Mondays

The day had been long and hot and the two men had ten blocks of marble to channel and blast from the earth before its end. Or so they were told by the quarry president, Mr. Mead, before he left for a Florida beach. One of the quarrymen relayed this fact to another as the latter wallowed in the impossibility of the task.

“Yea,” he said. “He wouldn’t know it if it took ‘till Monday. He’s on vacation. Cuba, I think. Or Mexico. Somethin’ like that. Somethin’ exotic. He’s an exotic fella, you know. That hat. The way he wear that hat cocked? I take ‘em for an exotic fella. Anyway. Yea, wouldn’t know it if it took ‘til Monday.”

“Vay-cation?” said the other man.

“Yea. Somethin’ exotic.”

“Well.” He pondered the idea. “I oughta take me a vacation.” He waved his hand and watched it and what he saw and what he wanted the other man to see was the wake of his hand in the immense cloud of dust that hung over the quarry like some gas emitted from a noxious substance at its bottom. “Ocean’d be good for the innards.”

‘Tellin me!”

“Then’gen, come to think of it,” said the other. “I need a real vacation. A —”

He was cut off. “You thinkin’ Mexico, ain’t ya? A senorita.”

“No no,” he said. “I don’t mean no siesta from the stone and the wife and the rascals but a real damned break from just evah-ree-thang.” He swung at the wedge he was channeling and advanced it an eighth inch or so into the stone. “Know what I mean?”

The quarryman squinted at the sun and back at the other. He did not know what the other man meant and stated so.

“I mean a vacation, dammit. Not just a break to somewhere I ain’t ever been but a total goddamned blackout. A downright vay-cay-tion.” He rolled his eyes downward and nodded on each syllable, addressing the earth, as if this somehow lent gravity to his point. You know, like a coma. A total darker’n hell midnight without a soul to make a sound kind of nothingness for a while. How’s that?”

“That’s nutsier’n hell is what that is,” said the quarryman. His brow furrowed and he struggled to come out with: “ya cain’t be nothin’ for just a while. If you’re nothin’ ya nothin’ dead-to-rights, full-boat and done with and that’s forever to the end of it all.”

“Nah,” he said. “Well, hell, I don’t know. I just mean you’d think it bein’ the twentieth century and all. Oughta be an option. Temporary suicide, I reckon. You know, just be able to off yourself for a lil’ while. Take a load way the hell off, ya know?”

“I know you’re nutsier’n hell,” said the quarryman. “And I mean it too. But if you’re thinkin’ thataway, I reckon we do need a break. Let’s get back at it on Monday.”

“Yea, ok,” said the other. He took off his hat and slapped it over his knee so as to clear it of dust and then returned it to his dome and sighed. “Monday, Monday, Monday — Oh, Monday, what if ya just didn’t come?”