Vitia ex Virtus

The air was thick with agitated dust and sawdust that clung to the humidity like a fog. Glen was happy to have a work mask so he wouldn’t have to inhale all of the debris, but it made the air he breathed stuffy and uncomfortably hot. He could feel the sweat trickling through his carefully trimmed beard. He brushed away a few strands of his sandy-colored hair that had been sticking to his forehead then resumed his work. The sounds of mechanical saws and pneumatic nail guns echoed in the otherwise empty hall of the chapel.

Kennerly & Sons, the construction company for whom Glen worked, had been hired to renovate and update the old church. Glen and his coworker, Lawrence, were fixing up the organ loft. They had taken the old instrument out. Years of rot and the weight of the organ had ruined the floor, so Glen and Lawrence had to completely rip out all the wood and replace it before the new organ could be installed. As such, they were higher up than most of the crew, where the heat of the building rose and waited to cool down. The building’s air conditioning system was also on their to-do list of repairs, and Glen wished they had fixed it beforedoing the rest of the work in this late summer weather.

Max, one of the sons in Kennerly & Sons, sounded the air horn that announced everyone’s lunch break. It was unnecessarily loud and the din bounced off the stone walls for a few seconds after the sounds of the equipment had died down. Glen jumped when it went off, which was dangerous for someone holding a handsaw that could sever a few fingers if he twitched in the wrong way. Max wasn’t the type to care. In his mind, the air horn worked and so he used it. Half the guys on the crew thought he was a bit of a prick who was only there because of nepotism, and the other half just thought he was a moron.

Regardless, the break was welcome. Everyone went outside to enjoy the fresh air. At least, it was fresher than it was indoors. Midtown was usually a bit musty, especially when the wind picked up from the west and carried in pollution from Newark, but today there were only small breezes that brought much-needed pockets of cool air down the streets. Broadway was only a couple blocks away, as was the theatre where Glen’s boyfriend, Aiden, worked. It was yet another reason Glen was happy to take this job; he and Aiden were never too far apart.

“What’re the rest of you doing for lunch?” Jordan, their electrician, asked.

Nearly everyone looked to Lawrence. Even though Max was technically the boss, Lawrence was really in charge. He wasn’t the oldest employee at Kennerly & Sons, but he had the air of someone who had seen everything but had too much common sense to let it go to his head. If there was ever a problem on site, Lawrence always had an answer. Most of the guys just wanted to hang out with him in hopes of absorbing some of his knowledge by proximity.

In his low and steady voice, Lawrence said, “We’ve already exhausted every fast food place on this block. There’s a sandwich place on 8ththat looked interesting.” Since 8thStreet was only a block and a half away and they had 45 minutes for their break, it was a unanimous decision.

As soon as the decision was made, Glen sent Aiden a text. Do you know the sandwich place on 8th? Heading there now. My treat.

About a minute later, he got a reply. I know just the place! Be there in 10!Aiden was New York City born and bred. He knew the streets like the inside of his sock drawer and could get anywhere in a hurry, on foot or in a taxi. Every now and then he even gave directions to taxi drivers based on the shortcuts he knew. To Glen, who grew up in the suburbs of New Jersey surrounded by people for whom “ten minutes” meant “half an hour,” Aiden was some kind of wizard.

True to his word, Aiden met up with the construction crew at the sandwich shop. Everyone knew him. When Glen first started working for Kennerly & Sons, he had to deal with the occasional glare or off-handed derogatory comment, but once the guys found out he was in a happy relationship and could wield a screwgun like a cowboy with a pistol, things mellowed out. Lawrence, of course, couldn’t care less and treated him like everyone else from day one, which led the rest to follow suit. Since Lawrence was at the head of the pack, he was the one to greet Aiden. “Hey there. How goes the latest production?”

“Fairly well, I’d say,” Aiden replied. “So far no broken bones, flubbed lines, or costume disasters. We have one more weekend though, so there’s still plenty of time to stress.”

Lawrence nodded in his slow but approving way. Glen stepped forward to give his boyfriend a brief kiss. “We don’t have forever, so why don’t we head in?” he suggested. “What’s good here?”

As his theatre’s assistant manager, one of Aiden’s jobs was making sure everyone in the cast and crew stayed well-fed. This meant looking up any and every decent restaurant within the district. This sandwich place was popular because it was an easy stop to order large amounts of food to go when everyone was subjected to long days in tech or dress rehearsals. Aiden’s sandwich was done before the construction workers’ because one of the employees saw him waiting outside and started making his usual order.