His shirt is rimmed with sweat, his boots covered in a perpetual film of Pennsylvania dirt. It’s damn hot, even for July. The ground is dry and caked, an excavator’s dream, but tough on farmers and homeowners who pride themselves on green lawns. He’s never cared much for grass. His family is in the dirt business: excavating is the fancier term for what they do, which is dig ditches for foundations, sidewalks, the school parking lot, and any other piece of earth that requires a hole deeper than two feet. The Burnes boys have the equipment and years of know-how passed down like old Gertie Mcgee’s recipe for apple strudel. Every Burnes male knows how to operate backhoes, Bobcats, tractors, and dump trucks. Even Quinn, barely fifteen, can maneuver with the best of them, and last winter when Rupe hooked up the snowplow to his F350, he let Quinn plow out St. Michael’s parking lot. Excavating is the biggest piece of Burnes Construction and Rupe is in charge of that. Every Saturday morning his old man limps around the latest job site, stogie hanging from his lips, and surveys his son’s work.
