Inner Satisfaction

For those of you who do not live in Cascade Lakes, and I really don’t know who looks at this blog, a brief explanation of the following story (which that community's magazine declined to publish) is warranted. One of the three fountains at the community’s main entrance has frequently been out of commission over the years, despite frequent repairs and reconstruction of its plumbing. And now it’s time to read

Inner Satisfaction

Jack Lippman

Julien Bonhomme was one of the workmen employed in the construction of Cascade Lakes back in 2000. Actually, he worked for Bongiovanni Tile & Mosaic, the subcontractor which did the ornamental tile work decorating the fountains at the community’s Military Trail entrance. Julien was very angry. His employer had paid him every Friday during the first three of the four weeks he had been setting tiles on the fountains, but when payday came during that final week when the work on the last fountain, the one to the left of the entranceway, had been completed, Bongiovanni had disappeared. Apparently, once the developer had paid him, he had taken off, leaving unpaid bills and unpaid employees behind him.

Bonhomme and some of the other workers took their complaint to Buck, the construction foreman for the whole job. Buck felt badly about it, but explained that there was nothing he could do for them. The developer had already paid Bongiovanni, and if he had taken off without paying his employees, it was their problem, not his. Buck suggested they get a lawyer but since most of them were in the country illegally, going to court was the last thing they wanted to do.

That night, in the apartment he shared with a half dozen of his relatives, Julien explained what had happened. His uncle Pierre smiled at him.

“Why are you smiling, Uncle,” Julien asked.

“Because I think I can help you. You will never get the money from Bongiovanni, or this Buck fellow for that matter. I do think, though, that I can tell you what to do so that you will feel better about the whole thing. It’s the way we dealt with things like this back in Haiti. The important thing is that you get some kind of inner satisfaction, even if it isn’t money.”

And so it was that over the next few weeks, on the kitchen table in the apartment, Julien and Pierre built a clay model of the fountain which stood at the left side of the Cascade Lakes entrance. They put as much detail into it as they could. The family members in the place thought it looked remarkably like the actual fountain which some of them had seen while driving by on Military Trail, and offered words of encouragement to the pair.

“Now that we’ve built this model, Uncle, what are we going to do with it?” Julien asked.

“It’s hard to explain,” Uncle Pierre, suddenly very solemn, intoned. “I will recite some words in an ancient language which you will not understand. I learned these incantations from my father, words which have been passed down through generations of Haitians. They are very powerful and when you see me about to lapse into unconsciousness, and that is the effect saying them will have upon me, you must take this metal spike and this hammer, and drive it into the clay model. Trust me!”

With that Uncle Pierre handed a spike and a hammer to Julien, closed his eyes and started uttering an incomprehensible babble in a singsong manner. After a few minutes, Julien did what his uncle, whose body was now twitching uncontrollably, had told him to do, and the South Fountain at Cascade Lakes has never been the same since.