Garner was catching his breath about ten feet up on a fifteen-foot plywood column form. He looked down at the foreman, smiled, made a friendly two-finger salute and continued to the top of the column. He needed this job- not for the money, of course. He would need these people as character references later.
A typical building is made up of slabs of concrete held up by pillars of concrete that separate the slabs making the floors. The pillars are made by placing reinforcement steel in a plywood form and then filling the form with concrete. In order to be reusable, the forms are made from two 'L' shaped plywood frames that are placed together to make a box that is about two and a half feet square and twelve to fifteen feet high. The two sides are held together by steel column clamps. In order to fill the form with concrete, a laborer will climb up the side of the column using the column clamps as a ladder. A crane swings a bucket full of concrete over the opening at the top of the column and the laborer pulls a level at the bottom of the bucket to release the concrete. Then, as though the job isn't difficult enough already, the laborer must drop a vibrator hose into the concrete to get it to flow into all of the nooks and crannies in the steel. The vibrator looks like an old style canister vacuum cleaner with a long hose, and weights fifty or sixty pounds.
On a good day the laborer may get cramps in his toes from standing on the two-inch column clamps while attending to the concrete. He will almost certainly loose small chunks of flesh from his hands and arms as they come into contact with the unforgiving reinforcement steel or the steel bucket that holds the concrete. If the vibrator has a short circuit, current will flow into the wet concrete, though the wet plywood and into the column clamps on which he is standing. It won't be a shock. It will be more like a tinkling sensation that draws the strength from his legs until he feels like he can no longer hold himself up with his feet.
On a bad day there might be an accident. The column clamps could slip allowing the form to separate under the weight of the poured concrete. Or the braces that hold up the form may not hold, allowing the form to tip over taking the laborer down with it. If the crane operator is inexperienced he may knock the top of the column with bucket or knock the laborer off his precariously balanced perch. If the crane operator is not paying attention, he may pull the bucket away before the laborer has let go of the lever leaving him dangling for his life thirty feet in the air.
A man can survive a fall of twelve to fifteen feet. But at the construction site there are two by four stakes holding column braces and wired frames of reinforcement steel awaiting their turn for the concrete bucket. If the laborer falls and is impaled on one of these many booby traps, it will tear through his tender flesh and the chances of survival are much less.
Filling the column forms is a job for a man who does not know fear. But there are very few men who truly do not know fear. So the form filler controls his panic by resigning himself to the fact that he might die at any moment and prays only that it will be quick and painless. He does not think about the cramps and numbness in his legs, nor the many nicks and scabs on his hands. He measures his life in the number of columns filled. And his one satisfaction is that the measure of his life will last for centuries, whereas the things that other people use to measure their lives are as transitory as a cool breeze.
It might seem odd, to an outside observer, that the only Anglo, on a construction site with several dozen Mexican Americans, would be called Tacos. But it was a nickname he picked up almost at once when he began working at the site.
The first day on the job Garner brought some fried corn tortilla shells in his lunch. He thought they were just big nacho chips and didn't realize he was supposed put something in them. To the other workers, this looked very strange. It was like eating a sandwich made entirely out of two pieces of bread. Some stared and some just shot quick glances until Garner noticed that they looking at him askance.
"What?" he asked.
"Whatchu eating there?" one answered.
Garner looked down at his half eaten taco shell and said defensively, "What's wrong with this? I like tacos?"
The other workers chuckled and went back to their lunches. They would have a good story to tell went they got home, about the silly Anglo who was trying too hard to fit in.
A tortilla is a very thin, pancake-like, piece of bread made from flour. When you put something in it, it becomes a taco. Hence, the difference between a tortilla and a taco is the same as the difference between bread and a sandwich. So what Garner had said would have been just like somebody eating two pieces of plain bread together and claiming they liked sandwiches.
The men who work on a construction site form an exclusive club that newcomers must gain acceptance into. They labor in the heat and the dirt exposing their skin to the sun and their knuckles to the unforgiving steel reinforcement bars. Before they accept you, you must prove that you are tough enough to be one of them. One of the many rituals the new guy, especially a young new guy, is put through it being tagged with a nickname. Initially the nickname is used derisively. But as the newcomer proves himself, the nickname takes on a tone of acceptance and respect.
Beginning immediately, the other workers forgot Garner's real name and began calling to him "Hey, you, the guy who likes tacos." Each time he was called in this way, it would raise a round of chuckles from the men who were within earshot. By the second week it was shortened to just "Tacos". But Garner did his work and took the ribbing with good nature. By the third week the nickname was used with respect and acceptance. "Tacos" came to mean "the guy who we are willing to work with, even if he doesn't know the difference between a taco and a tortilla." It all began with a silly mistake on Garner's part, but it would turn into a huge payoff later.
It was also strange that one as young and inexperienced as Garner would be a column filler. But that was less by accident and more by design.
One day, about a month and a half after Garner began working at the construction site, the column filler, Jose, was climbing a tall column on the corner of a first floor slab. The slab was on a hill and this corner was five or six feet about the ground. The column form was precariously braced by two lengths of two by fours nailed together and then nailed at one end to a stake in the ground and at the other end to the column form. Jose climbed a ladder at the corner of the slab and then continued to climb the column on an outside face. Normally, he would climb a corner column on an inside face. If the form tipped over, for some reason, the fall to the slab would be six or so feet less than the fall to the ground. This might be enough to make a difference between injury and death.
As Jose reached the top of the column, the brace bowed and the form began to lean out over the ground. Jose screamed and Garner picked up a double length two by four, braced it against the column on one side and against his tool belt buckle on the other. This held the column long enough for the other workers to run over and straighten it up. Jose descended the column form barely able to hold on due to his shaking. He then sat on the edge of the slab and put his face in his hands. A few of his closest friends came over to console him.
Garner shored up the braces and double braced the form on the side where it had given out before. He then called over to Jose, "It's O.K. now, Jose. I've got it double braced. It won't move again."
But Jose had made the mistake of looking down when the column leaned. Instead of seeing the ground, he saw the very real possibility of death. And now he could not get it out of his mind. He thought about his family who depended on his income. He thought about the Sunday afternoon family gatherings where they had barbacoa and beer and good Mexican music. He thought about his children who would become ragged street urchins without him. He looked at the column and the risks it represented and could not force him self to go near this threat to his family.
"It's O.K. Jose," Garner screamed as the foreman approached at a brisk clip, "I got it secured now."
But as the foreman drew close and Jose remained sitting on the edge of the slab with his thoughts about eternity, Garner stood up with practiced arrogance and said "Hell, if you won't do it, I will!" All the men within earshot stopped to ponder if they had really heard what they thought they had heard. Jose was the column filler, the man who lived on the edge. The man who knew no fear. He was the alpha male among the workers and the new kid, barely in the pack, was challenging him. But the alpha male had obligations beyond the pack. He had a life and a family and was in no frame of mind to rise to the challenge.
"You think you can fill a column, Tacos?" the foreman screamed. "Then let's see you get up there and do it."
Everybody thought that the new kid would back down and withdraw the challenge. But it was the moment that Garner was waiting for, maybe even practicing for. Garner ran over to the slab, up the ladder, carefully around to the inside face and then up the column like a monkey scurrying up a jungle gym.
He got to the top waved his free hand at the foreman and hollered, "Bring on the bucket."
Nobody ever asked who put the ladder leading up to the outside face of the column. They never wondered if using the same nail holes twice weakened the brace. Nor did they wonder why a double length two by four was conveniently within reach for Garner to prop the leaning column. They just looked at him in all his bravery and majesty at the top of the column and granted him the allegiance he deserved.