It was early fall and still hot as hell.  We piled into Patrick’s truck, and instantly began to stick to the seat, and to each other.  Hans, Patrick and myself, the Jorgenson brothers.  We were quite a sight I’m sure.  Three over six foot, over two hundred pound, Aryan super children all stuffed into an overwhelmed Toyota mini truck.

 We were Newport Beach white trash.  Houses rented not owned, cars owned (for many years) not leased, Japanese not German, clothes Dickies and Levis, not Polo and Levis.  We shopped at Stater Bros. not Trader Joes or Whole Foods Market.  We drank domestic beer by the twelve pack, well they did, I was a teetotaler.  Which meant I was more cheerful in the mornings, but less cheerful overall. 

 I didn’t smoke either, which meant when I wasn’t driving I was shoved in the middle so the two chimneys could have an exhaust port.  “So nice of you to finally get here, hope I didn’t inconvenience you”.  I said to Patrick.

 “Sorry, but he was asleep when I got there again.”  Patrick replied after losing the goofy grin he usually wore.  Then in real heart felt anger he added, “it took me fifteen minutes to get him out of bed”, and then snap right back to goofy grin again. 

 I wasn’t mad.  Hans is always asleep when you pick him up. When we work far away, Hans sleeps in his clean work clothes, and when we arrive to pick him up we literally throw him out of the bed.  He sleep walks to the truck with his sleeping bag in his hand and climbs in the back.  Then when we get to the job we need to throw him out of the truck.  He then lights a cigarette and proceeds to work harder than the two of us combined.  He was really a good drywall man.  When work was over he climbed back in the truck and went back to sleep until he got home.  We didn’t need to throw him out at home, he jumped out with a smile and started his day right then and there.  One day I asked him why he did this, and he said “cause then work seems like just a bad dream.”

 I told the homeowner that we would be there a half an hour later than I told my brothers cause, like I said this always happens.  Hans was already asleep leaning half out the window.  We had the Iggie’s Greatest blasting out the stereo.  We were hustling down Pacific Coast Highway heading for Huntington Beach.  Ms. Fortney was expecting us at eight, it was twenty til, no problem.  I had already bought the materials they were thrown in the back of the truck.

 Patrick asked, “what are we doing today?”

 I had already told him twice, but that was before the twelve pack last night so it didn’t count.  “Three rooms, remove the cottage cheese, paint the ceiling with Kilz, and reshoot it.”

 “Can I spray?”

 “no”

 “Why not?”

 “Cause you suck”

 “that’s fucked up, I never get to spray,”  goofy grin has been replaced with sad face.  It is quite heartbreaking.  He might start crying any moment.

 “maybe I’ll teach you to spray today.”

 “maybe I’ll teach you to scrape today”, goofy grin back.  Scraping cottage cheese has to be the worst job this side of sanding ceilings.

 “I’m not fuckin scrapin”, said the comatose Hans.  Maybe he just pretends to sleep so we won’t talk to him.  We called him Archie Bunker cause he was always a big jerk, especially in the mornings.

 “We just brought you to sleep in the truck so it wouldn’t get stolen,” Patrick replied.

 “We wouldn’t ask you to actually do anything, just cause we’re paying you,” I added trying to be funny. 

 “I’m not scraping”

 I tried to think of something funny to say.  Nothing came.  That was our real job, being funny.  When we worked together we had to be funny, or else we would get into a fist fight.  Like all brothers everywhere we hated each other.  We loved each other too, but hate is a stronger emotion when no tragedy is upon you.  Since people didn’t like to have, big white trash gorilla’s fist-fighting in their house we tried to be funny.  It worked most of the time.

 We had a routine.  I was the straight man, Hans was the grumpy one, and Patrick was the funny one.  And he was really funny.  He had this second grader kind of personality, silly happy, not real bright, full of innocence and wonder and then bam razor sharp wit.  He’d play it off as if he didn’t know what he said, but he did.  My brothers, all six of them, were sharp.  We just didn’t like school.  So we work construction, and share our brilliance with a bunch of ex high school football heroes and illegal aliens.  I think if we had our own radio show we could really make it big, but you always think you’re funnier than everyone else does.

 I give the necessary directions, right here, left here all the while Iggy wants to be my dog, and wants to take a ride and other brilliant junkie shit.  Into the driveway.  “Get everything out of the truck, I’ll go get things set up.”  We took turns being the boss depending on who got the job.  It was usually me though since I was the better salesman.

 I knocked on the door, precisely three minutes early.  Ms. Fortney opened the door, “good morning Carl, would you like some coffee?”

 “had mine already thanks, are you ready for us?”  I knew she was, she looked ready to bolt out the door.  But asking, is a nice brown nosing technique that I had acquired, much to the admiration and disgust of my brothers.

 “Oh, yes yes, I am just leaving for the mall.  I’ll be back about two do you need anything?”

 “Nothing at all, we should be done by the time you get back”

 “oh good good, I’ll see you later then, help yourself to the fridge”  perfect I thought.  She reminded me of my second grade teacher.  Overly sweet, probably in her early sixties.  She wore pleated jeans and a light sweater, pretty cool for a grandma.  She climbed into her Benz, navigated around the truck and took off for the mall.

 I like it much better when they leave.  You don’t have to feel them looking over your shoulder, you can play your own music loud.  You can use the phone without asking.  And you don’t have to pretend the job you charged eight hours for really takes eight hours.  We could take a long lunch, plenty of cigarette breaks, and drink all of her soda, if it wasn’t diet, life is good.

 I had a plan.  “Ok, all of us will move the furniture in the first room.  Then I’ll start masking off the first room while the two of you do the next two rooms.  When your done, Hans starts masking the second room, and Patrick starts masking the third.  Everyone scrapes their own room, touches it up, paints it and I’ll spray the first and third rooms, Hans does his own.”

 “I thought you were gonna let me spray”

 “I’ll help you, but get it ready.  And we all clean up our own rooms.  Patrick turn on the radio.  The radio not some tape.”  If you used tapes, you spend half the day changing tapes instead of working.

 Minutes later furniture was being moved to the best rock of the sixties and seventies.  My plan was working perfectly.  By the time I had finished taping off the walls, and draping plastic over the whole room.  Hans was starting on his room.  He didn’t say a word about scraping, I guess he figured if we all had to do it it was okay.  What he meant earlier was, “if you think I am going to scrape everything myself your high.” 

 I had completely bagged off my room.  Only the ceiling was uncovered, everything carefully taped together so as to make a huge trashbag and can.  Absolutely no ventilation whatsoever.  I checked on the brothers.  Told them to mask carefully.  They thanked me for my timely advice and suggested I go procreate with myself.  I walked out the front door and returned with the garden hose.  The pressure was on, water held back by the gunlike nozzle.  It still seems weird to walk into a house with a live hose.  I could pretend I was a fireman but I didn’t have a mustache.  I sprayed the ceiling with the hose.  Drenching it well.  If I didn’t the cottage cheese would be a bitch to get off.  Almost as soon as I was done, Hans was looking for the hose.  I gave it to him, grabbed a broad knife and started scraping as fast as I could.  It scraped off as easy as a dry booger flicking off your finger.  I removed my shoes so as not to deposit cottage cheese on the carpets. “hurry up lazy ass!”  I yelled at Patrick before I walked out of the house to grab the paint and roller.  He seemed to need encouragement.  He had more experience masking than any of us, but we always seemed to be faster.

 “Toby’s goin just as fass as he can boss, please don’t wup toby boss,” Patrick was smiling again. 

 “Well you betta move that big brown ass a yours then boy”, In my best southern accent.  Which wasn’t very good anyways.  I smiled, and laughed out loud when I thought of how it must look to someone on the outside of our little circle of labor.  Three tattooed, blonde haired, monsters from one of Hitler’s wet dreams making racially tinged jokes.  We weren’t racist at all, atleast I didn’t think we were.  We grew up in the barrio, most of our friends were Mexican, I was friends with the only black kid in town.  I remember I let him beat up my brother Hans once cause he called him a nigger.  We just didn’t think about race much, so we felt we could joke about it with impunity.  Maybe we were wrong but we thought we weren’t.

 Now for the paint part.  Kilz is a stain killer, and sealer.  It is a pigmented shellac.  It says right on the label, use in well ventilated areas only.  I didn’t read the label.  I walked into my  balloon and started rolling.  With a paper mask over my mouth and nose I was sweating like a pig, the water made the already hot room into a steam bath.  I couldn’t take the added heat of the mask so I took it off, and then the intoxicating fumes began to work their magic.  Now usually we do one room at a time so the total time in the room is less.  And there is plenty of time to breath clean air in between rooms.  Well my way seemed much faster. And I was getting a pretty good buzz going.  I finished painting my room and told Hans to make sure and where his mask cause I was good and wasted. 

 “light weight, hey Patrick Carl’s wasted.”  Much laughter including my own.

 “If you knew how to drink you wouldn’t be such a puss” Patrick laughed, so did Hans.  I think I laughed the most and went and grabbed the texture machine, while Hans started painting.

 I stumbled into the room, hoisted the hopper to my shoulder and started spraying.  Now spraying acoustic ceiling is one of the shittiest jobs on the planet.  This wet Styrofoam shit flies at the ceiling, only about half of it sticks the rest falls right into your eye.  If you try to wear some form of eye protection it clouds and coats and renders you blind in no time.  So your reflexes and eyelashes are your only protection.  There is also a nice glob of cottage cheese that leaks down your trigger hand.  You feel slimy, and hot, and blind.  And today also wasted out of my mind.  I thought maybe my brothers are right, I am only this wasted cause I am not used to being intoxicated.   I am sure they are okay.  They are always wasted.  I can’t really even tell what I am doing any more.  I struggle to keep my mind together with sporadic success.  I try to rely on instinct, following a set pattern.  When I am finished, I am glad to be out of that wonderland.  I take my shoes off again and bring the hopper to Hans.  He hands the roller and paint to Patrick and giggles a bit.  I guess the mask doesn’t help.  He says “I am fucked up” I begin to be worried.  I also know that I’ll let Patrick spray the last room hisself.

 “Maybe you should take some time to get out of there” I told Hans.

“No I want to finish as fast as I can and get the fuck out”

 Patrick started painting.  Hans started spraying cheese.  I started hallucinating.  I couldn’t really stay clear of the fumes cause I had to keep checking on Hans and Patrick.  I forgot to clean up the first room.  The hopper started to make this echoing whap whap whap sound.  I don’t think the hopper changed, this was all my own senses betraying me.  Everything had tracers behind them.  It seemed like we were under water.   I helped Hans see a few of his missed spots, but mostly we both just laughed alot.  Really slow and loud.  I checked on Patrick.

 “Hey Carl this is some good shit” then hysterical laughter.  “Can I get some of this for this weekend” more hysterical laughter.  I thought at that moment that my brother was the funniest underwater comedian I had ever heard.

 Hans finished and walked out of the room with his shoes still on.  I said “what are you doing your making a mess”  That was something I had said at just about every job at one time or another.  They usually said it to me atleast once too.  Kinda like an echo.

 “Sorry man I forgot, I’ll clean it up.  Here’s the hopper, dude.”  Then he walked out still wearing his shoes.  I think that was the wierdest thing I had ever heard.  The hopper was still whap whap whapping only with more reverb and maybe a phase shifter too.  And then my brothers sorry man I forgot, I’ll clean it up.  I knew I had heard that before.

 “Start cleaning up the first room.”  I yelled out the door.

 “Start cleaning up the first room,” he echoed back and started laughing. 

 I started laughing.  Patrick hadn’t stopped laughing.  I handed him the hopper and said “here’s your chance bro,”  I knew I had said these exact words to him not too long ago, this made me trip.  Whap whap whap whap whap

 “I don’t want to spray, don’t make me spray spray,” he almost started crying.

 Whap whap whap whap whap whap whap spray spray spray spray whapwhapwhap

 “Allright I’ll do itititititititit”  “but you got to help lp lp lp lp lp lp lp”

 “thanks bro bro bro bro” he said under water as he hugged me pouring cottage cheese down my back.

 whapwhapwhapwhap

 I started spraying but something was echoing in my mind.  I thought it was just the sound of te hopper, and it was that, but something else too.  I remembered that we had done, a job like this before, and this was the echo of that.  And I remembered the things I said to my brothers and I had said the same things before, many times, echoes.  Every morning I kissed my wife goodbye, more echoes.

 Whapwhapwhapwhapwhap

 Life it seems is one giant echo.  Everything we do, or say is repeated infinite numbers of times, an echo.  The only thing that makes it not seeable is the fact that all the echoes are on different rhythms.  The plastic started to fall in the corner and Patrick ran to hold it up, this had happened many times before, another echo.

 Whapwhapwhapwhap

 All of eternity is just one big echo.  The big bang started the process and everything since is one echo after another.  The echoes changed over time.  Their rhythm and texture and even sounds changed over time.  Some of these echo’s became matter and changed.  My little girl looks kind of like me me me mememe.  Another whap echo whapwhapwhap.  As the universe pulsed and echoed we evolved.  The word of God the first word word word whap whap whap started it all.  The evolution of the first word shouted ted ted ted across across across the cosmos cosmos and became all of reality.  We are, indeed everything is just one big echo echo echo.  We are the echo of God’s first word. the big bang was the first word shouted by God and the echo of it, rings existence into being.  Only when we focus on this first word and repeat can we experience the cosmic truth of being.

 Whap whap whap.

 Whap the first word.

 The big bang

 Whap whap whap

 “Carl, what are you doing?” Patrick was in the corner vainly trying to hold up the plastic, laughing at me in wonder as I emptied the hopper onto the floor.

 I looked up with evangelical zeal and cried out “Patrick, its all an echo, the whole world is just and echo!”

 He started laughing or just continued more loudly and cried “Carl, you’re really fucked up dude.”

 I realized that he was right, my awakening notwithstanding, “Patrick are you wasted?”

 “dude, I am really fucked up”

 “Maybe we should clean up and come back tomorrow.”  He dropped his hands I turned off the meditation machine and we just sat outside for about an hour.  Then we tried to clean up.  We laughed less and less as our heads began to ache.  We ran vacuums, whapwhapwhap.  We piled plastic bags filled with old and new acoustic into the truck and then we laid on the front lawn.

 We were there for quite a while when Ms. Fortney drove up.  I can imagine it was a brilliant shock to her to see us, covered in cottage cheese, laying half conscious on her front lawn. in the sun.  Like three white lepers dripping skin and small body parts against the green canvas of grass.

 I stumbled to my feet, more of a hangover than a buzz now and told her, in I’m sure very strange and meandering echo English, that we had had a bad experience with the paint.  We tried to clean up as best we could, we would need to stay on the lawn for another hour or so, til we were sober enough to drive home.  I would come back and fix and reclean everything tomorrow.  I put the words I’m sorry in every two or three sentences.

 She was such a sweet old lady.  She seemed more concerned about us than her house.  She asked if we needed anything or if we would be all right.

 We left in an hour or so.  We ate many aspirins.  We went right to bed.  Patrick threw up a few times.  The next day he told me that he had never been that wasted before in his whole life.  Now Patrick had experienced a few of the more potent chemicals so I felt my extreme reaction was now justified.

 I had to spray the third room again and a small part of the second.  I also had to replace a night table drawer that we had damaged.  $40.00, not that bad.  I paid my brothers,  bought some groceries, and then started the First Church of the Echoes of God.

 WHAPWHAPWHAP