Ed cranks the car window back up, thinking, He’ll find his way home. Thinking that he’ll mention the dog to the guys at Lil’s, where he’s going after he gasses up the Cutlass. It isn’t a planned thing, this coffee with Joe and Chuck nearly every morning. Joe calls it “the early retirees club.” Stupid, really. They barely knew one another at the plant, and now, forced into retirement five years earlier than any of them planned, they meet like a clutch of old hens to knock politics and weather around, tell bad jokes, talk about their wives as if the women are really the tough old bats they make them out to be. My old lady. Christ, they sound like yokels or, worse, toughs. But it is the time of day Ed Parmalee looks forward to the most. He says it gives Alice time to vacuum without having to make him pick up his feet. It means a little time out of each other’s hair. Out of the silence. Maybe it’s the only thing he looks forward to these days.

Being cut loose from his job of thirty-five years has left Edward Parmalee rootless. He lives in this town only because of the job. He met Alice because of the job. His daughter grew up with dozens of other kids, attending the annual holiday party, sitting on Santa’s lap in the evergreen and construction-paper chain–decorated cafeteria. The “old man” of the plant, the owner himself, ho-ho-hoing and handing over the bubble makers and coloring books as each child perched on his knee, along with a big candy cane, which would later show up under the seat of the car or end up sticky on the kitchen counter. Then the old man sold up, caved in to progress. And then some fucking Japanese company swooped in and everything was about efficiency and function, the bottom line. Pride and longevity were no longer hallmarks. The old man is living in Florida now; word is that he found himself a new young wife.

So now Ed looks forward to killing some time with the guys at the diner. Killing time.

Ed does a Uie from the gas station driveway, going across Route 146, which serves as Moodyville’s main street, and directly into an angled parking space in front of Lil’s. He gets out and nods to Chuck, who is pointing his remote key lock at his 2007 Tundra. “How ya doin’, pal?”

“Can’t complain.”

“Won’t help.”

Same old greeting, more like code words than sentiment. Friend or enemy? The Lil’s Coffee Shop Secret Society.

Joe has claimed the counter, his big butt drooping over the old-fashioned canister-style stool, the tumor of his overstuffed wallet protruding from his back pocket. Ed and Chuck flank him, nod, and simultaneously reach for the folded sections of the Boston Globe in front of him. Ed scores the sports page; Chuck is left with the “Styles” section. Lil pours coffee into the thick ceramic mugs in front of them and walks away. This is most likely all any of them will order. Ed is perfectly aware that, arrayed along the counter, these three don’t have to face one another, look one another in the eye. All conversation can be spoken out of the side of the mouth. “Sox are going to be out of it.”