The Slap Heard Round the World

With Sam barred from watching the construction of his house, he was spending more time at his hardware store, cleaning out the basement, which had last been cleaned in 1980, when Uly Grant’s father had hired Sam and Uly to clean it. They were headed to college the next fall and Sam didn’t want to spend his last free summer in the basement of the hardware store, but his father had made him. They had argued about it, with Sam telling his father he was no longer a child who could be bossed around, which Sam’s father was delighted to hear, saying if Sam was now an adult, he could pay rent like other adults and began charging Sam seventy-five dollars a month to live at home.