This cold wouldn\u2019t be too bad if the sun was out, James is saying, if the sun wasn\u2019t tucked up behind them clouds. That\u2019s the worst part about fall, the sun setting so early. Makes the wind a lot worse. Even winter ain\u2019t too bad with the sun, but without it man it\u2019s…<\/p>\n
\u201cUh-huh,\u201d Jonny nods with his hands stuffed so deep in his pockets that he\u2019s hunched over. He\u2019s still got on an office shirt, old and creased and tucked. \u201cI just thank God it\u2019s not yet snowing,\u201d he says with a nod. It\u2019s a nervous habit of his, soft nods and sad smiles, a maternal and lifelong habit that I guess has plagued him forever.<\/p>\n
I tell Jonny I\u2019m with him, that the snow drives me insane. That driving in winter is some kinda hell. It\u2019s all a lie. I don\u2019t 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\u2019s no point being human in the face of James\u2019 harsh bravado. Men like him don\u2019t know softness, don\u2019t 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
My back\u2019s against the church front and I\u2019m 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\u2019d already be leaning against the rough brick of the church\u2019s front when I pull in, waiting with his hands stuffed pocket deep, nodding to me as I stumble from the pickup. It\u2019s a sweet gesture, the sort of Christian hospitality they offer only to people they know\u2019s not gettin to Heaven, some kinda hopelessly sad smile and nod. Sometimes a loose handshake and beady glance screaming there\u2019s still time. I don\u2019t think Jonny\u2019d ever tell me that he thinks I\u2019m headed for Hell, but I don\u2019t think Jonny himself\u2019s sure if he\u2019s got a spot waiting on him up there. And for no good reason, either. Jonny\u2019s always been decent. He leaves the big insurance building he\u2019s worked in the last three years early enough to get here and pull chairs. I\u2019ve watched him shed tears over the flies that crawl towards the attic\u2019s warmth during the early months of winter. He pours his heart into prayer requests. Last week he sobbed through a prayer for Paul\u2019s dad who\u2019d 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.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s filter, close and rough, right in front of my eyes. I\u2019m bewitched by the ritual and can\u2019t 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\u2019ll never give up Honda.<\/p>\n
Trucks all fucked up, James says, brakes been grinding nasty. I been drivin Mom\u2019s car til I get a day off. Just so late by the time I get home, auto store ain\u2019t even open and it\u2019s pitch black. James speaks smooth and harsh all at once and when he asks Light? it\u2019s whiskey tough.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s got my number and if he needs help call. He won\u2019t and we both know it, so we just smoke and watch Jonny nod. The others should be here soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Men like James don\u2019t know softness, don\u2019t 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. The gods they know during the day are not gentle like the one they are here looking for.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":20355,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[123,361,505,13,506],"class_list":["post-19820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","tag-blue-collar","tag-masculinity","tag-religion","tag-work","tag-working-class","writer-garret-miller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19820"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19820\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20356,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19820\/revisions\/20356"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}