The header was a brick laid sideways. The short end facing out instead of the long end. The header reached into the wall and tied the front layer to the back layer. The header was the handshake between the two halves of a brick wall. Without the header the front layer would eventually peel off the back layer and the wall would delaminate like plywood left in the rain. The header held the wall together from the inside.

The header created a pattern. A row of headers alternating with a row of stretchers made a bond. The English bond. The Flemish bond. The common bond. Each bond arranged the headers and stretchers differently and each arrangement was a pattern and the pattern was the wall's face. The Flemish bond alternated header and stretcher in every row and the alternation made a checker of ends and sides. The Flemish bond was the most beautiful bond and the most expensive because every other brick was a header and headers wasted more material reaching into the wall.

The header was a sacrifice. The header used a whole brick to show only the end. Eight inches of brick reaching into the wall to show two inches on the face. The header was six inches of brick you could not see doing the work that mattered. The stretcher showed everything. The header showed almost nothing. The header was the musician in the orchestra who plays three notes in the whole symphony and every note holds the piece together.

The header told the mason's story. A bricklayer who used a lot of headers was a bricklayer who cared about the structure. A bricklayer who used mostly stretchers was a bricklayer who cared about speed. You could read the mason's values in the bond pattern. All stretchers meant economy. All headers meant fortress. The alternation meant balance. The modern wall has no headers because the modern wall is a single layer of brick veneer tied to a concrete block with metal clips. The clips are not a handshake. The clips are a crutch.

Nobody lays headers anymore. The brick veneer is one brick thick and one brick thick cannot have a header because there is nothing behind it to reach into. The header needs depth. The header needs a wall that is two bricks deep. The veneer is a wall that is one brick shallow. Shallow is not the same as thin. Thin is a measurement. Shallow is a judgment. The wall that cannot reach in is a wall that has nothing to hold onto. The header held on. The clip holds on for now.

See also: Ashlar, Grout