Nothing Exceeds Like Excess.

 Donnie Silver looked like Billy Mummy, all growed up. Nobody knew that me. It wasn't that it was a secret, it was just that most everybody reminds me of somebody and he reminded me of the creepy kid who wished people into the cornfield if they angered him. Donnie, by his own admission, was the biggest vinyl guy in town. Pretty successful and I had worked around him for years because most outfits hired him to do their commercial vinyl. If you don't know, vinyl is a commercial wallcovering you've probably seen in banks and offices. It's pretty easy to hang in that I don't think I've ever seen it in any kind of pattern (like roses) where you have to drop match and goofy things like that. It's so easy to hang that drunks and crackheads can do it. 

I never liked Donnie. I found him to be aloof and arrogant. But when I found out he was looking for help, I was underpaid, under-appreciated and doing nightwork at a Target store in the city for a once pretty good outfit that had lost its way. The superintendent called himself "Super Painter". No one else did, except to mock him. When I found out that I was making $2 an hour less than the others, younger, far less experienced than me- and being expected to run the job in Super Painter's absence- it was a no brainer to jump from the frying pan into the fire of Donnie Silver. Three dollars more helped too.

Now Donnie, being the biggest vinyl guy in town, was looking to become the biggest paint (and vinyl) contractor in town. Since he hung for all those outfits, he didn't want to risk that by letting his evil plan get out. He quite seriously told me to not tell anyone I was working for him. He was fucking crazy. I had been in town quite a while knew people who knew people, having worked for the bigger outfits. It would be very hard to keep me a secret for very long. 

One night my buddy Ken stopped by to drink beer. He asked who I was working for. I told him, "I'm not at liberty to say. It's Top Secret". Ken being Ken, he said, "Oh". I waited several moments and told him it was Donnie Silver. "You know he's an asshole, right?" Yes, I did. 

I have a bad habit of thinking I can handle pretty much anything life throws my way- at least for a while. Tough it out. Use my charm and wit, two afflictions that had gotten me in and out of trouble all my life, and to that point in life. How bad could it be? 

Well, Donnie had hired me and the local legend, Sam Drucker, because we were two very experienced guys. Between us, we knew every painter intown, the good, the bad and the ugly. Like me, Sam had worked for most of the big outfits, at different times than me though. Our paths had only crossed once when on a job, Ken excitedly introduced me to Sam. It was a big deal for Ken, but not for me or Sam. He didn't even remember. 

Donnie wanted Sam and I to build his new empire. He needed our expertise. He didn't listen to us though. The reason he didn't listen: We weren't the biggest vinyl contractor in town. Really. We weren't telling him how to run his business, just how to paint. He didn't know. He wasn't a painter. It's like Trump trying to be president in the first term or this one. He doesn't know politics. He thinks having convinced himself he was a successful businessman was enough to succeed at anything. It never is. 

Early on in my time with Donnie, he had me doing some maintenance painting in an office building at night. As I recall, it was filling in a few thousand pinholes in the walls and then touching them up. And if you have ever seen an episode of HGTV, you know that this is a job for spackle. Donnie didn't know that. Worse, Donnie didn't want to know that. He handed me a bag of 5-minute quick-set and said, "This is faster. It has to be done fast". He said this while stretching his arm out, palm down, something he would say A LOT over the next several weeks that I worked for him. He was going to reinvent painting and show Sam Drucker and I how we had been doing things all wrong in our combined 50-60 of painting. 

I don't know why 5-minute mud exists. Well, I do, but I think it's stupid. Sam Drucker would later say to me: "Donnie would use 1-minute mud if they made it". True. If you don't know, the quick-set compounds dry by chemical reaction as opposed to joint compound which basically air dries. Guys argue about this, but the 5 minutes (to me) means working time. This means you have to scoot because it's starts to set up pretty much as soon as you look at it. It's a waste of time and money, especially as I was forced to use it on 20+ different offices spread out on four floors. Donnie insisted his way was bester and faster. He left and I thought of sneaking off to Home Depot to get a can of spackle, but I didn't have a key for the building. I could not in good conscience leave that building alone with an unlocked door, at night, in that city. Cussing like a motherfucker, I got the motherfucker done, wasting a shitload of 5-minute mud in the process. I really should have walked off the job and out that night. 

So many of my Donnie Silver stories involve quick-set. I walked in on a bank he was doing- with 5-minute mud! Floating out a wall with 5-minute! I'll be goddamned but he was making it work. And he was lamenting that it was drying fast enough! "I wish I had some fans" he sighed. That won't make a difference, I sighed. Donnie left the wall in my hands and went off somewhere else. I trucked on down to the Sherwin Williams to get some less-quick-set. I swear to God- without ANY prompting from me, the guy offered up, "I'd like to meet the idiot who uses 5-minute mud..."

"Well, come on down the street and meet my boss" I exclaimed, "he's that guy!" He looked at me with a sad, heartfelt expression. "I'm so sorry, man". He really felt my pain. 

At another bank we got inside, and Donnie said he'd call on the bank phone, with further instructions. So, when the phone rings, I answer, and it's a lady asking for "the Johnson account portfolio". I told her the bank was closed, and we were the paint crew doing some work. She did not skip a beat and ordered me outside to wait for the police. I learned later that it was a standard trick they use to tell if the bank's being robbed. There's an answer to the question that must be given to her, so they know if the bank is being robbed or not. Maybe I was supposed to grab my crotch and reply, "I got your Johnson account right here, bitch"? Probably not. 

So, I was outside having a smoke when Donnie rolls up and angrily demands to know why I'm out there smoking instead of working. I told him, "I'm waiting on the cops." That got him even more excited. "WHAT THE FUCK??!!" I explained what happened and that we just had to wait for the cops to show up double check on us. No biggie. 

One more before I go. Sam Drucker and I had 40 standard door frames to do in a lease. I see that Sam was mixing Japan Drier in with the oil paint. Japan Drier is a chemical that speeds up the drying in oil-based paint. Know what else works? Fucking letting it dry overnight. It's free too! Another useless product though I found a use for it once. (Quick tip: Use it in cold weather. I was forced once to oil a shipping dock one winter up here. Checked back on it 2 months later and it still hadn't dried! Didn't know it then, but Japan Drier would have saved that day. Interesting to note, cold weather is not listed as one of its uses. I discovered it painting a rat trail in a huge freezer I was doing.) Anyway, Sam dutifully mixed the Jap drier in even though he agreed that we'd be all day doing the frames and we wouldn't be able to run a 2nd coat until the next day. Sam had worked off the books much of his career and needed 5 good years of income to show for on his Social Security. I got that. 

Donnie fired me or laid me off a short time later. I never saw him again, but my partner, Tim, told me a year or so later at the company he worked for, at their Christmas party. He was back on the crack diet. According to Tim, Donnie looked like Hell. I coulda told Donnie to not go back to drugs and drinking, but he wouldn't have listened to me. After all, I wasn't the biggest vinyl guy in town. And neither was he.