The Hod Carrier’s Morning Break
Break time, break time. The bricklayers go wherever they go. Here I put my hod aside. Here I sit against the new brick wall. I go half unconscious. Just half, just half. Francis, come home. That’s what they always say to me. Francis come home. They say I’m over the hill. Well, that’s not true. Maybe up the slope sort of far, but not over the hill. In the morning I rise sore all over as usual. Heavily I move to the bathroom and take my morning shower. I am filled with sorrow at there being another day. I wish in many ways that it would be over but I have to show them. Besides, I need more money. The longer I hang in there the more money I will have.
Prickles; bristling prickles of joy. In the basement of life, I live. Off of the walls I lick it. It oozes from the walls. I’ve got to show I’m still made of what I used to be made of—iron and steel. Fit to carry a hod. Fit to serve three bricklayers. Oh my God, my God, how tired I am. It’s curtains for me. There’s nothing sadder than someone who’s over the hill and won’t admit it. You need to go out with them wanting more, not wishing you would leave the stage. I am living proof. An old man like me has no business doing this. I should be off walking with a cane.
Hurry up! Hurry up to go to the memories. And the guts of the fish are steaming on the grass. On the grass in the soul of the land, it goes. It goes and goes and at last it is full of Freddie. I am over the hill from being full of Freddie. He went down to work and sat in his chair. He couldn’t comprehend it all. Hey, Mr. Bassman, he is gone in the guts of the thing, they are full of it. Hot damn—the egg! I wanted to go but I dare not go because I’m over the hill and I got no more to give, no more, no more to give like that and I’m behind the wheel of the limo and I’m speeding and here’s the warmth of an idea; I’m the driver of a limo. No more hod. Geese fried in the egg. That’s it.
Geese fried in the egg is my dish, Iron Chef! Hurtful naught, buy a knife, buy a uniform, wear it downtown wearing wooden shoes. Wear a German uniform downtown with Dutch wooden shoes on and go to the bar and sit. Oh I couldn’t be seen walking with him, I couldn’t be seen doing such things—you are you are you are the willow wand. You are the willow wand and I am the willow. What am I over the hill from? Being a hod carrier. Hot dog!
I want to go and run and do it, but I’m not so sure the men will have me, I’m not built like them, and I’m not sure the women will want me, I’m not built like them either. In the way he goes, up to the tippy top, point out the fryers in the lot of chickens, I should work in a chicken factory my job should be to spot the bad chickens and throw them in a bin at the side and use my nose and my eyes; if they are crispy without being cooked, they’re no good. I’m the streamliner come down the track, free, goop, idea, lost, Mighty Mouse, Mickey as opposed to mini.
I don’t think they will let me carry a hod much longer and they won’t let me go to the house to get my things and I am moving out that’s it it’s just like that, I’m moving out and I want nothing to do with you and I don’t know. What is the right word to say? What is in the cards? I’m an over the hill card player. They think—wait a minute—wait a minute—he’s over the hill, he’s got something to prove, he’s out to prove it, does he succeed or does he fail? Heft the hod. Heft it. They will know, when it’s over, if he had succeeded or failed. Like that story I read that time. You know the one.
The one about the Piano. He’s a washed-up piano player. He is, he is, he is, he is, yes yes yes yes, but he plays the shit out of the thing anyway. It dries up well in the sun but it stays wet in the shade. Something to do with hod carriers. There was warmth before. Let the warmth come up! Let it up! My hand went on the doorknob. The door opened. I stepped through. The Ventures are the guts of the sound and give out the wrong way to be the future people of the earth and I got hey! Trials! Froggy! Do it ripe in the Lenten season! And he’s got a door to go through beyond which he will know if he has succeeded or failed. I can make if I can make it I am just the one who can make it in the farts.
Away with Moon Unit Zappa. Moon kilns in Gene’s jeans. Merry goop! Go the way of the cross and carry the cross and go up the Via Dolorosa and toward the place of the skull and now take a break to read about the Ventures? What are you thinking my man? Are you kidding me? No no no, he is over the hill as a hod carrier, and he wildly prays to Jesus until it’s all over. Tell it slant. You got a lot of nerve. Using her words the way you do. God damn you! Up and up and up I go higher and higher up the count there’s still plenty of time to make it to the top and get off the ground for the sanity show and the silent heat lightning in the summer night and there’s so much going on too! Push, push, hurt! He is hurt!
On the ground he went, in the grey stone tackle box. My first song. I am Spanish. I only speak Spanish. There you go. Its all here in this file; cement a flash drive in the wall and you’ve got a bit of enzymaticism flowering in the darkness. Rush the tackle box. Rush it! The fish are in it and the cars flow by all multicolored tops and hoods and bumpers they don’t make them like they used to thank God they don’t make them like that any more. What are you doing uncle Albert? I’m overhauling this straight eight in this Pontiac. Cow. Cat. Barn. Fluff. Hurt the dry men. Hurt the dry men.
Death by ten thousand cuts. What a way to go. Have you seen the pictures of that? What death could be worse? Hurtfulness. I am not over the hill! I have a lot to prove! Get in the oil you fish! Dry the porcupine. Dead fox in the road. The organ swells. Dry in the poodle pen. There he is. They don’t live long. They can just drop dead just like that. That’s the best way to go. See, you’re not over the hill. Drive the car and grip the wheel and push the gas and go go go to the next place to be. Hurry hurry up tiny Tim, the male bandit. The house of pain in Peking China. Dry the fish. The crispy fish is dry. Wring out the friar’s way of life, gonna go try the friar’s way of life. Into the puddle drive the sedan.
Ouch! Ouch, he cried out. To the wall he leaned back on. I troll deep for the big ones they’re few and far between but when they’re big they’re worth it. Oh my God! Oh my God! I can still run with the best of them—that’s what he’s over the hill for—he was a runner and he went over the hill. Not a hod carrier at all. That is my limit. I can’t go any further I can’t I can’t it’s not in the cards for me I started from almost nothing and got up this high so I got to make it all the way, hot damn! The doctor will call and we’ll make another appointment and it’ll be okay with the doctor, hot damn!
He goes up the wall this high the first time, that high the second time, this high the third time, and yes, oh yes, I’m going to make it because I am not over the hill at all; the auto shop teacher cried let go of my finger before sending the boy to the principal’s office and Panetta said the world is shit and I’m zeroed in on it; it’s a game it’s all a game. I got it in my sights now and the eagle has landed—but the bricklayer comes by and taps me on the shoulder. Break’s over now, shit! Break’s over now, shit! Wait no need ten more wait no need ten more wait no need ten more there you go, break’s over now, shit! My eyes open. Here I come, I rise, regrip my hod. Here I come to the pile of bricks. Here I come back to the backbreaking job.
*** Translated back into English the above means the following: A brick hod is a three-sided box for carrying bricks or other construction materials, often mortar. It bears a long handle and is carried over the shoulder. A hod is usually long enough to accept four bricks on their side, however, by arranging the bricks in a chevron fashion, the number of bricks that may be carried is only limited to the weight the laborer can bear and the unwieldiness of that load. Hod carrying is an unskilled laboring occupation in the building industry. Typically ten to twelve bricks might be carried.
Typically the hod carrier or hoddie will be employed by a bricklaying team in a supporting role to the skilled bricklayers. Two bricklayers for each hod carrier is quite normal. The hoddie’s duties might include wetting the mortar boards on the scaffolding prior to fetching bricks from the delivery pallet using his hod and bringing them to two by two wide stacks upon the scaffold that may then be easily laid by the bricklayers. The carrier needs to time deliveries of bricks with deliveries of mortar—also carried in the hod, to ensure the bricklayers maintain a constant work rate. On sites without premixed mortar, the mortar will also be mixed by the hod carrier.
Bricks may be cut and assistance given to rake out the mortar joints, if that form of coursing joint is required, or in repointing work. The baseline rate for a bricklayer is to lay one thousand bricks a day, if the hod carrier is serving a team of two then he must move two thousand bricks although it is not uncommon for experienced hod carriers to serve three bricklayers. In the song Never Any Good, Martin Simpson describes his father as not steady enough for the office, not hard enough for the hod. In the classic Irish song Tim Finnegan, Tim carries a hod.