So Many Men . . .
by Mary Leonard

So many men have crossed these doors, I don't think I can name them, certainly not in order. But I remember the first, Zake. I would start to list my needs and when my needs passed ten, I would call. He was always busy—so many women loved Zake because he was good with his hands, quick and efficient and so versatile. I could list all my desires and in an hour, they would be fulfilled. After, he usually stayed to chat and to smoke one cigarette at the kitchen table. Then my demands became too large for Zake's skills: renovate the kitchen and the bathroom. Who could do all of that?

At my job, while lamenting the loss of Zake and wondering who would replace him, men came forward to brag, and one, let's call him Bill, said, "a new kitchen? I can do that in a week." He was hired. He charged by the hour—they all did, these men, so quickness was a priority. Bill had a partner, Bob, who was more careful, a craftsman, but they both enjoyed destroying walls. They had passion these two. Plaster flew, linoleum ripped up, cabinets tossed out the window. They were wildmen. They gutted with gusto. My husband and I left them alone to redo the kitchen, leaving only heavy plastic on the back wall of our house. Where to go when your kitchen is being destroyed and rebuilt?

Why, the Soviet Union. It was 1987, and we took our two young children and twenty adolescents. It was an extreme solution to no kitchen and to madmen in the house, but it was better than living with that much testosterone and no food. Before we left, my husband took a photograph of Bob and me. We look as if we are a happy couple about to go off for a Caribbean vacation. Instead, Bob stayed behind to rebuild walls, measuring precisely, while Bill talked a lot and drank a lot and buried beer bottles in our kitchen walls.

We returned to a finished kitchen, complete, even the large Marvin window overlooking our backyard. Bill confessed later that they had almost dropped this six-foot by eight-foot monstrosity. It was good that we were gone and only concerned with Russian architecture—pastel buildings in Leningrad and Soviet-gray blocks in Moscow—and not around for the burial of beer bottles and the near destruction of the piece de resistance window. Luckily upon our return we had jet lag, because at 5 A.M. we were up cleaning the fine layer of dust that covered every room in the house.

Of course the new window also drew attention to the backyard landscaping—could I call it that? I had done all the gardening for the last ten years, trying to follow the line the previous owner had given me with elaborate borders of perennials and a diamond of lawn in the middle, but now I realized that I had a rat's nest of weeds, and an underground cesspool of vines and prickles. I knew I needed another man. This time it was the landscaper par excellence—a man who lectured on the details of his craft and only did special house calls. I scurried around the yard, a squirrel digging and hiding the worst of the mess. I held my breath when The Expert walked down our driveway—what if he didn't accept me and my fantasies. He arrived with his assistant—the real man who dug into the ground, who pulled up the weeds, who laid the groundwork for the final touches. He asked, "How often do you do it?" The fatal question, the time for a lie. "Every day for at least two hours." On the basis of that answer, The Expert set his design: all perennials, shade loving plants and a cluster of some kind of flat-leafed bushes for under the pines, and then he asked if we wanted a fountain as the focal point. My husband, always wary of these other men, asked, "How much?" "A Thousand," said The Expert.

We settled for raised rocks in a circle as our focal point, with simple hostas in the center. The Expert gave his advice: how to water, mulch, how to cut back the hedges in antlers and watch them grow in fully. I felt renewed, as if I had been to a spa. I was ready to change my techniques and experience fully. The Expert never returned, wanting to work on exotics: fountains and stone walls, meditation rocks and wisteria trellises.

Of course, when I paid so much attention to the outside, the inside fell apart. Windows wouldn't open, the downstairs toilet leaked and everything felt worn out. I was still living with mint green bathroom fixtures and fifties floral aqua paper. Retro didn't interest me as I aged. I wanted minimalist and earthy touches. So this time the former roofer came forward—a man of integrity. He gave me estimates and his workers showed up on time. This was a big operation because the new man was a Contractor. I would be in for a treat. But the workers weren't always craftsmen and my husband had to follow them around repairing the window trim, or repainting. Still, the Contractor was an honest no-nonsense man and we would talk while the workers were busy with the bathroom. I found out about his father, the Irish fireman, and life on Long Island during the '50s. And so I thought that relationships are much more about talk than action. Then he disappeared and left us with Richie, his foreman, always busy, always in a rush, the younger man, working on his own house and ours—the two timer—but he laughed a deep belly laugh and he transformed rooms. I felt like a new woman.

I wanted to think about the future and not the past. I was fifty and perky. But over twenty years our basement had become a dumping ground for discards. I would order, "Clean out your room kids," and a box of junk would sit in the center of the basement. Everyone in my house was a collector and no one was a sorter. It had taken me a summer to sort and clean the family's detritus, making decisions like saving the Legos and tossing my own yearbooks, but the office was complete thanks to the Contractor and his foreman, and I was ready for subtleties.

Since I had organized thousands of pieces of paper in the new computer room and had created my own Santa Fe space in my downstairs bathroom, it was time to organize "the clothes." A younger woman can get away with wearing two different shoes to work, but after fifty, those mistakes appear just goofy and less like a fashion statement. It was time for refinement, and a new man. This one would be the best—a craftsperson, an artist, young and energetic. It was time to hone my experience with men, to think about details. The Man arrived with energy and enthusiasm. He gutted an upstairs back room, formerly a build-on over a porch, a room that had once been our daughter's first bedroom, and then an Atari room—didn't everyone have one of those rooms in the '80s? Now, I wanted it all: a walk in closet with a double row of hanging bars, a shoe organizer, shelves, a light. Most women probably take this all for granted, but I had lived for thirty years with an overstuffed, unlit closet with a mountain of black shoes at the bottom. The Man, young and honest, destroyed and tidied, built and talked, and left me with stained oak shelves, perfect corners, a neat paint job, and hand rubbed windows overlooking the garden.

But The Man was more than fire and power, also a friend. I heard about his brother, forever working on his Ph.D. and using his parents for financial support and his sister's fifty-thousand-dollar wedding. I saw his own house that he and his father designed and built. I knew the name of the other woman in his life, his wife, and I met his children. And then he was here on Sept. 11, fixing our garage roof, when he received a call on his cell phone about The Towers. He came in to watch it on TV and we would both repeat some inane words, "this is big, this is terrible," and realizing that we were beyond language, hugged and cried. He returned the next day and together we planted a meditation garden by the garage. This last man to cross the door feels like part of my life now—The Man who could satisfy all needs because he left some space, a garden to think about work, workers, a place to feel some deep passion about men, mankind.