A Terrible Hammer

Pig Tail Plug with a Bakelite Casing

At most I could have been seven, more likely I was six years old. The Catholic Church says the age of reason is seven, an age when you should know better and when sins count. Before seven you should be able to get away with murder, right? Apparently not as far as dad was concerned.

When I was a couple years older I had friends whose fathers had a whole area in their basement called a workshop. The walls were covered with pegboard. That is where their dads displayed their tools. Each screwdriver was hung on a hook and arranged by type and size. Phillips head here, flat head there. Each tool was carefully outlined on the pegboard and the ends of every tool was dipped in orange rubber paint to make it clear these tools belonged together. The father’s initials were engraved on everything, even the hammer. The room was clean and tidy, everything sparkled. It even smelled of Lysol, like the rest of the house, not of sawdust or the making of objects. Every one of my friends had such a shrine in the basement, or if not the basement their immaculate garage. It was a chapel dedicated to something I could never figure out. Clean hands and tools that made a statement:

"I could make something if I wanted to. I could get my hands dirty, change my clothes and do something. But for now, I will admire the potential of creation. I own all these tools. If I ever need them I know exactly where they are".

So, when I was eight or nine I had friends whose fathers had nicely arranged tools. At age six I only knew my father’s tools. I knew exactly where they were, jumbled in a toolbox in the back of his red pickup. My dad’s tools were his livelihood, he was a carpenter. He used his hammer and handsaw every day. He used them the way Micky Mantle used a bat. Dad took his tools to work. There was no hammer to be found at home. I was six years old and I discovered a shiny steel nail on the street, and I had a piece of wood. It was necessary to pound that steel nail into the piece of wood.

My father kept his stuff, meaning tools and other gear, in cardboard boxes in the garage. They were in no particular order, simply stuff and a bunch of sawdust mixed in, dumped in boxes. Maybe I could find a spare hammer he had left at home. There was none. Perhaps a monkey wrench or something that I could smash the nail into the board with.

Nothing.

Then I unearthed an unfamiliar object that was hammer-like. It had a flexible handle and a massive head. It was not a real hammer, but I was able to whack the nail hard enough to get it started into the piece of wood. Then the head part shattered. I put it down and found something else to focus upon, maybe a bug or something shiny caught my eye.

When the red pickup pulled into the driveway I ran to greet my father and to beg for any leftovers in his lunch pail. He always saved something for me, a little cold coffee and maybe a windmill cookie.

Time passed before he discovered the busted 240-volt pig tail plug with the former Bakelite casing.

It must have been a very special thing, probably very dear to his heart and as valuable as a fishing lure with pretty feathers. The one-way shouting began. Then the dictionary of four-letter words spilled out into the air.

Why the fuck did you not use a hammer? he asked.

I said there were not any hammers.

This was the closest looking thing to a hammer.

It worked until it broke.

Mom came and stood between us.

It is a poor workman who blames his tools, but it was a terrible hammer.