A Deal’s a Deal

By Jim DeFelice

s/vWindquest

(Jim submitted this story after reading the previous article on this page entitled “Perspective.”)

The modest Victorian house we bought in Atlantic Highlands, NJ sat close to the harbor.  The north winds off Raritan Bay beat up against the north facing and mostly un-insulated side of the house and rattled the old double hung windows.  Winters in the late 70’s were unusually cold. After our first winter we decided to install a wood burning stove in the living room.  This required a chimney. 

The house had been pieced together over the course of 100 years or so and held many structural secrets.  There appeared to be an inside chimney that ran up the living room wall and between the two front upstairs bedrooms.  But nothing showed above the roof.  I went to the attic and there was no chimney there either.  I pulled up the floor boards in the attic over where I projected the chimney should be and there it was.  At some point someone had decided to dismantle the top part of the old chimney.  It remained to simply rebuild the missing part out through the roof.

A call to the building supply people resulted in 200 bricks, several bags of cement, and a satisfying pile of sand appearing at curbside.  I said to my 9 year old son, Jeremy, “I’ll give you 5 cents for each brick to carry them up to the attic.” He did the math and figured 10 dollars was a goodly sum.

There were two and a half flights of stairs from the street to the attic.  Jeremy grabbed a brick in each hand and headed up.  He did this four times or so.  Then he did the math again.  He had earned 40 cents; he had to make 96 more trips.  He came to me and complained that he wasn’t being paid enough for such an arduous task.  I said, “A deal’s a deal. You can quit and I’ll give you the 40 cents I owe you”.  But Jeremy was not willing to forego the 10 dollars.  He rarely passed up money-making opportunities. He said he would finish the job.

Ever the entrepreneur, Jeremy enlisted the help of his 13-year-old friend Richard.  I have no idea what kind of deal was struck, but there they were with an old suit case that Richard had scrounged at his house.  They put 10 or so bricks in the suitcase and the two hauled the bricks to the attic.  Before I knew it Jeremy was asking for his 10 dollars.  I went to check the work.  All the bricks were in the attic.  They were stacked in the middle of the floor. I noticed as my head reached the level of the attic floor an alarming sag in the floor beams. I rushed to spread the bricks around the floor of the attic to even the load before a collapse.  Then I paid Jeremy his 10 dollars.  A deal’s a deal.