This cold wouldn’t be too bad if the sun was out, James is saying, if the sun wasn’t tucked up behind them clouds. That’s the worst part about fall, the sun setting so early. Makes the wind a lot worse. Even winter ain’t too bad with the sun, but without it man it’s…

“Uh-huh,” Jonny nods with his hands stuffed so deep in his pockets that he’s hunched over. He’s still got on an office shirt, old and creased and tucked. “I just thank God it’s not yet snowing,” he says with a nod. It’s a nervous habit of his, soft nods and sad smiles, a maternal and lifelong habit that I guess has plagued him forever.

I tell Jonny I’m with him, that the snow drives me insane. That driving in winter is some kinda hell. It’s all a lie. I don’t mind winter at all. I like the snow. I like driving in winter, like listening to the soft crunch of snow beneath my tires. The potential for an accident is thrilling and purposeful. This is all something I think Jonny and I mutually understand, but there’s no point being human in the face of James’ harsh bravado. Men like him don’t know softness, don’t know a whole lot other than work. They still look for God, though. Even after hours on the floor at Honda, they crawl towards church fronts, hungry and tired and missing their wives and brothers and sisters and cousins and mothers. Danny, who’s never been more than five minutes late, farms between shifts at a carshop on the edge of town. I watch these types and pretend I understand them. The gods they know during the day are not gentle like the one they are here looking for.

My back’s against the church front and I’m knocking the heel of my boot against the toe of the other. The wind fills in for silence, biting and steady, the three of us cold to the bone and hardly thinking. Most Thursdays went like this. Jonny’d already be leaning against the rough brick of the church’s front when I pull in, waiting with his hands stuffed pocket deep, nodding to me as I stumble from the pickup. It’s a sweet gesture, the sort of Christian hospitality they offer only to people they know’s not gettin to Heaven, some kinda hopelessly sad smile and nod. Sometimes a loose handshake and beady glance screaming there’s still time. I don’t think Jonny’d ever tell me that he thinks I’m headed for Hell, but I don’t think Jonny himself’s sure if he’s got a spot waiting on him up there. And for no good reason, either. Jonny’s always been decent. He leaves the big insurance building he’s worked in the last three years early enough to get here and pull chairs. I’ve watched him shed tears over the flies that crawl towards the attic’s warmth during the early months of winter. He pours his heart into prayer requests. Last week he sobbed through a prayer for Paul’s dad who’d been silently coughing blood up for the better half of a month. Paul told us it was cancer. It may as well have been Jonny diagnosed.

James pulls a pack of Spirits from his shirt pocket, rolls two between his fingers and offers me one. His hands are dark and haired. I think I can see the harsh protrusion of a callous against the cigarette’s filter, close and rough, right in front of my eyes. I’m bewitched by the ritual and can’t even help but accept one. Men like James remind me of my father, and his company is a perpetual honor. He could have offered me the job he damns every day and I would have thanked him like it was an award. But he’ll never give up Honda.

Trucks all fucked up, James says, brakes been grinding nasty. I been drivin Mom’s car til I get a day off. Just so late by the time I get home, auto store ain’t even open and it’s pitch black. James speaks smooth and harsh all at once and when he asks Light? it’s whiskey tough.

I lip the cigarette and step towards James, bow and inhale to catch a light. Yeah, I say, gotta get that fixed. Between inhales, I tell James he’s got my number and if he needs help call. He won’t and we both know it, so we just smoke and watch Jonny nod. The others should be here soon.