“Flop this over and we’ll dump it out,” I tell Noah as we stand in the back of the truck emptying buckets of dirt.
“Flop? That’s like flip?” he asks me. He’s Honduran.
“Flop is only halfway over, flip goes all the way. Plus, a flip is more graceful. A flop is kind of ugly to watch.”
“You’re very smart Mr. Jon,” he says.
“We’re digging the same ditch so what’s it matter?” I ask him.
All the coffee shop poets are on vacation or too old to ask to do this job, so I called Noah. I don’t like to hire illegals, but Noah tries so hard.
“I only went to like 4th grade in my country, so I believe anything people tell me,” he says. He’s always asking questions too. About a word mostly, or what will happen if he lifts weights and his skin stretches out. Will it be saggy?
“Mr. Jon, did you hear Bob Marley discovered marijuana by following a goat into the woods?”
Sometimes I don’t know what to say to him. But he laughs a lot, and has a good heart, and will carry buckets of dirt in the heat of the day.