They were eating their steaks now, the man in the suit putting Vaseline on the lens of the past: the afternoon when he met his wife, the oppressive heat, the handheld fan, the awkward moment on the verandah, the dress slipping down a brazenly bare shoulder…. Tony couldn’t change the subject but he swiveled the camera. “My father-in-law was a barrel of a guy, as wide as tall,” he said. “He was construction biz through and through, a life lived in concrete. And you know what that means. That means water.” Tony tapped his glass in front of him to illustrate. “Concrete production requires about 180 billion gallons globally every year, eighteen gallons per ton. And you can’t use saltwater because that risks corroding the rebar. So it’s all freshwater, and yet we’re on a planet where three-quarters of a billion people don’t have access to clean drinking water. So that’s where I came in.” Tony tapped his glass again. “I have been deep into two lines of research simultaneously—concrete made from seawater, and rebar resistant to rust. I had logged thousands of hours in the structures and materials lab. I went to work convincing my father-in-law to put some money in our research. Have I said that this all was before I met his daughter? That was an extra bonus, a happy accident.” Tony paused for a sip of wine, thought of Rudy, thought of romance, prayed the man in the suit would not pick up where he had left off.
©2020 Ben Greenman/Stupid Ideas
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