The doors slide shut behind him. Out in the parking lot, June’s steam is halitosis, promising to make the morning’s work grueling and messy. This hadn’t been the plan. He’d wanted to stay fresh and review his note cards all morning, but the surprise service charge plus the unrecovered five dollars for the iron have secured the slipknot. He needs cash. Bad. Not even enough for gas to get him to the interview, let alone for tonight’s dinner or an I’m-sorry treat for Junior.

As he drives up to the day laborers, those who recognize him make no effort to hide their vinegar, and Henry can’t exactly blame them. The two one-ups he’s got on them—his truck and English—get him picked up first without fail. As a courtesy, whenever he doesn’t have a job slated for the day, he drives to different towns so he’s not screwing the same guys out of work on a regular basis. But after six months, he’s made the rounds. He’s a familiar face. Competition. A two-legged challenger in a cripple’s race. Only the one-eyed man Henry’d tarred a roof with back in March nods to him.

Henry kills the engine. Cranks down the window. Clicks the seat two notches back and blows steam off the coffee’s surface. Doesn’t bother with the note cards. For now, he extends a hand to shake an invisible one.

“The pleasure’s all mine, sir.

“Can’t thank you enough for setting aside the time to speak with me today.

“Why, just fine. Just great, sir, and yourself?”

He rehearses various chuckles, gauging which most effectively radiates health and plenty.

“You have light?”

The one-eyed man has appeared beside him, pinching a bent cigarette. His nose comes up to Henry’s elbow on the window’s ledge. Same height as Papa, with similar straight, tar-black hair. The curtains of an unbuttoned flannel shirt flank the man’s belly, tattooed with a foggy calligraphy spelling out Amor de Madre. No patch over the missing eye. Just a slack eyelid drooping over the pearly pink of the socket, a permanent wink at the world’s saddest joke.

Henry pushes the cigarette burner into the dash. They wait.

“So,” Henry says. “How you been?”

The man nods. Apparently hasn’t picked up any English since they’d last worked together. Silence bakes between them, and so Henry points to the sun. “Gonna be a hot one, huh.”

“Yes,” the man says. “Much.”

The burner clicks. Unwilling to take any chances with their indispensable dinnertime appliance, Henry holds the hot coils down to the cigarette’s tip. Smoke lifts between them, clears, and the man says, “Sank you.”

“De nada.”