“I sat near the wood stove, straddling the old bench seat, backside warming, as what we call the winter sun blazed out, behind a highway of darkening hills. Where would I be going, I wondered, as he, on the chair, awaited the hand rolled cigarette, nestled between my fingers. More a ritual than a vice, more flirtation, than occupation, ready to flip, and be lit, for the sheer joy of watching the tiny stream of smoke rise, where once, there had been none. I handed it to him and he placed it, carefully, on the worn top of the table. Good things are worth waiting for. Time alone, as tricky & elusive as any weasel, would tell, I figured. Short of that, it was just another Saturday night. “The fire marshal” he continued, “didn’t like it, no surprise there”. I got up to load another log on the fire, while he paused, perhaps collecting the relevant details in his mind, about how the job had gone sideways, and the parts of the story I might be interested in. “You knew the top shelf was too close to the ceiling”, I said, remembering what he’d told me last weekend, about the industrial kitchen of an up-and-coming wine bar and his work on a set of culinary shelving, as per the head chef’s instructions. “The sprinkler system heads ... well ... & that top shelf he’d wanted... “ his words tailed off. “So, I had to cut it out”. I understood. I was rolling one for myself now. “I’ve had to move shrubs” I countered. “Once, twice, even three times”, I admitted. And even then ... “. It was my turn to tail off. “There’s no right or wrong way to do things, it’s just who’s got the last word, that counts” I suggested. He smiled. That wry, kind-hearted sort of smile, that allows for all of humanity to be flawed without taking it personally. Not something you learn overnight. Or ever. I guess I’d not been as generous, the night before. Driving home from at twilight, needing supplies, but loathe to stop at the store where the owner had been rude to me, once. I didn’t have much choice. On certain backroads, between job & home, there is next to nothing available, past a certain hour. Maybe he would’t be there. But he was. I crept in, hiding between the sparsely stocked isles of chips, trying to avoid him. He moved around, seeming to follow me, and I still tried to not be where he was. Finally, pulling up to the cash register, it was just me ... and him. Face to face, again. I tried to be brave. “You’re old enough to buy this?” he said, smirking, and I replied with the first thing that came to me. “Well, I hope I’m old enough”. That seemed to satisfy him. He continued to talk with a head full of steam, and I was curious, I guess. “So, you can send a kid off to war, but he can’t buy beer?” he barked, almost talking to himself, but oddly, I felt compelled to agree. “I think you’re right”, I said. Suddenly I realized he was handing me an olive branch. I felt the warmth of his completely backwards apology. He knew he’d blown me off before. He remembered that I’d shoved a $20 bill into his palm, and said “I know you’re having a hard day”. He knew he’d not served me, or done anything useful for that cash, been ornery, and shitty, and he’d known instinctively it meant a lot to me to let go of twenty dollars. He’d pretended to put air in my tires, but stopped short, and made a point of acting put out, by my extravagant request. But I’d seen his old man in the back. It was not a pretty scene. I’d sized things up pretty quick and felt some pain for him. So he was trying to make up for it now, and I knew it. And if you don’t notice things like this, you won’t really expand into what the world is trying to give you, over and over, despite its cruelty and the corruption. As I plunged down the woods road, on a spontaneous exploration of downed leaves the next day, on a whim, I really let all that ache, and disappointment go. I savored the crunch, the slanted light, the last mow of the fields, and that someone cared about enough to nail up a sign saying “No Campfires”. Not “No Trespassing” but just ... don’t burn it all down.”
