Mr. Goultier's younger son, Todd, tries to hide the gambrel's warped timbers and crumbling stonework as he gives you the tour, but he's not fooling anyone. The electricity works, and only the living room is trashed, but the place is small and badly laid out: two rooms upstairs, a kitchen and living room downstairs with a fireplace and mismatched furniture. The bathroom is bare concrete and chipped porcelain; it looks like a place for Victorian doctors to hose down mental patients. The water doesn't flow so much as ooze out the pipes.
"Yeah, this ain't gettin' fixed today," Mr. Goultier says. "Pack it in, boys, we'll send someone out I dunno, Friday? Ish."
The wind howls across the farmland, cutting through the warped timbers of the little cabin.
"Fix the heat. Now." I am willing to make explicit threats and to break up to three bones to get what I want.
Guys don't like looking stupid. "Okay, I guess if you don't know how to fix it, I can call a professional. It'll be expensive, but…if you just don't know how…"
I know my way around mechanical problems and I can figure out what's wrong with the heat.
I'm not getting into a confrontation here. "Fine, just get it fixed as soon as you can." I'll use the fireplace until then.
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