At the scrap metal pier where we cash in I was running my tongue over my teeth, loosening the poppy seed bagel. A white ford f150 pulled up and an old man starts unloading the bed.
He’s got one leg where the knee never unfolds, he just leans to the right to throw the bent left leg up and with a flick of his pelvis the foot falls in front and he can walk.
He knows the scale master and the fork truck driver by name.
“I give the money to my wife so she save it up and buy Christmas presents for the kids. Women love that.”
I went back to my truck and kept pulling out the barrels. Number 2 wire, dirty aluminum, irony brass. It all gets sorted.
“she says,’I know you like them younger women.’ I say, I aint gonna lie. But I keep you around for what you have done.”
Sometimes a guy will put his pit bull on the big scale to see how much she weighs. I had my barrels all lined up. The old man with his crooked leg and happy voice dragged a tub of brake rotars over to a 6 yard dumpster and heaved them in.
He didn’t have a chance in hell to ever find a woman who’d love him better.