Colby Landry

You are standing in a Kansas parking lot, in the sun, in Isaiah Coleman, and the phone is warm in your hand. He has been yours for one minute. The suit jacket is on the passenger seat. His thumb is already on the wheel. You could have had a good Tuesday in him. A customer is waiting inside, and the knot in your stomach is his, the one he has every time he walks in. You don't want it, and you don't want to learn why he has it. A body that works is not what you came back for. You came back because he has a name on a lanyard and a mother's voicemail you haven't opened, and a man in his shoes has people to answer to. You want to arrive somewhere nobody is waiting. The wheel turns and slows.

Then it is bright and wet and green, and you are walking.

The crate is in your right hand, handle biting the fingers. Your left holds a bunch of leaves. Your eyes are on the ground, and your feet keep going without you. Your hand has just done something wrong, a half-second of fumbling, so you do it again slowly and correctly. The next ten motions you check one by one, though nothing here needs checking.

The air is thick and hot, and steam lifts off the street behind you. A shotgun house stands pale and narrow against the sky. The hat brim shades your eyes. Your shirt clings at the small of your back.

The chambray comes first, soft from washing, with the cuffs rolled twice. The memory arrives in his fingers: before light, buttoning it in a narrow hallway, one button off, fixing it, quietly, so he won't wake the house. He pulls the bandana from a hook and knots it by feel. The belt buckle is cold. The boots are stiff at the heel and he laces them standing on one foot. He prays while he does it, short and plain, not for anything.

The crate handle gives you the work itself: carrots yanked in rows, the weight of potatoes, a boss who never says well done. Then something under it, sharper. A girl's laugh in a kitchen, a ring of keys he no longer needs to return. He touches his beard, the ache of her still in it, and your hand rises to your jaw. The beard is short and rough. It is your first gesture in him, and it was his.

You feel your shoulders, long and tired, and the tough skin of your palms. You are twenty-two. Your back is strong and your knees don't hurt. Nothing here wants anything from you.

You set the crate down. You turn your hand over, dirt in the creases, and lift your eyes to the street.

"Okay," you say, in his voice. "Let's see how long you last."