happy hour

Parked in the turnout at the end of the rail yard, we are sitting in Beekman's Impala, watching a freight train creep in from the north. Setting sun behind us casts long shadows across the tracks, hints of red sky are reflected in the chrome dashboard trim.
Beekman pulls a bottle of Jack Daniels out of a paper bag and starts pouring it into some plastic cups, passing one to me and one to Billy. I'm sitting beside Beekman in the front seat. Billy, he's in the back.
"Got a mixer?" Billy asks.
Beekman hands Billy a bottle of some kind of cola then digs down into the bag for a box of crackers which he offers to us. "I got these at Trader Joe's," he says. "They're pretty good."
We sip our drinks and watch two crows fighting over an empty potato chip bag that tumbled with the wind in front of the car and into the weeds by the abandoned cough drop factory.
"There was this TV show on last night," says Beekman. "What the story was, there are two truck farmers selling vegetables by the side of the road. See, it's illegal to do that without a permit inside the town limits of Mayberry. So, this Deputy Fife drives out to send them on their way. Those fellows look pretty scared when the deputy drives up, they throw everything into the back of their truck and get out of there real quick."
"You know," says Billy, "Barney is not allowed to carry a loaded gun. He has only one bullet, and he keeps it buttoned up in his shirt pocket. He's not really someone to be afraid of."
Beekman just sits there for a moment before reaching into the bag for the bottle and refreshing his drink. He takes a long sip and settles back into the seat.
"Yeah, I know that," says Beekman. "But those farmers don't know that. At least, not at first. That's what makes it so funny, don't you think?"
Nobody says anything for a few minutes. As for me, I am watching this one crow; he grabs the potato chip bag in his beak and starts shaking it.
"What I think is that I'm hungry. I could go for some Chinese," says Billy finally.
Beekman starts the car and pulls out onto the road. The sun is just now dipping beneath the horizon and we head toward the lights of downtown Reading.

same as it ever was

The morning comes around pretty fast.
Last night, Billy was meditating with his Buddha buddies and you would have found me at the bar of Johnny’s Grandstand Grill, worshipping at a different kind of altar.
By the time we drive up to the yard, men are already standing in the circle of light outside the foreman’s trailer, stamping their feet against the cold. You can see their breath rising into the air.
After a while the foreman steps out with a clipboard and begins reading off names. One by one each man heads off to his assigned job until it’s just me and Billy standing there. Now the sun is beginning to poke through the smoky dawn.
“I don’t have anything for you boys today, try again tomorrow,” the foreman tells us. We climb back into the truck but it won’t start.
I sit slumped in the passenger seat with my hat pulled down over my eyes while Billy fiddles under the hood. Before I even realize it, he hops in behind the wheel - the engine turns over once, twice, three times, and then it fires up with a roar.
I ask him how he did that, where he learned how to fix motors and stuff.
“When I was living on this big commune in Tennessee,” says Billy, “we had these tractors and farm trucks and old school buses that we needed to keep running. We used to say that you have to be yin to figure out what’s wrong, yang to fix it, and unattached to the results.”
Billy turns out of the yard and heads up Canal street while this Talking Heads song I like is playing on the radio. The sun has fully broken out of the clouds by now and is flooding the alleys and back yards with a clean, bright light.
“Let's go get some breakfast,” I say. “I have a feeling this is going to be a good day.”