SLOANE
Working at a foundry wasn’t your typical job, in that it required many different skill sets. Investment casting required an artisan’s touch, and a lot of finesse. Even the tiniest mistake could be expounded in the molding process, creating giant gaps or cracks in the finished piece and tons of extra work on the back end. Make the wrong decisions and you could destroy a piece before the pouring even began. You could even ruin the mold, causing the client to have to start all over.
As meticulous and attention-to-detail driven the work was, you also needed to be fast. When swinging a 1200-degree crucible of molten bronze in your direction, there wasn’t much time to stop and consider things. You had to think on your feet. You had to prep everything beforehand, and then double-check your prep work. It was the only way to survive — and succeed.
Luckily, I was good at my job. I immersed myself in the work, whether it be something I personally enjoyed, like casting statues and museum pieces, or something more tedious like the prototyping of high-end steel or aluminum parts. That side of the job was more monotonous, but it paid the bills. It also left me with wiggle room when asking to use the machinery after hours, something my kind-hearted boss had always allowed… until now.
“Sloane I’m very sorry,” Mr. Drumm told me in his office, just after my shift ended. “But things are just too crazy right now. I’d let you if I could, obviously. But you know how it is around the holidays.”
The old man swept an arm around his spacious office, which was covered in blinking lights and Christmas decorations. It was also covered in photo after photo of his beloved grandchildren. He had six kids of his own, and they’d produced almost twenty grandchildren so far. I knew most of their names, from our many conversations together. It was just one of the ways he was blessed.
“I’ll come after hours,” I told him quickly. “You know that.”
“Yes, but the hours have been extende—”
“I’ll come after midnight.”
He’d been letting me use the foundry for nearly two years now, to cast the bigger pieces that my home operation wouldn’t allow. Back in the loft, I had a lost-wax casting setup that rivaled any non-commercial operation. But when it came to bigger sculptures… my home kiln just wasn’t wide or deep enough.
Mr. Drumm was slack-shouldered and red-faced, obviously upset from having to turn me down. I pressed further.
“I promise…” I pleaded. “I’ll be done with everything way before sunup. Cleanup, too. It’ll be like I was never there.”
“You’d have to put everything back,” he said hesitantly. “Reset every single piece of—”
“Yes,” I jumped in. “I will!”
“And you’d use your own materials?” he asked, although he didn’t have to.
“Of course.”
“And you’ll have someone with you on the pours?” he eyed me shrewdly.
I shrugged. “Probably. But if not, I can always handle them myse—”
“No!” he shook his head. “No deal, then. It’s too dangerous.”
“But—”
“You do every one of your pours with an assistant,” he wagged a finger at me. “Or the whole thing’s off.”
I tried counting the number of times Drake came with me to cast something for my collect
ion. I think it was three. None of those times did he help me do anything, however. If anything at all, he just got in the way.
“Alright,” I lied through my teeth. I felt bad about it, but times were desperate. “I’ll have an assistant. Every pour.”
“Okayyy,” Mr. Drumm replied skeptically. “In that case—”
Just then the door to the office opened, after a swift triple-knock. I recognized the knock immediately because I’d heard it hundreds of times on the door to my own office.
“Hey! How’s things?”
Mark sauntered in, wiping his mouth with the back of one hairy forearm. Since the door to the office had been open the whole time, I wondered how long he’d been lingering out there.
“Things are good,” replied Mr. Drumm. “Say, would you be willing to help Sloane out with some late night—”
“No need,” I jumped in quickly. “I got it.”