4/17/02 Wednesday 6:56 AM

Don't you Sofis me!

I was probably fourteen, maybe fifteen. My old man and his crew, Betts, Sofis, and Barney were working on a remodel close to the corner of Elsworth and Negley. My muscles to this very day quiver when I approach that corner with that house.
It was summer. I was doing nothing which meant I had to go along to help rather than sit at home all the idyllic day and read the science fiction mags. Play first base, Big Klu, they called me even though I was a righty, down at the field behind the housing plan. Go swimming at Rosedale Beach, or at least stand outside the fence by the Barrel Roll and Slide and ogle the flesh.

I sat in the rear compartment of the wagon along with trowels, hammers, saws, paint and bags of 8, 10 and 16 penny common nails. The four of them forward. Talking construction. More likely babes and booze.

The house was a three story nightmare with a small garage in the rear. In that garage stacked neatly were far too many one hundred pound sacks of plaster, playing with my imagination, taunting my overactive brain. "You work with Sofis today." says my father. Sofis Pedersen was a big Swede of a man who spoke English with a pleasing accent that sounded more Irish than Swedish to me. His hair was sandy fine, tinted red and fully covered his scalp. When he worked he wore a white rimless plasterer’s yarmulke, white T shirt, white overalls that had more loops and pockets than a roller coaster. For my money he looked more like a baker. Man, could Sofis plaster. The old man's crew, funny names redolent of Scandinavia and Italy really were artists of their trades. They worked hard and never expected any less of me.

Little compromise in his tone, Sofis told me with that deceptive sweetly lilting voice to carry six sacks up to the third floor. Which I, grunting, moaning, sweating crying all the way, did. Out of that small garage, up the back porch steps, pass through the first floor kitchen, turn to the left hallway to second story stairs, up to a short landing and then a sharp turn and a very narrow set of steps to the third story attic where sat a plaster mixing box that looked like a flat everglades boat. Back down, back up. Six torturous trips.

Sofis meantime is setting up in the other room. There is metal lath covering the wall and ceiling in an elegant curve. He is preparing for the application of the scratch coat. He sets up a platform that pretty much covers the area of the floor of the small room and raises him to within inches of the ceiling. Me huff up down!

Trip six I fall to the floor and relax. Enter Sofis a mighty titan towering over my supine form "Fill them with water, Joey!" points to four empty buckets, "from the basement laundry sink." Up down four times more like Mickey in the Sorcerer's Apprentice. Buckets full, check, sacks stacked, check. Sofis instructs me on the intricacies of mixing water and plaster "Like your mama makes pasta." he croons and mixes. I am hungry for ravioli. (Rip goes the paper opening two bags) Make a hole, put the water in the middle (splash from the bucket), and mix (a hoe with a long handle) from the in out." I master it pretty quickly really. Like mama and pasta, I think. Sofis in the other room, "Bring plaster, Joey!" which I do.

He quickly scoops the perfectly constituted wet plaster mass, proudly presented in the dual purpose water buckets, that I been struggling to carry with two hands, single handedly onto his plasterer's hawk. A large square flat metal plate with a handle stuck in the middle. Raises the immense load to the ceiling with frightful ease, and pushes the entire yield into the metal lathing with terrifying speed. I am appalled. I look at the huge muscles of his arms which are just barely contained by his shirt. The bastard has the nerve to not even sweat. Suddenly, I realize I am in for a very long day. "More," says Sofis, "Joey!"

Oh that cry! "More, Joey!" I would mix, shuffle into the room, watch Sofis fill the hawk with the precious essence of plaster, lift it with one handed ease and make it disappear and become the first coat of the wall. "More, Joey!"

The horror! I got back to the mixing room, Sofis bellowing and singing. Only empty sacks, the plaster was three floors below and a back yard away. Sisyphus had to endure no more than I that morning. I would look at the sun as I toiled, an Egyptian Slave building a pyramidal tomb, willing the star to rise toward noon and lunch and respite. Praying for a tornado to haul me off the Oz. I spilled water as I climbed unable to stabilize the swirling liquid, blisters appeared in the webbing of my thumbs, broke raw and red. Cuts on my hands and arms and legs congealed with white plaster dust. More Joey More Joey! MORE JOEY! It became my mantra to alleviate the pain. The lathing sucked up the plaster; the walls looked the same as before, we're never going to be done, Sofis singing.

It ended. All earthly happenings must. Sofis did, Betts did, and my father did. (Barney, I can only assume, did) It wasn't even the hardest that I worked in my life. But it was a daunting trial by fire and somehow it purified me. Oh, I still ran like hell when my father was looking for me to help in the good old summertime.

I don't really shudder when I approach Elsworth and Negley. I look with pride and a deep stirring memory. The house still stands and for all I know the blood and sweat that I spilled to help mix the plaster, Sofis prodding, More Joey, singing my name with his soft accent, still echoes up that third story room.