Sunday, January 10, 2010

It smells like diesel fuel in here, and something else. It smells like the sky, I guess, the sky that comes in when the overhead doors open. Heartman used to cock his hip and toss out the old coffee in a brown splashing arc, spin on the forefoot of his duct-taped cowboy boot on the lip of the walk along the office wall and head back in to fill the pot with fresh water. Skinny as a praying mantis, with aviator bifocals, bad teeth, held his hand over his mouth when he smiled. Over on the side wall, on one of the beams, he stacked all the rosters from every day he ever worked. After he died nobody wanted to use his truck, but they’d go over and get his lighter to light a cigarette.

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