When Things Don’t Fit
by Daniel R. Snyder
My father speaks to me in my workshop. With each shave of the
chisel, each push on the saw, each lap of the brush, I hear his voice.
Anything worth doing is worth doing well.
I lift the 1 x 4, place it gently on the particle board table
of the radial arm saw, turn on the power, listen to the whine of the
blade until it reaches just the right pitch, then slowly draw through
the board, careful not to splinter it. When the blade has passed
through and beyond, I pull the board away before sliding the motor back
to the heavy silver post. The board is longer than I need, the pencil
lines still showing, but I planned it that way. Next, I move to the
disk sander, a new piece of 100 grit sandpaper fastened to its polished
aluminum surface, and turn it on. I double-check the marks with my
father’s old tri-square, then sand both ends of the board until the
thin pencil line disappears in a cloud of sawdust. Unfolding a bright
yellow carpenter’s rule, I check the length. It’s perfect.
After I attach this board--pre-drilling holes so the nails
won’t split the hard oak, lightly covering the back with a patina of
carpenter’s glue, clamping it in place before fastening it, using a
fine point nail-set to recess the number-six heads deep below the
surface, filling the holes with color matched oak wood filler, sanding
with 200 grit sandpaper then working my way down to 400--the shelf will
be ready to finish. I promised I’d have John and Jennean’s bookshelf
done by the end of February. I’ll have it stained and varnished by
next weekend, and it’s only mid-January. I've kept my word.
As I move toward the drill press, holding the perfectly sanded
board with the perfectly routered Roman Ogee edge in my left hand, I
hear my father again.
A man always keeps his promises.
Sawdust blankets the steel table of the drill press. I reach
for a soft bristled dust broom hanging on a nail and clean off the
surface, then blow off what the broom misses until the gray-black
surface looks as clean as the day my father purchased it, and only then
do I set the board in position. A new carbide-tipped bit is already in
the chuck, sharp and black, ready to drill its first hole. I turn on
the power, reach for one of the ball-topped arms, slowly bring the
chuck down until the tip of the bit bites the surface, then start to
drill the hole.
Be patient. Let the blade do the work. Don’t force it.
I drill the first hole, no burning, no chipping, then move on
to the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth. There is only one to
go when my son walks into the workshop, and I’m a little surprised to
see that he’s still here.
“Want some help?”
The spell is broken and my father’s voice fades. I listen for
it in the deep thrumming of the drill press, tap on the wood with a
fingernail, hoping to hear him in the solid grain of the hardwood, but
he’s gone. I cock my head to the left, toward the rear of the shop.
“Go get two 18 inch bar-clamps and wait for me at the gluing table.”
He nods, heads across the room, studies the collection of
clamps hanging on the wall, looking for the ones I asked for. I turn
my attention back to the board and drill the last hole.
“How about these?” In each hand, he holds a clamp with bright
orange cast iron ends fitted onto a dull gray piece of ½” galvanized
pipe.
I shut down the drill press and move toward the table where the
nearly completed bookshelf lies on its side, small rubber tipped clamps
holding the fragile dentil molding to the fascia below the crown.
Eight band clamps wrap around it, holding the 26 ¼” shelves tight into
the 3/8” deep dadoes as the glue sets. John approaches the table.
Together, we turn the shelf onto its back, sliding a 2 x 4 underneath
the base to make room for the clamps. I need to dry-fit the kick plate
before I glue it into place.
“I’m sorry for what I said in there.” John slides his hands into his pockets.
“It’s alright. It’s your life. I shouldn’t have butted in like that.”
“I asked for your advice, Dad.”
“Seems like you already have your mind made up.”
When I need my father, I come out to the workshop to listen to
him. Most days it works. When I’m all alone, just me and the wood and
the tools, he guides me as I cut dovetails and rabbets, drill
countersinks and dowel holes, turn spindles on the lathe. My father
knew everything there was about woodworking--how to read the grain to
find just the right piece, the difference between wane and warp, cup
and check, twist and bow, whether a project required white oak or red,
mahogany or cherry, maple or birch. He could tell the difference
between Southern Yellow pine and Ponderosa pine by the smell. He always
knew exactly what to do.
“It’s coming out beautiful.” John runs the fingers of one hand
along the smooth surface of the face frame. “I still want it, you know.”
I’m not sure what to say to that. I was building it for the
both of them--open shelves on top for John’s books, raised panel doors
on the bottom--pine with teak inlay. You can’t find two more different
woods. Pine is a softwood, light colored, easy to sand. Teak is a
hardwood, dark, almost black, difficult to work. And yet, with a
little bit of coaxing and patience, they work together beautifully.
The doors hide the drawers below, sliding on thirty-pound
full-extension hardware for Jennean’s sewing supplies. The entire unit
is exactly 27”wide and 69” inches tall and fits where no commercially
made shelf would--below the sloped ceiling coming from the eaves in
their upstairs office overlooking the back yard. Last summer, I helped
them fit a vegetable garden between the waterfall we built the year
before and the gazebo we built the year before that.
“I’ll be keeping the house.” John checks the fit of the kick
plate, then reaches for the wood glue. “Jennean’s going to take the job
in Milwaukee.”
I nod and turn the kick plate onto its back. John tips the
bottle, squeezes, runs a bead of yellow carpenter’s glue along the
perimeter. I reach for a ½” wide nylon bristle brush sitting in a tin
can, then spread the glue into a thin film.
“You know,” I hand him the brush. “Your mother and I
had some rough times when you were younger.”
“I know.” He takes the brush to the sink and turns on the
water, rinses it out, then reaches for a rag hanging on a nail to the
left of the faucet and dries the bristles. Returning to the gluing
table, he places the brush back in the can. He has a damp sponge in
his hand. “I was there.”
I lift the kick plate, careful not to smear the glue. John
spreads the clamps. Together, we put the piece of oak at the base of
the shelf, making sure the top of the ogee is flush with the sharp edge
of the bottom shelf. John turns the clamp handles clockwise until
small beads of glue squeeze out of the joint. He mops them up with the
damp sponge.
“My father told me to stick it
out, and your mother and I have been married for thirty years now.”
“And how long has it been since you slept in the same bed?”
“That’s not the point.”
“What is it, then?”
“The point is that my father was right.” I slide a hand into
my leather apron and pull out a handful of six-penny finish nails. John
reaches to his right, opening a drawer in my father’s bright red
rolling toolbox, and takes out a twelve ounce finishing hammer. I set
the first nail into the pre-drilled hole. John lifts the hammer.
“You had kids.” He taps the
nail until it’s almost flush with the surface. “I know you stayed
together because of us.”
I reach for five more nails and
place them into the rest of the holes. “We stayed together because we
made a promise.”
“It’s a different world now, Dad.” He taps in the second
nail, and then the other four, hitting each one squarely on the head,
setting each one just above the face of the kick plate. “People don’t
stay together out of some sense of obligation. They stay together
because they love each other.”
“They stay together because they’re married and made a
commitment.” I meet his eyes for a moment, then reach for the sponge
and wipe up the last small blister of glue escaping from the joint.
“That’s what marriage is about.”
“What about love?” He takes
the sponge from my hand and heads for the sink. “What about people
growing apart?”
“People can grow back together.”
“Like you and Mom did?” He throws the sponge into the sink
without washing it out, rests his hands on the edge of the galvanized
sink, shoulders dropping, and he doesn’t turn around to look at me.
“There’s just some things you can’t fix with glue and some clamps, Dad.”
I scoop up the remaining nails and place them back in my apron,
then reach into the toolbox for the nail set. From across the shop I
hear the water running again as John rinses out the sponge. He wrings
it dry, tosses it onto the shelf above the sink, then turns and walks
back to the table, picking up the hammer again. He hands it to me. I
have to do this part on my own.
I line up the narrow tip on the head of the first nail, feeling
the rough knurling on the side of the nail-set, tap once, twice, and
then the head sinks below the surface. I do the same to the rest of
the nails, hitting each one squarely and solidly, like my father taught
me.
“I know you love Jennean, Dad.”
The shelf is now complete, and all that’s left is to fill the
holes. John sees this, sighs, and reaches into a wooden drawer below
the top of the gluing table and pulls out the wood filler. Just like
my father and me in the shop, John and I never need to talk about what
needs to be done--we just do it. He pops off the top of the can with a
screwdriver, takes a putty knife out of the drawer and digs in.
Pushing the filler into the holes left by the nail set, he presses
firmly with the flat of the knife so it won’t dislodge when we’re
sanding, slips the extra filler back into the can, scraping it off
sideways, then shaves the excess off the board, leaving it just a
little above the hole.
I unfasten the clamps, take them back to the wall and hang them
up, turning the handle of each one so it fits snugly on the rack. I
turn around to see John now has all the holes filled, and he’s wiping
the extra putty off the knife with a rag. I walk back to him, and he
looks up.
“We made a mistake, and we need to do something about it.” He
wipes an eye with the back of a hand. “I don’t need your permission
Dad, but I at least want your understanding.”
“I don’t want you to be unhappy.” Taking the putty knife from
him, I place it back in the drawer along with the screwdriver, the rag,
and the wood filler. “I don’t want Jennean to be unhappy either. I
guess you have to do what you have to do.”
And with that, a tear falls down his cheek, followed by several
more, and then he reaches out for me and puts his arms around me. I
return the hug.
Finally, I push him back, avoiding his eyes. “We can’t do
anything else until the filler dries. Let’s go get your mom to fix us
a cup of coffee.”
John wipes the tears off his cheeks and walks toward the door.
I stay for a minute, looking around the workshop, at the wall of
clamps, some mine, some my father’s, at his old band saw and my new
table saw, at the stacks of lumber and dustbins full of sawdust, at my
father’s rolling toolbox housing so many of the tools I inherited from
him. Finally, I move toward the door, turn out the fluorescent shop
light, then head for the house, hoping that when I die, my son will
think I left him with more than my father left me.
Originally Published in Raintiger
© 2004 by Daniel R. Snyder
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