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Just like that. For Danny. Like a tribute to Danny. He hated smoking. I mean, he smoked like a chimney, but he was always trying to quit.” I felt kind of stupid saying this. But proud at the same time. I had a sudden urge to talk, to say anything about Danny. “You know,” I said. “Danny had nicknames for all you guys.” Stinky Bob drank. Tattoo Terri shrugged, took the pack of cigarettes and put them in her bag. “He did,” I went on. “For everybody. Rose with the Nose. Soupy Campbell. Fat Pat. Attilla the Hank.” I took the last drag off the last cigarette I would ever smoke. Dropped the butt in an empty glass.
    I looked at Terri. She looked back. “He called you Tattoo Terri. I mean, I guess, sure. What else would he call you, right?” I nodded to Bob. “And, well. He called you Stinky Bob. No offence. He just called you that. A nickname.” The two of them were smiling. Bob looked at the beer in his hand. Terri looked over at the pool table.
    Bob said, “He had a few for you too.”
    â€œMe?” I said.
    â€œHe called you Wimpy Walter,” Terri said. “Or just Wimpy.”
    â€œSometimes Wild Walter,” Bob said.
    â€œBut usually Weird Wally,” Terri finished. Mitzi brought a dozen more beers. Bob paid, tipped her two bucks. It was twenty-six minutes after noon. “We’ll be late today,” Terri said.
    â€œTo Danny,” Bob said. “Dead Danny.”
    â€œDead Danny,” Terri said, raising a glass.
    â€œDead Danny,” I said. We all drank.

Industrial
Accidents
    Four men sit in the lunchroom of a chemical plant.
    Andy has a pen in each hand. He is doing two crosswords at once. The newspaper he reads has two sets of clues for the same puzzle. With the right hand, blue ink, he answers the cryptic clues in the bottom right corners of the blanks. With the left, red, he answers the quick clues in the top left. He hopes one day to complete both simultaneously.
    Meanwhile, Jason struggles with a different puzzle in the tabloid daily. He asks, “What’s a six-letter word for pan-liner, starts with a T?” His grime-etched fingers are knotted around a pencil he’s sharpened with his knife.
    Asleep on a chair in the corner, Bruce makes a sound in his throat, not quite a snore.
    With a pocket screwdriver, Ditmar scrapes the leavings from his pipe onto the lunchroom table. He breaks up the cold dottle, separating the ash from bits of tobacco that are merely scorched. He brushes the ash to the floor, then scoots the rest into his tobacco pouch.
    â€œTeflon,” Andy says without looking up. Three puzzles at once, he thinks.
    â€œTeflon,” Ditmar repeats. “Teflon is a killer.”
    Jason puts the pencil behind his ear, opens his paper to the page with the photo of the bikini-clad Beauty Of The Day. Teflon thighs, he thinks. He uses an Exacto knife to cut out the picture. He folds it carefully, minding where the creases are, and tucks it into the breast pocket of his coveralls. Later, at the end of shift, he will add it to the stack of pictures in his locker clipped from the last two years’ of papers.
    â€œIt’s true,” Ditmar continues. “Researchers at a chemical factory very much like this one. Trying to make a synthetic lubricant. They mixed some formula, it didn’t work.” Ditmar checks his watch.
    â€œReally,” Jason says. Andy scribbles on newsprint.
    Bruce dreams of trout.
    Ditmar pinches a clump of tobacco into the bowl of his pipe. “Then they sat down to lunch, just as we are doing now.” A thin chain tethers a cigarette lighter to the leg of the lunchroom table. Ditmar pulls it towards him and clicks the flame to life. How sad, he thinks, as he does each time: a pipe should be lit with a wooden match. Regulations prevent him and all workers from bringing personal matches or lighters into the plant. “But one of them left it on the burner. A