Fitting Ends Read Online Free PDF

eyes.
    Scott’s father is a short, dark-haired man with a heavy brow and leathery, sun-wrinkled skin. People are afraid of his looks, Scott has noticed, not just because of his eye, but also because there is a kind of inborn intensity to his expression that is apparent even in baby pictures.
    He never used to have any hobbies, except drinking and reading, sometimes—he liked a certain kind of lurid detective novel, the kind that featured screaming, half-dressed women on the cover. But these days, Scott has noticed, his father keeps busy. He spends a lot of time in the shed behind the trailer, making things out of scrap metal. Maybe, Scott thinks, he finds it therapeutic. Maybe, since he is no longer a welder by trade, he does it out of nostalgia, or to keep in practice. He works with old automobile parts and barbed wire, nails and brass pipes, making things like candlestick holders, picture frames, book-ends. Recently he made Scott a belt buckle out of thin slices of copper tubing welded together like a honeycomb. Though Scott can’t imagine wearing the thing in public, certainly not at his college, he does like it. There is a kind of strange beauty to it, Scott thinks, as if it were a relic from another planet.
    Four days a week, Scott’s father works at a feedlot. They are looking for people, he has told Scott on several occasions, and on the morning after the meeting he brings it up again. “I really think a little hard work would do you good,” he says. They are standing in his workshop when he suggests this, surrounded by bits of metal and junk, and when Scott doesn’t answer, it seems to him that the old engines and bedsprings close in a little. “I don’t think it’s good for you to sit around all day, brooding,” his father says. “That’s the worst thing for you right now.” The father has a flat piece of metal in a vise, and he’s slowly pounding it into a helix. He grits his teeth.
    â€œOr,” he says, grunting, “you could try to get a job somewhere else if you want. But I’ve always said that it’s the physical work that keeps your mind off your troubles.” He looks up, his forehead sweaty. He cocks his head slightly, in order to fix on Scott with his good eye.
    â€œSure,” Scott says. He edges his foot along the ground, scattering bolts, spark plugs, washers. He shrugs.
    On Monday, Scott goes into the office to fill out an application. Cowboys and old sixties-Vietnam types with scruffy beards are milling around, and some of them turn to look at him as he passes. Scott had long hair and two weeks’ growth on his face when he went into detox, but they insisted that he cut his hair and shave daily. Now he looks clean-cut, squeaky clean, he thinks, like someone who folds his hands in his lap when he sits down, someone who constantly smooths the creases of his pants.
    The man behind the desk is wearing a Western shirt and a string tie, and his hair is slicked across his balding head. He rubs his knuckles as he looks at the application. “We don’t get many college kids out here.” He frowns. “This is hard work—physical work.”
    â€œI know,” Scott says. He looks at his feet, trying to shift his leg so his argyle socks aren’t visible to men passing behind him. His father was the one who told him to “dress up.”
    â€œWhere did you learn of this position?”
    â€œMy dad works here,” Scott says quietly. He glances across the room to where his father is punching a time card. “Larry Sullivan.”
    â€œMmm.” The man’s eyes narrow, and he writes a quick scrawl across the application. “We’ll get back to you.”
    When Scott goes outside, his father is standing by the door, waiting. Scott tells him he doesn’t think he’ll get the job, but his father just smiles.
    â€œDo you want to ride around with me for a while and look the place