The tutorial was eleven minutes

The tutorial was eleven minutes.

Mesh tape, joint compound, sand it twice.

My father said all of this, roughly,

in a garage in 1999,

and I walked away to do something I can't remember.

He died in November. Three years ago.

I am sitting on the floor next to unpacked boxes

watching a man explain the putty knife angle

and it is easy.

That's the hard part. How easy it is.

The hole in the wall is fist-sized.

I moved the bookshelf wrong.

The cup of water I mixed the compound in

has gone chalky, slightly opaque.

I don't dump it out.

I think about his hands.

How particular they were when he worked.

How he pointed at the corner seam and said

the corner is where most people fail,

and I was sixteen and the garage smelled like sawdust

and I was somewhere else in my head.

The progress bar at the bottom of the video

has gone all the way across.

I don't start it over.