Road Tales 4
The Hungarians
One of our local contractors I'll call Dr. J. (due to his intimidating NBA like stature and permanently stern facial expression) came into to the yard and approached me about going out to a job site in a very blue blood section of a major Eastern City to see if I could assist in figuring out some structural issues on a rehab he was involved in.
I liked Dr. J –
He could certainly lift a Volkswagen over his head and accurately throw it at you from 20 feet away but the fact is he never would. He was a gentle giant with good carpentry skills but to this day I'm not sure he was literate enough to fill out a credit ap let alone read complicated blueprints.
The rehab was in a flat of homes built around 1950 or so. The houses in this community were worth a tremendous amount of money due to their proximity to the big city and the fact that a large cross section of wealthy folks decided this was a good town to live in.
There was great cultural diversity there – Asians, Italians, Greeks, Russians,
and of course.....Hungarians.
I know I said I would refrain from using real names in this blog but to be honest if I tried to make up Hungarian-esque names I would just wind up using their real names anyway! They all had cliché' Hungarian names from old spy movies and vampire flicks.
As this story unfolds you'll see that there's a chance THEY were using fake names so what the heck – here goes.....
When Dr. J and I arrived at the site I was introduced to Gyorgy, the owner of this dwelling. Gyorgy went into great detail about his project in the heaviest accent I've ever had to try to comprehend.
Hungarian is really fast – if you divert your attention for a second you can miss ten important bits of information.
The standard mode of operation for these boys was to buy a 1000-1200 square foot ranch, leave one wall or a portion of one wall standing and build a mansion around it. They had it all figured out – if you leave a bit of the original structure you can get around a new construction designation which is fraught with all sorts of expensive code requirements that can be avoided by using the grandfathered status of older dwellings.
So these were additions! 3600 square foot additions! They had every possible amenity and the best of everything – high end Marvin windows , copper gutters, slate roofs, lavish landscaping, and every technological convenience imaginable.
I got the plans from Gyorgy, took my leave of Dr. J and proceeded to walk back to my truck. A tall thin man in very expensive shoes was running after me waving at me with one arm and clutching a huge set of blueprints in the other.
"I am Zoltan!" he exclaimed.
My first thought was... Zoltan? – you've got to be kidding me. I can't write this mans accent but it was thicker than Gyorgy's and he spoke twice as fast.
"I have plans – you give me good price – we work together!"
A handshake later I was off.
So now I have not one but two monster plans to do takeoffs on when I get back to my desk – to be honest I needed some help with these babies. These were elaborate plans with specs for materials I had never used or even heard of. I couldn't even believe I had them to work on but that's the thing about this job – you go out for a little consult and the next thing you know you're up to your neck in work.
We figured out the materials for these places and I was sent to get these guys signed up.
It was easy to get this work – I was thinking it was too easy, like with Pinhead but this was definitely a different kettle of fish.
When I brought the credit apps back to Pitbull she told me everything was a go. 
Not only was their credit impeccable but they insisted that they pay the bill off by the tenth of each and every month – no exceptions! They never went into 30 days – ever. And believe me the invoices were quite sizeable.
After these jobs passed I was given more plans from Zoltan – he said I should go and meet two of his cronies who were building in neighboring towns.
Enter Gusztav and Attila.