8.
 Bed was a mattress in a tool shed that smelled mostly of machine oil, which Tom liked, but too often there was a whiff of something foul. Dead mice in the walls, Tom figured, lying awake, staring at the full moon through a cracked, cobwebby window. Poison them, then they crawl and hide in the walls. Still, it was warm. The room, other side of the work bays, was tight. Antonio had left the big water heater on to heat it. That was this tank in the corner, standing upright and wrapped in insulation, with pipes running to the garage sinks and toilets. Tom lay wrapped in two old army blankets and watched a spider spinning its web across the face of the moon until he fell asleep.
Antonio had sandwiches and orange juice for him in the morning. "I gotta be honest," he said. "I got two mechanics here and we're just barely busy enough to keep it open. I need a yardman but I can't afford to pay you much. And you owe me money."
Tom chewed slowly on the sandwich, savoring it. He was ready to pop the whole thing in his mouth if Antonio came sailing over the counter to grab the sandwich back. "I will pay you the money. I do think it would be good if you could pay me by the hour."
"Pay you!"
"I know you're barely able to stay open, but I'm hard on my luck, Antonio. I can clean up the place, maybe fix the toilet for you, and I'll be happy if you give me minimum wage."
"Minimum wage!"
"I'll work extra hard for you."
"I tell you what, Tom. I don't give you minimum wage. That's too fucking much. Crazy, shit like that. I tell you what, Tom. I will pay you three bucks an hour. That's after tax. Same as I would pay you on paper. Only I pay you under the table."
"That's fine by me."
"Also, I give you sandwiches. They are a day old and I got to toss them out, but they still good. You give me an honest day's work and keep your nose clean, you can stay a while."
Tom thanked him. For the next two weeks he labored at the gas station. He never once left the property, and that was fine with him. He felt rested. His side stopped hurting. His hands scabbed over and healed. He got a hot shower every evening, long as he wanted. He'd spend a half hour in there, soaping himself, turning this way and that. It was good that the road no longer moved under his feet. He felt sheltered and protected in the deep canyon. He only wished it were warmer. The sun never directly reached here. He couldn't remember ever being in a place where the sunshine never reached. Closest it came, on a sunny day in the early afternoon, was when the day's promise was already shot and a drunken afterglow painted the blue rocks up above the back of the station. Within an hour, the glow was gone, fading into the blackish green of the pine trees. And the cold wind would whisper on down, combing through the pine boughs like through a thousand harps, combs, organ pipes, anything that made a noise when wind slid on its blade. On days when it wasn't sunny, a watery fog the color of thrown dishwater would come rolling through the canyon. Those were days to wear Antonio's old army jacket. The mechanics' breath would flap away as they spoke with customers.
Tom got the toilet fixed. He had to dig up the pipes outside with a shovel. The mechanics braised in new piping where the old had been cracked by a tree root. Tom closed the hole back up. The piss smell went away. Tom also found the mummified mice, two of them, in the wallboards near his pillow. He threw in some pine needles for fragrance and hammered the board back. The cigar box he hid under the bunk. On the tenth day, Antonio called him in. As usual, a sandwich sat on the counter. Antonio winked and handed him a yellow and a white slip of paper. "You paid up, buddy. You want to stay, you stay and work. When you ready, you go. I know you by now. You like a cat. You stick around when you hungry and then you leave, is nothing gonna keep you from hitting the far side of the moon when that itch hits."
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Copyright © 2018 by Jean-Thomas Cullen, Clocktower Books. All Rights Reserved.
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