It is Only Meant to Destroy

Every time I enter my garage I pause for a moment to admire my tools. I gaze at them through the dusty yellow light and take mental inventory of them all. I couldn't tell you how much they are worth because to me they are priceless. How can I possibly convey in words what they mean to me? They are the mile markers of my life, representing years of learning and practicing the art of wood working. First I learned the drill and then the circular saw. Eventually, after many other tools, I came to learn how to use what I consider to be the most dangerous tool of them all, the wood lathe. It scared me for many years and even now, on the rare occasions that I use one, I give it a great deal of respect. However, the tools I learned on always belonged to somebody else; they were only on loan to me for a short period of time and then I had to say goodbye. Now, as I stand in the garage I admire the bright yellow, dusty gray, and shiny black finishes of the tools and marvel at the fact that these are mine. I know how to use them and I know all their peculiar idiosyncrasies. I know that the trigger on the miter saw sticks sometimes. I know that the chuck on the drill press wobbles ever so slightly. Many of my friends call them my toys. That is fine with me, though, because I know what they really are. They are tools that are useful and because I have mastered their uses I, too, am useful.
When asked which among them is my favorite, I always lie. I tell people that the router is my favorite. While it is a great tool, and I can do many wonderful things with it, it is only a distant second to my favorite. In fact, my favorite tool is rarely noticed by visitors to my workshop. It lives in a dark corner of my garage and stands ready for use at any time. It is five feet tall, made from solid iron, weighs in the neighborhood of fifty pounds, and comes to a dull point at the tip. Unlike the rest of my tools, it is not a tool of fine woodworking. It is not designed to create anything at all. In fact, it is only meant to destroy. It's called a spud bar, though I do not know why. If you were to buy one new at the hardware store they would call it a pry bar, but it would not come close to the quality and power built into the spud bar that haunts my garage. Unlike the rest of my tools, I did not pay a dime for it and I do not even consider myself its owner. To me, it is on permanent loan from the tool collection of my father. Where he got it from I have no idea, and I never bothered to ask. It was just always there.
We used it often, as I remember.
My father stood there in his standard uniform of a plaid button-up shirt and blue jeans, looking down at the soon-to-be-removed concrete slab. Tiny beads of sweat were growing on his bald head and he breathed heavily through his nose. Without looking up, he dropped the sledge hammer he was holding and began to rummage through his shirt pocket. He drew out a lighter and a single Winston. He wedged the smoke between his dry, cracked lips, cupped his hands around the lighter, and raised it to his mouth. Just before he struck flint, almost as an afterthought, and still without raising his head, he muttered, "Get the spud bar." I shot away in a flash, catching only whispers of the flint striking as I ran to the garage. I knew exactly where to find it because it was the only tool that actually had an assigned place. It stood silent in the corner, next to the garage door, out of sight, where it belonged. I wrapped both hands around the cold, smooth metal and took a deep breath. With a child's grunt, I lifted it from behind the shovels, turned around, and let the tip drop on the floor with a loud thud. I dragged it out of the garage and across the driveway leaving a jagged white line of scratched concrete in my wake. Just as I reached my father he was taking the last drag from his cigarette. He flicked his cigarette butt to the ground and took the bar from my exhausted limbs. He squared up his feet on either side of his target, wrapped his hands around the bar, and placed the tip on the concrete where he intended to strike. In a blur of motion he raised the bar perpendicular to the slab and drove it home. Iron met concrete with a loud, crisp snap. He and I looked down to the point of impact only to find a small, white scratch on the slab. He took a quick breath, stretched his fingers away from the bar and spoke his sermon. I had heard the words many times before and many times since. "You gotta be shittin' me," he said. He squared up, gripped the bar again, and said, "OK, you son of a bitch." Snap. Snap. Snap. How many times did he hit it? Five? Ten? It doesn't matter because eventually the slab gave way and cracked. There was never any question about it. I envied his ability to wield that iron monster. It took strength and dexterity that I did not yet have. He moved it and twirled it in one hand like it had no weight. It reminded me of a drum major leading a parade with a baton. He was fluid and graceful with it. With it he could destroy anything, even that concrete slab.
I stood there in my blue jeans and t-shirt looking down at the soon-to-be-removed concrete pond. Sweat was dripping from my balding head and I was breathing heavily through my nose. The sledge hammer had taken out the sides of the pond but whoever built it had poured the concrete nearly a foot thick at the bottom for some unknown reason. "You gotta be shittin' me," I said. My father, standing behind me, chuckled at this. "Want to grab the spud bar?" I asked. As he walked towards the garage I fished my smokes out of my pocket and quickly lit one up. He returned only a moment later and handed the bar to me. He was in the early stages of Rheumatoid Arthritis and just carrying it from the garage was enough to make him rub the stiffness from his hands. This was my job. I flicked my unfinished smoke to the ground and squared up over my target. "OK, you son of a bitch. You don't live here anymore," I said. With that I raised the bar and drove it down with all my power against the remnants of the pond. The impact sent vibrations up the bar, through my hands, and into my shoulders. I was stunned for a moment, but didn't want to let on that I even noticed the pain, or that I had only scratched the concrete. Snap. Snap. My hands and forearms went numb eventually. Snap. Snap. I stabbed iron to concrete for two hours as my father watched with a look of pride on his face. In the end, all that was left to do was to cart the pieces away to the dump. As I tossed the pieces into the bed of my truck I felt an odd sense of pride in the knowledge that I had mastered yet another tool.
My parents are retired now. They moved to a small town and into a smaller house. As they were packing up their home I got a call from my father. "You want to come and get some of these tools?" he asked. Reluctantly I agreed. I had my own tools. I told myself I didn't really need any. As I pulled into the driveway my father stood in the garage sorting through thirty years of his tinkerings. He had separated out all the tools he was keeping and all the tools he was giving to me. We chatted for a bit about the move and reminisced about the past as we loaded shovels and rakes into my truck. The day grew late and I had been there much longer then I had anticipated. Still, I enjoyed the time together because I didn't get to spend as much time with him as I used to. I now lived across town and had a new life of my own. As I was climbing into my truck to leave he called out to me, "You may as well take that spud bar, too." I got out of my truck and watched him grab it gingerly from the wall. He dragged it out of the garage, leaving a white scratch in the concrete as he came. His hands, suffering from the full effect of his disease, could only manage to get it halfway. I walked over to him and took it from his frozen, twisted fingers. Our eyes met for a brief moment and neither of us could think of anything to say. The silence said it all.
I stopped only a short distance from my parents' house and wept in my truck. That young, strong man from my childhood had been slowly replaced with a crippled old man over the years and until that moment I had never noticed it. I hadn't noticed his hair turn gray and his knuckles slowly freeze. I never saw the wrinkles in his face grow deeper. I had never seen his eyes admit defeat. My image of him was shattered forever in that moment and it felt like I had been stabbed in the heart. He could no longer use his tools. He felt useless and we both knew it.
I had to use the spud bar today which is why I need to write about it now. I took out some tree stumps with it and as usual it did the job just fine. When I was finished with my task, I cleaned the dirt from the tip and placed it back in its dark little corner of my garage to await its next assignment. As I walked out of the garage I turned, gave the spud bar another look, and thought of my father. I thought about how strong he was then and how crippled he is now. I thought about his tools and how he can't use them any more and how useless he must feel. I thought about a hero replaced by a shadow. A chill ran through me as I rubbed the stiffness from my hands. I, too, have his disease.