It’s Better This Way

The convertible black as night with straight-up fins and a grille like shark’s teeth comes to rest in the bar’s parking lot among long-bed pickups with pipes and lumber and paint-splattered extension ladders balanced on roofs like flat-top crew cuts, pickups owned by thick-neck homies who glance askance when men fold out, men tall, lanky, handsome with low-slung jeans and white shirts, men who’d seen the world, Houston and Wichita and beyond, men who leave the bar at last call and fold back in, convertible taillights signaling freedom, yet thick-neck homies turn away and, to get by, order another round.

 

Photo Credit: Thomas Hawk