metal I-beam, surrounded by all the reasons I should have updated my tetanus shot. “Well…” you say, raising your eyebrows and spreading your hands. “Yeah” I respond. It’s as close as we’ll come to apologies today.

In two steps you’ve expertly traversing the space between us. You pick me up, flinging me over your shoulder with more force than I believe is truly necessary, and carry me back to the sidewalk. When I am back on the ground, you hand me my shoes.

I look up at you to say something, anything, to redeem myself, as this is clearly not my most professional moment. Before I can speak you say “They poured concrete this morning.” So we walk to the back of the building where a new concrete pad cures in the late afternoon sun. Without a word you take the pencil from behind your ear and write your initials, pass it to me so I can write mine. Somewhere on Washington Street in Saratoga, there is a utility room crawl space where MO & MRD is forever inscribed on the rear left corner of the concrete.

Later, we will revisit the map, add the missing data, give up a point or two so that a dozen more people are eligible for the grant program. I’ve learned the importance of valuing people over scoring criteria. Years from now you’ll tell me this was the day you knew ours was a friendship destined for longevity.