Dr-Fix-It! Notebook Archive:
The Fizxbol Mystery 1. A Short Story Page One.
John and Trey Ponder the meaning of Fizxbol.

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John was the senior construction mechanic on the job and Trey was his helper. They had been working together as a two man "crew" for two years and had been reporting to the same construction job for the better part of a year. Why they were paired together is anybody's guess. They had thoroughly discussed all of the possibilities finally deciding they were paired together by default. That is to say: no one else would have them.

John and Trey spent forty hours each week for two years within earshot of one another. They had shared the greater portion of each of their life's stories at least twice. When John would launch into a new subject with the phrase, "Did I ever tell you about the time...", Trey would nod and say, "Probably more'n once."

John said he was from a place in the woods so far north that he could step across the Mississippi River and not get the tops of his boots wet. He always explained that summer was a beautiful season in the north woods but no one could go outside because "the air was too thick". He said there were black horseflies the size of small squirrels that could suck almost all of a man's blood, leaving nothing behind but a big itchy welt. John would say, "But the mosquitos were even more thirsty".

John said he got tired of the northern winters too. He dreaded seven months of snow and the two months when it would never warm up enough to get above zero; even at high noon. Then, one day, John realized he didn't have to live anywhere he didn't like. So, he packed everything he couldn't sell or give away into an old Ford Station Wagon and headed south. And that is how John came to be standing on the roof of Zachariah Middle School one muggy morning in southern Texas.

The job at hand that morning was to remove some old exhaust fans and prepare the roof for some new exhaust fans. Each of the old fans was a familiar design resembling an aluminum mushroom. The fan motor and electrical parts are protected from the weather by a removable aluminum dome. The Old Roofer was on the roof at Zachariah Middle School to remove the asphalt roofing material around the old exhaust fans so that John and Trey could remove the fans and make ready for replacement.