Eddie’s got a thermos of coffee in the truck. Thick, black stuff that will curl your nose hairs back. He’ll sit in the parking lot for a half-hour before his shift and suck it down, straight from the bottle, no mug or nothing. Then he’ll clock in and change into his work clothes. He puts a flashlight in his pocket, a little green thing with scratches on the lens. Hardly even makes a decent beam anymore. One little screwdriver in his shirt pocket, for picking and prodding; a fingernail that don’t get dirty.
He keeps a picture of his babies in his wallet, even though they ain’t babies no more, or his. Ain’t seen them since they were teenagers. Their mama took them to New York State in a little, blue, hatchback loaded down with luggage bags and no goodbyes.
In the picture, Eddie’s all cleaned up. His hair was still black and slicked back. He’s got a little, chubby girl on each knee. Their red little fingers with eggshell nails are caught onto his neck like they’d never let go. They had a little old house by the river with plaster walls that kept the cold out, and a yard with tulips by the driveway and forsythia in a big thick row around the back. Sometimes he’d set out a little blanket in the back of the house and lay down with his babies in the springtime, teach them the names of trees; stuff folks can’t remember anymore. He’d bring them a treat in his lunchbox, Little Debbie’s from the machine at work. They’d fight each other trying to get it open and eat them face first.
He worked on the mining equipment then. Good money but you had to watch your head. Saw a crane slip right over the lip one time; fifteen story fall. But you ought to have seen those big things move. Diesel power just singing off the rock walls, big turbos whistling all day long. The mining job went away when all the other good jobs did, when the steel mills closed down and everybody forgot who their neighbor was. Eddie started driving long haul tractor-trailers on the road, and it was state-line after state-line, "baby, baby I love you" from a payphone in a truck stop diner. "Daddy, daddy when you comin’ home?" And the sun would set right down across his big windshield lighting up the cab in orange and blue and purple til he hurt from the beauty of it. So he’d call home at the next stop to tell her and she’d sit there on the other end and not say anything at all. “Baby, baby, please don’t go.”
It’s been fifteen years. Eddie stopped driving tractor trailers. Got this job fixing rental trucks, but it was too late to come home. He got rid of the house with the forsythia because there’s something cold about the way a place can keep a memory. Like one morning you’re gonna wake up and she’s gonna be smiling on her pillow next to you, like maybe she’s just on vacation or taking the babies to dip their toes in the river.
Eddie’s got a thermos of coffee in his truck. He’s got a flashlight and a screwdriver and a picture of two beautiful brown eyed girls in his pocket. He’s got a six pack of beer in the fridge at home and a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store. He’s got tuna fish in his lunch box and a big Snap-On tools calendar inside his locker with girls showing their legs. He’s got wrinkles under his eyes dug in real deep and five of the same pair of jeans. He’s got a woman he’ll call on every now and then when he just needs a little bit of company but he ain’t got a dog or garden or a baby or a woman to tell good things to.
Steve Comstock was born and raised in Baldwin County, Alabama. He served with the U.S. Army in Afghanistan and now works as a mechanic in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His work can be found in Hobart, Hobart After Dark, and The Ghost City Review, among others.