“Why is it that most of the affordable used sinks are laying behind outbuildings, up towards St. Albans? Or rather, to the right, or the east, and into the farm country. When I drive out there, I can’t help but notice how much wild land is still dominating the landscape. A good thing. So, passing across main street Bakersfield, onto the dirt road heading to Waterville, I feel confident for about a half a mile. Then, slowing down to look at mailbox numbers, I’m already cramping someone’s style: a couple of jacked up pickups impatiently hovering behind me. It’s the end of the work day. To be honest, I couldn’t be more amenable to letting them pass. They make a show of accelerating around me, kicking up gravel and spewing exhaust, as if I’m a school teacher they hadn’t liked for a long time. It’s a tired game, shit like this is part of every stupid day. I might admire their type of rebel spirit, but they may never take the time to consider that they might have anything in common with someone like me. A kind of reverse discrimination due to my driving slower, checking out the sights of their local, back roads. Hey, I can handle being dissed, and work with it. Which is why when I got to #1663 I was ready to give ‘er my all. I don’t think there are any accidents. Turns out that the driveway led me to a yard, that led me to car parts, and an industrious enclave of reconstruction. That we’d lived in the same town, in the same era, had met tragic fates that led to relocation, and deaths, and destruction. Oh, well, that’s Craigslist, in a nutshell. I’m sort of predestined and ready to fall in love, with fellow survivors. Your dad did the bar, crashed his car, lost his life? Unromantically, mine did the bar, crashed the car, but never got arrested. It’s almost too much to punch in to the mainframe. After all, what I’m looking for, is a sink. The one you advertised, that met the requirements of my renovation. I said how beautiful it was, here in the less traveled part of East Bakersfield Rd., just past the Waterville turnoff. You said, that everyone said that. That anywhere in Vermont, you were amazed by the other places, even awestruck. I had to agree. I knew the truth of it. My place, your place, it’s all equally miraculous, equally squalid. I could tell you knew car parts, and metal, all the way around. The old sinks thrown behind bushes and sheds, still in pretty good condition, you still knew the value of. I can’t explain why we had our connection. That I was from the town you’d grown up in, before your dad crashed his car. And that I’d left that town, as you had, in a shambles. Something to do with drunkenness, something to do with love. I’m not super impressed by anyone, but the truth sorts itself out, for those who really, really, want to know it.”
