“What did you think? A few dings, some body work and everything would be kosher?”
“Hey now,” Dave said. “Calm down. It's only a car.” He stopped. There was silence for a moment, then he added, “One that don't
work too good neither.” He started to laugh.
“It's not funny!”
“It isn't,” he agreed his expression becoming serious. “It's totaled,” and burst out laughing.
Dave looked at me. I didn't smile. I was thinking about my stove, feeling depressed.
“A car is meant to get you from point A to point B. When it can't do that. As you can see . . .” He gestured getting to his feet.
“John, I think we ought to get back to the Meadows. I'll see if I asked an honest man to watch my stuff. The store will open too.”
He inhaled for significance. “And that means.” He looked at me.
“You know what that means?”
“Beer?”
“No, wine. I changed my mind.” He grinned.
I slowly got to my feet. Dave started scrambling up the mountainside, I begin trudging.
He turned. “I'll buy you a new stove. What kind was it?”
“MSR.” I said feeling a little hopeful.
“MSR?”
“Yep. I just got it. I paid fifty bucks for it.” I was starting to feel better.
“You paid fifty dollars for a frigging stove?” He stopped, faced me. “How about I get you a Primus and buy you lunch?”
I looked up at him. I almost said, “Sure”, but always settling for second best, was eating at me.
“Nope.” I was feeling much better.
Dave threw up his hands and turned.
“Lucky bastard” he muttered.
“Say what?”
He stopped, raised a hand against the morning sun, looked down at me.
“Fifty bucks?”
I was finally standing up for myself.
“That's what I said.”
“For a frigging stove?”
“Yep.”
“Christ, me and my big mouth,” Dave said. He dropped his hand, pulled his dark glasses out of his shirt pocket, started to put them on,
stopped, looked at them closely.
“These aren't a month old,” he complained. “The right lens is already scratched”
He put them on, turned, began trudging up the hill.
I started to whistle.
