was an elderly man with receding grey hair, a hawk nose and grizzled features set firmly into a face that looked like a dried apple. He grinned and the gold cap on an eye tooth flashed dully.

“Thought I heard someone in here,” he said around the chew that pouched his cheek. “Car break down on ye?”

“I’m walking,” Nick told him.

“Yer a long way from any kind ’o town, son ... say,” he said suddenly noticing the scratch marks. “Y’ been fightin’ a bobcat?”

Nick shook his head and fished for a lie. “Got drunk last night and into a brawl. My friends pitched me out of the car in a moment of playfulness.” He hoped he had put enough bitterness into the explanation to make it ring true.

The old man chuckled softly. “Durned shame, [p18]  son. Y’from around here?”

[p18]  

[p

]  

“New York,” Nick lied. “I’m stayin’ in Everett.”

“Everett,” the old man cackled. “Hell, that’s fifteen miles south o’here, or better.” He paused, swiveled his bird-like head and spat a jet of brown juice through the open door. “Tell y’what, son, seein’s how you’ll have t’walk it down there. Ain’t no one goin’ that way, I know of. S’pose y’could thumb it, but it’d be hard. Lonely road, y’see. If y’don’t mind waitin’ till after supper, I’ll run y’down to town. Drop y’off where y’want to go.”

“Hadn’t thought of waiting so long,” Nick told him. “What would I do? Just sit here?”

“Hell no! In th’ back room there’s a cot. Been sleepin’ there myself sometimes, since m’wife passed along back in ’53. December of ’53 it was. I’ll wake ye, come supper.”

“Thanks.”

With the hunger gnawing at his stomach, Nick took a cellophane wrapped pie from the counter and began eating it. He handed the old man a quarter.

“S’funny,” the old man said, ringing up the sale, “ye don’t smell like a drunk. Ought t’be some likker smell to y’son.”

“I was drinking vodka,” Nick countered, wondering how he had 

 Prev. P 8/96 next