On the pier, the sun had burned through the last of the fog, leaving a sky so blue it almost hurt to look at. The generators hummed their endless hum. The scientists clustered around their dials. The cables wrapped around the Eldridge like copper snakes, waiting for whatever came next.
Sal stood for a moment, letting the sun warm his face. Below decks, you forgot there was a sky at all. You forgot there was a world above the steel, a world of clouds and birds and ordinary people doing ordinary things. It was one of the things he hated about ship work—the way it swallowed you whole, made you forget that anything else existed.
He was heading for the gate when he noticed a young man standing near a stack of crates, watching the Eldridge with an intensity that bordered on obsessive. He was maybe eighteen, wiry, with the kind of nervous energy that made him look like he was about to vibrate out of his skin. He wore merchant marine dungarees and clutched a notebook like it was a winning lottery ticket.
Their eyes met. The young man looked away quickly, pretending to be interested in something else.
Sal kept walking. He had a toilet to fix in South Philadelphia, and after that, a dinner to eat, and after that, a daughter to read to. He didn't have time for mysteries.
But as he walked through the gate and out of the shipyard, the hum followed him. It vibrated in his teeth, in his bones, in the back of his mind.
He shook his head and kept walking. The hum could follow him all it wanted. He wasn't listening.
Mrs. Grimaldi's toilet took two hours.
The problem, as Sal had predicted, was not a simple clog but a complete mechanical breakdown. The float ball was corroded. The arm was bent. The chain had been repaired so many times it was more knots than chain. The whole assembly was held together, as far as Sal could tell, by hope and the accumulated prayers of three generations of Grimaldis.
He did what he could. He cleaned what could be cleaned. He adjusted what could be adjusted. He said a small prayer to whatever patron saint oversaw hopeless causes and antique plumbing. When he flushed, the water swirled with the enthusiasm of a very tired animal, but it swirled. It drained. It didn't overflow.
Mrs. Grimaldi handed him two biscotti—stale, but not as stale as last time—and a dollar. "For your trouble. And tell your wife I'm praying for her. And for that little girl."
"Thank you, Mrs. G."
"And tell her to watch out for communists. They're everywhere now. In the pipes. In the walls. In the government."
Sal nodded. "I'll tell her."
He walked home through the streets of South Philadelphia, past the row houses and the corner stores and the little park where Maria liked to play. The sun was setting, painting the sky in shades of orange and pink and purple. It was the kind of sky that made you remember God was an artist, even when He was also a practical joker.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiedw8lpqch
Sal Lombardi, King of Crap, was exactly where he belonged.
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and then Add to home screen.