On one of the stepfather’s excursions, looking for spare parts for the cars he repaired, he used to stop at many junkyards. The Troop member evidencing seemed to rise slowly from the juxtaposition of texture on texture, his body bent to meld with the various objects blanketing him. “Junkman.” The name lay in the woman’s mind. She caught a sense of him, as being the essence of all hiding, all “removal” from the world. She smiled, accepting him and all that he was, for he asked nothing except his right to stay hidden. That right seemed to be protected in some way, by Mean Joe.
