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| An evenings work | Started by: Jacob_Soderlund on Oct 10, '26 10:21 |
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A truck pulled up close enough to put my chair in its shadow. I lifted my coffee before the driver’s wheel struck the loose edge of the pavement. The chair rocked, settled, and left me sitting with one knee considerably higher than the other. Walter Reese leaned across the passenger seat and looked out at me. He owned the salvage yard I’d heard about that afternoon, although I hadn’t been there yet. “Charlie said you’d be outside,” he called. I put the cup down and stood. “He generally knows where he’s put his furniture.” Walter climbed out, leaving his door open. There was a glass-fronted cabinet in the truck bed, wrapped around the bottom with a blanket. Above it, two wooden shelves had been tied together with string. He caught me looking. “Pie case,” he said. “Woman opening a lunchroom bought it off me. Fellow who was meant to help deliver it hasn’t turned up.” Walter took a folded reciept from his pocket. “Thought you might want the work.” Behind him, a passing car slowed to get around the open door. I reached over and shut it. “How far?” I asked. “Palm Court. Off Paradise Road, north of the tire shop.” He handed me the paper. The light above Charlie’s entrance reached as far as my shoes, so I stepped nearer the doorway to read it. Each time somebody went inside, the radio and the talk at the counter became clear for a moment before the door swung shut. Walter had written the buyer’s name beneath the address: Mrs. Mercer. “Six Palm Street,” I read aloud. Charlie, the owner of the bar and my upstairs room, had come to collect my cup. He looked over my shoulder. “Court, Jacob. That’s a C.” I looked again. It was. “You could of written it larger, Reese.” Walter took the paper back, plainly unimpressed. I’d remembered a Palm Street from years ago and supplied the rest without bothering to look properly. Charlie went inside with the cup while I asked Walter where the court entrance was. “Beside the tire shop, I think,” Walter said. “I went in from the other end.” That left us with an address neither of us could confidently approach from here. I pulled a pencil from my shirt pocket and wrote COURT across the top in letters I could read. I walked to the back of the truck. The cabinet had sliding doors, brass runners darkened at the corners, and a patch on its wooden base where somebody had scrubbed harder than the finish allowed. Walter lowered the tailboard so I could inspect it. The blanket was tucked beneath a strap rather than wrapped around the glass. “Any steps at the lunchroom?” I asked him. “Three. Might be four.” I looked at him. “You’ve been there.” “I was looking at what she wanted to buy, not counting her steps.” There was room beneath the base for two men to get their hands in. It was still an awkward thing to carry. The blanket had a brown border like one we used to keep in my father’s loading yard. For a moment I remembered being sent home to fetch it, aged twelve, and returning with the better blanket off my parents’ bed. Dad had already spread it over a wardrobe before my mother arrived looking for it. They spent longer arguing about the blanket than we’d spent loading the furniture. I’d forgotten that until I saw Walter’s tucked beneath the strap. Then he knocked on the cabinet frame and brought me back. “Well? Can you handle it?” “With another pair of hands.” Walter leaned against the truck. “I’m coming with you.” “And you’ll carry it up the steps?” He rubbed his right wrist through his shirt cuff. After a moment he said, “I’d rather drive.” I hadn’t noticed the wrist bothering him earlier. “Then we need someone else,” I told him. He looked towards the bar as if the missing fellow might be inside enjoying himself. A customer came out, buttoning his jacket, and Walter moved aside to let him pass. We waited until the man had gone before discussing the money. Walter offered ten dollars for the delivery. I asked whether that was for each man or both. “Both,” he said. I ran my thumb along the cabinet’s bottom edge, checking for somewhere to grip without catching a splinter. “Six apiece. You supply the truck, and we carry it together. If there’s a back entrance with fewer steps, we use that.” He watched me for a few seconds, then nodded. “Twelve when it’s inside.” I wasn’t going to promise someone else’s evening for them, so I told him the arrangement depended on finding a willing man. “And tonight?” Walter asked. “Tonight, if we can get it done reasonably soon. I’ve got responsibilities here.” Since Don LonelyWolf had sponsored me into Patriots Forever, I’d been trying to make myself useful and learn where I was needed. A small outside job could fit around that. An evening spent hunting an address across half of Vegas couldn’t. Walter checked his wristwatch. “Mrs. Mercer said she’d be cleaning the place until late. I told her I’d bring it before she left.” He sounded more concerned about breaking that promise than losing twelve dollars. We put the loose shelves in the cab so they wouldn’t rattle against the glass. I asked Walter to move the truck a few feet forward; its rear wheel was sitting in the gutter, making the tailboard higher on one side. While he did that, I fetched my coffee from Charlie’s counter. The bar had filled enough that I had to wait behind two men buying drinks. Somebody had opened the service door at the back, and the warmer air from the kitchen carried through to the entrance. Outside, the truck’s engine stopped. I could hear Walter winding down his window. Charlie followed me out with a small piece of cardboard. “Want this?” he asked. “Put something where people can see it. Save telling everyone seperately.”I borrowed his pencil and wrote: Hand wanted for a local delivery. Six dollars. Ask Jacob outside. I showed Walter before setting it against the cabinet. “Don’t make it sound like I’m hiring a whole removal firm,” he said. “I’ve asked for one man.” Charlie read the notice, then glanced at Walter’s sleeve. “Is that coffee on your cuff?” Walter looked down. I decided to inspect the strap again. There was enough room beside the truck for somebody to look at the cabinet without standing in the road. I moved the spare chair a little closer to mine and sat with the delivery paper on my knee. The tire shop’s sign was visible further along, but I couldn’t see where the court began. Whoever came to ask about the work might know. They might also know whether Mrs. Mercer had a back door worth using. Charlie paused in the entrance. “What if somebody wants a word rather than six dollars?” “Send them over,” I said. “We haven’t gone anywhere yet.” I turned the cardboard so it faced the pavement, then looked towards Walter, who was settling into the spare chair. “You can sit there, Reese. Just leave room for somebody to pull another one up.” |
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