Anvil (Closing)

Sitting on the banks of the sea, sings the radio. She had a forty-four strapped around her body, and a banjo on her knee. He shuts off the engine. The radio goes silent.

He’s a big man, fussing about the back of the pickup truck. His raincoat blue, hood up, shining slick in the weird dim morning light. He comes up with a pair of grey workgloves and tugs them on. Rain trickles from his hood as he leans into the truck again. Long grey mustaches droop to either side of his flat mouth. He comes up with some brightly colored bungee cords and an armload of canvas sack.

The building over across the street is a long warehouse, a grey corrugated metal wall interrupted here and there by garage doors. Big letters in flaking paint say Bushnell Warehouse, Corp. over the doors. Down at the end there’s a slice of parking lot, a flatbed trailer with a load of rebar. He stands there a moment by a telephone pole, looking over the trailer. The rebar’s long and straight and black, piled neatly and wrapped in clear rain-beaded plastic. Raindrops splat on his hood. There’s a piece of white card nailed up over his head. 5+ Acres, say the sloppy black letters. 55K Lg Down. Another sign nailed to the next pole down the line says the same thing. He heaves the load of sack and cord over one shoulder and walks past the trailer, around the back end. Over past it up against the back wall of the warehouse is a pile of rusting sheet metal, tangles of steel cable, bent and broken rebar jutting at odd angles, streaked with orange and red. He rubs his gloved hands together, his mustaches spread by a small smile.