This was his hammer, it’s probably older than he was.
Steel always seems to dull after long enough, something about age that always changes things, rusts things: the sea air out here on the coast weathering life. This dull brown hammer has so much more life than most of his other possessions: its head, flecked with small amounts of rust that obstinately manage to hang on after a good oiling; a deeper blackness that settles in the small nicks left behind after errant swings–there’s not too many of those considering its age. This hammer has life, it’s special.
It’s had a couple of handles but this is still the original head, probably the first one he’d ever swung. Could many carpenters today say that about their first hammer?
He once showed me how to rehandle it when I was young, even though it had been an age since he last had needed to, his hand was too practiced by then: repetition applied with an unconscious aim, hand and eye aligning in perfect application and striking true, not just striking the nail, but driving it, putting enough weight behind the swing so that it didn’t skip or jar.
He showed me how to rehandle my first hammer, one I sadly don’t have anymore–left on a work site, stolen, only it’s absence matters now–take care of this, he said as we began; picking the right wood for the handle, carving it so it fit to my palm perfectly, shaping it so it felt like an extension of my arm.
I used to swing with abandon, aiming just to strike the head of the nail, force the clout down with nothing but strength. He watched me when we first built together and laughed as a swing fell poorly and found only my thumb.
Well at least you hit one nail he joked as I shook the pain from my hand and saw blood begin to well from behind the edges of my thumbnail.
Slow down, he always said, life doesn’t move quicker when you rush.
The sounds of woodwork always filled the backyard during my childhood.
From the shed came noises of hammering, adjusting, sawing, these noises would ring out over the low drone of the radio he always left on and masked the warble of a news presenter, adding another layer to the weekday din.
Each note was identifiable as a different action, each hammerfall showing a different intent to its strike that I’ve never heard anyone able to replicate.
He’d appear for lunch, sitting on the step of the verandah with a cup of tea and looking across the yard to the trees behind our property; so at peace then, just watching leaves sway on their branches.
Every day he would swing that hammer and drop in on its hook after his work was done, how many hundred of times did he finish his day with a satisfied final knock and then flick off the light switch inside his workshop?
He was quite an accomplished carpenter, my uncle once told me at some family gathering or Christmas lost to faded memory, He’d won a few awards for his model ships back in the day but stopped making them when you were young. After…
I’d never seen these ships, or I don’t remember them, but even as an adult when I would ask him about them he would only reply with a fond smile and then stay quiet for a while, reflecting on something before me, a life that failed words.
I saw him grow older and the sounds of building no longer echoed out from the shed as they once did, the pauses between each hammer strike grew longer, they sounded tired in many ways, almost like the strength behind them was beginning to waver.
Sometimes he would just sit inside in those later days and I would always think back to how he would pace about the living room when I was a child, visibly frustrated by being stuck inside. The rain makes my feet itch, he would say, if ever there was a thing I hated more than wasting a day, may I never live to see it.
Sitting there on the couch, softly looking out the window and smiling, the leaves still swaying on their branch, just dwelling beside the ghosts of nostalgia.
What do I do with this house? His shed? All these things that are just an extension of him, a reminder of him.
Ahh, sorry mate,
I’ve been rambling a bit.
I’ve…got to go build something, I..I might be a while, so go play with mum ok?
J.McCray
2020
Sunday Short Stories 