A dump truck engine grumbles in the distance. It comes lumbering and squeaking into the parking lot, hauling a New Holland skid loader in its trailer. First it slows, crawling past the waiting laborers, who rise and roll back their shoulders, before it stops alongside Henry’s truck, trapping the one-eyed man between the two driver’s-side doors. The driver is as fat as Al had been, but these forearms suggest a boulder-rolling sturdiness. Freckled skin looks as scorched as the top of Henry’s tongue, except for a pasty bandit’s mask striping his eyes and temples. “You two coming?”

“Depends,” Henry says. “Only got time for a half day.”

“Lucky you. Ripping out a driveway. Done by noon if youse two haul ass like me.”

“What you paying?”

“Hundred.” The fat man must have caught Henry’s eyebrows hop. “For the both ya. Fifty for three hours’ grind is more than fair.”

Henry’s done a lot more for a lot less, and so he nods. The one-eyed man looks from the fat man to Henry, waiting for a translation. No pen and paper, so Henry’s index finger scrawls 3hrs/$50 upside down in the grime on the truck’s door. The filthy fingertip points to the two of them, as he tries mustering some high school Spanish. “Yo y tú—I mean, sorry. Usted.”

The one-eyed man tilts his head at the numbers in the dust. “Okay.”

$12.22

Before pulling out of the Home Depot lot, Henry’d had to ask the fat man for gas money. A pair of dark sunglasses dropped from forehead to nose, landing perfectly over its pale outline like a manhole cover. From the passenger seat, the one good eye followed a twenty getting passed between the two trucks. Henry mimed an explanation by pointing from the bill to the gas gauge, then giving a thumbs-up.

A rickety pump spat an extra nineteen cents’ worth of gas over the five-dollar mark. After breaking the twenty inside, he handed the one-eyed man two fivers, his fair share. Not without reluctance, but it was the right and honest thing to do. The good eye went from the gas gauge to the cash then back to Henry. The man folded one of the fivers longwise, then gave it back.

The offer of gas money lands like a haymaker. These extra five dollars break Henry back into the double digits, providing an abstract sense of security, a mattress under the gallows. The weathered look of the man, which suggests five dollars weigh just as heavy in his wallet as in Henry’s, doesn’t make enduring charity any easier. Not like he’s got enough pride left to turn it down either. This kernel of dignity and its wordless acceptance are wringing his tear ducts. It stings.

Henry huffs. He has got to get his shit together. He rubs his nose. “Muchas gracias.”

“Gracias a ti, güey.”