3. The Man He Would Become

Snitches Get Stitches (3 of 6)

Dec 12, 2025

(“Snitches Get Stitches” is a novella following Maria. It is the third segment of a larger collection/novel called Milestone Road. If you interested in more of Henry Coffin’s Nantucket, the stories begin with The Boat at the End of Lover’s Lane.

Hey, If you are just catching up with Henry Coffin’s Nantucket, I am re-recording the first book inhale hour chunks. The Boat at the End of Lover’s Lane. )

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-1:43

Bill Trotter was considering the roof.

The house on Wood Hollow Road was coming together. The crew of Brazilians was great. The lead guy only had one hand, but the rest of them listened to his words as if they got paid in syllables.

The Brazilians were six older, rail-thin, sober, Portuguese-speaking men who showed up on time, nodded at him, and got shit done. Every other crew he had worked with disappeared at lunch then returned sloppy. Not these guys. They weren’t greedy, they didn’t fight, they didn’t steal the tools, and they took cash.

But they had gone to work at another house.

This house needed to be “ready.” It wasn’t going to get moved into, it wasn’t going to have finish work done, it wasn’t even going to be painted. But it did need to be weather-tight. And it needed a cedar roof, as specified.

The shingles had arrived two weeks ago. They sat in ten bundles by the chimney. He had an air compressor and a set of nail guns. He had even set up roof jacks and chalk lines.

He had a drop-dead deadline of the Saturday before Thanksgiving.

So he made a call.

At nine o’clock, Jack and Billy rolled into the lot. Billy had done this before, but Jack had not. He knew Jack and he knew his Dad. The four of them had gone after stripers and albacore more than a few times in the summer. And he had called on the Mitchells in the past when he was pushing a deadline.

The two of them looked rough. He knew there had been shit. He knew enough to know who might have started it. But he also knew that the PlayStation doesn’t have a punch clock.

He explained the job. His son nodded. Jack looked at Billy and nodded as well. Then, with the spring of youth, both carried a bundle of shingles up the scaffolding. Then, they both came down, picked up a nail gun, and slowly, trailing the hoses, brought the guns up.

Billy handled the nail gun, Jack kept feeding him shingles. Billy overlayed the shingles, spaced them correctly, and checked his alignment every few minutes. Within twenty minutes, they had placed a row of four overlapping shingles across the front of the house. Both scrambled up onto the roof and began another row across.

Bill saw his son in the gray light. He crawled and crabbed across the roof as if he had been working for twenty years. He stood and stretched, at one point. His Whaler jacket was open, a tool belt with a hammer hung from his waist, and he looked at the roof, careful and appraising.

Bill saw the future. He saw the two of them, with tools and pencils, working on one house after another. If he had another summer like this one, he could start contracting again. Maybe even get some land and start his own spec house. There was football, and there was high school and all of that. But, for the first time, he saw his son as the man he would become.