THE ROOFER
A work of fiction
By Theo

I decided to have some work done on the roof of my house, and was checking the yellow pages for local roofers. Getting tired of making calls, I decided to take a drive into town to pick up some groceries. As luck would have it, I saw a group of guys roofing one of my neighbor’s houses. Not seeing any signs on any of the trucks, I decided to stop and see if there was a number I could call to get an estimate. One of the guys came over to me and handed me a card with the name "Fico’s Roofers" on it with a local number. Not giving a second thought to any of the guys working again, I went about my way to shop. When I got to the store, I thought it would be a good time to call and set up an appointment for an estimate. A gruff voice answered the phone


"Fico’s roofers. Phil here."

" Yeah. I saw your guys working on my neighbor’s roof and I was wondering if I could get an estimate from you."

After telling him where I lived, he said that he had to come out that way later that afternoon. I told him I would be home for the rest of the afternoon and he could stop by whenever he wanted.

Later that afternoon, as I was sitting on the back deck, I heard the doorbell ring. Jumping I quickly ran down the driveway around to the front of the house. On the porch was a behemoth of a man standing there looking in the sliding door.

"Hey. You must be from Fico’s Roofers," I said standing at the bottom of the porch steps.


"Yep, that’s me. Phil Fico," he said, extending his huge paw. Reaching out, I shook his hand in a firm but not as crushing of a grip as I had expected from him. "Sorry I got here so late, I decided to make you the last stop of the day."

"No apology needed. Can I get you something cold to drink? Water, beer, iced tea?"

"Man, a cold beer would be great right now," he said, wiping the sweat off his brow.

"Come on in." He followed me around the house to the back door and into the kitchen where I opened the fridge and offered him his choice of imported beers.

"Grab what you want, " I told him reaching in and grabbing a Moose head for myself. Walking around the outside of the house, I got a good chance to scope out this big hairy Italian man. He must have been in his late 40's to early 50's, about 6'3" and certainly around 340 solid pounds. I was relishing the view of his white tee, stretched across his broad stomach, and his baggy jean shorts that would definitely show a nice view of his ass crack if he were to bend over. On top of his head he had a full head of black hair with gray sprinkled through it sort of in a shaggy 80's style cut. It looked as if he hadn’t shaved in a few days by the thick stubble on his face and to top it all off, he had one of my favorite things, a uni-brow. One thick eyebrow going from one eye to the next. It really set off his deep-set