You Get Full Credit For Being Alive

Chapter Fourteen

"Great" might have been overstating it. I printed off plans for a set of parallel bars and spent two hours trawling through the hardware store two towns over, looking for what I needed. It turned out I needed a lot more than I'd bargained on— in addition to the raw materials I needed saws, levels, a drill, two different types of screwdrivers, screws, special nails... it was a shit lot of stuff.

Shawn looked at me with wide, doubtful eyes back at the house when I laid all of this out in front of him. "We're building this," I said, passing him the plans. He took them and shuffled through the sheets slowly. "Or actually, you're building it; I'm just a set of hands, man."

Shawn's enthusiastic nod made me laugh. "I didn't expect you to agree quite so fast."

"Dude. Ramps. Two feet long and still bumpy."

"Don't look at me like that, ramps are hard to make."

Shawn rolled his eyes. "Yes, triangles are sooo hard. Good thing it's not an octagon."

"Are you always a smartass when you're well-rested, or is this attitude special just for me?"

Shawn reached out and tapped me with the toe of his right foot. His leg shook a little from exertion but I was impressed that he was able to do the move. "Special for you Justin." I tried not to let that make me feel warm inside, but it was too late. Of course, then he followed it up with, "Don't touch anything okay? Wait for me."

I helped Shawn down onto the floor next to me (with his back propped against the couch— he couldn't hold a sitting position for too long yet) and started sorting things out. I had been thinking we'd get most of it done today, honestly, but Shawn insisted on measuring everything.

"What do you mean, they're too long?" I asked as I held up the two-by-fours that would support the parallel bars.

"Too long for me. Look." Shawn shifted around until he was on the ground and arranged one of the pieces of wood next to him. The top of it came up to just above his hipbone.

"It looks perfect."

"Extra hit."

"Extra what?"

Shawn sighed and struggled to push himself back up into a sitting position. My hands itched to help him, but I forced myself to stay still until he was upright and tilted against the couch again. He slowly typed, "Extra height with the bars on top. Not adjustable, so make it right first time."

Oh right, the bars on top. "Okay," I said. "So how long should these be, then?"

After almost two hours we got as far as cutting the boards, after Justin measured them all and made sure they were equal. He monitored my sawing closely, and even tried it himself a few times, but his control just wasn't quite there. After a few hash marks appeared he frowned and handed the tool back to me. Not that I did it perfectly, but at least I got it done. After that he insisted on sanding the pieces— why I didn't know, it wasn't like he was going to be putting his hands on that part of the apparatus, but it was good exercise so I agreed. Della watched us make the mess with interest, sitting far enough back that the sawdust stayed out of her nose.

"I think that's good enough for today," I said once all the pieces were smoothed down. "We can pick it up again tomorrow." I started to pack everything up and shove it over against the wall.

"Clean saw."

"What?"

"Clean the saw." Shawn pointed at the cheap little handsaw sitting on the plywood board I'd bought for a base. "Lasts longer that way."