PROLOGUE AND G.B. cont. - page 5

G.B.

"Charle, June sixteen, nineteen and fifty, I stepped off 'a that Greyhound bus in Ash Fork, Arizona, sad, broke, busted an' mad as Hayll. I was mad as a snortin' bull on the wrong side of a barbed wire fence. I got a lift out to my uncle's flagstone quarry an' I asked him fer a job. Uncle Frank handed me a hammer, some wedges an' a pry bar. He told me, "Rock's over thar - start a-workin'"

"Will someone show me what to do, or will y'all learn me?" G.B. asked.

"Yall got tools Bremond." Uncle Frank told me, "An I reckon y'all got a brain, an' I told y'all where the stone is . . . y'all want me to do y'all's work fer ye?"

G.B. learned, earned and saved enough money doodling rock to buy an' old rock hauling truck. He slammed down his tools and began to haul stone for his uncle.

When stone company drivers were off for the night or home because of inclement weather, G.B. was out driving loads of stone into town, or he was digging his truck out of the mud.

G.B's bank account began to grow and with it his knowledge of Arizona's geology and the business of producing flagstone. He was hired as foreman when the company owner left Ash Fork to make major changes and open a sales division in Phoenix. G.B. was promoted to "Superintendent of Operations, Ash Fork Production Division."

I ate in cafes an' I worked hard from dawn 'till late. On weekends I played just as hard. I slept in a stack a'pallets at the stone yard 'till I got a chance to buy a cheap house. I'd be DAMNED if I'd pay rent with my hard earned money just so's I could sleep in someone else's house. I'm a-goin' an' a-blowin', steamin', dumb ol' Okie boy. I'm fify-seven an' I own a third a' this town. I'm a rich, bald-headed, son of a bitch, stingy ol' landlord, but I never did work a man cold, thirsty, hungry or without a house to go home to. Oh I've lived a hard life Charle, an if any danged renter tries to tell me what to do, why I tell 'em - DAMMIT - IF Y'ALL DON'T LIKE IT - MOVE!"

G,B, and the Strange Canadian Painter Lady
by Charlotte Madison and Nana Cook copyright 1994