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brand new too.” He pointed at the bright yellow heap in the middle of his unmade bed.
    Pete nodded, but his expression didn’t change from utter disdain. “I hate to be the one to tell ya, but your plants are dead and that table only has three legs.”
    “What’s up with you? You been watching The Martha Stewart Show ? I’m sure you didn’t stop over to criticize my housekeeping.” Cal slumped down onto his lumpy couch.
    Pete flashed a half smile and pulled up one of the kitchen chairs. “Nope, I didn’t. I came to tell you I picked up work today at the union hall. A project manager needed four carpenters for a hospital remodel—that big hospital on Twenty-fifth Street that takes people who don’t have insurance. It’ll be at least a year of work at prevailing wage and full benefits. You could have signed up too if you’d been down at the hall this morning.”
    “Is that right?” Cal asked. “I’m happy for you, Pete.” Only I don’t feel happy. I feel jealous and a little angry. How come jobs didn’t come in during the countless hours I sat there?
    He’d been an apprentice carpenter for almost four years. He would have made full journeyman by now if the housing bubble hadn’t burst and the banks hadn’t run out of money to lend. No matter how many times folks explained the mortgage crisis, he didn’t understand how the situation had caused construction to grind to a halt. But for whatever the reason, his big dreams of union wages with a pension plan and three weeks of paid vacation had been squashed.
    “Why did you stop coming down to the hall?” asked Pete. “You won’t find a job sitting around here watching game shows.”
    Cal felt a knot of resentment tighten in his chest. “I wasn’t getting any work there, either. And paying bus fare and buying my lunch downtown was costing money.”
    “Bus fare? What happened to your truck? You loved that Ranger.”
    “ Ach , I left it parked overnight where I shouldn’t have and they towed it away. When the police ran the plates, they found out I forgot to renew the registration, so they impounded it. By the time I figured out where they had stored it, the daily impound fee had risen to six hundred bucks. All told, I needed almost a grand to get my truck back. I didn’t have that much, and the truck wasn’t worth it.” Cal set his feet up on the wobbly coffee table, pushing aside a stale bag of potato chips.
    Pete looked sympathetic. “Cal, why didn’t you call me right away? I could have explained what was happening.”
    Cal shot to his feet. “What do you think I am, stupid?”
    “You know I don’t think that, but you haven’t lived here long enough to learn the ropes. I would think if I went to live with Amish people, somebody would explain how things worked down there. I’m sure I’d have plenty of questions. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
    Pete talked slow and easy. That’s what Cal had first noticed when they had met on a hotel construction project in Sugar Creek. Nothing got his dander up. He went along with the flow, no matter what the boss said to do. And Pete was smart. He could read blueprints and mechanical schematics. The foremen never had to keep an eye on him. Cal hadn’t been surprised when Pete made journeyman after only a two-year apprenticeship.
    “I wasn’t ashamed,” said Cal. “They had switched off my phone. Apparently, I’d sent my money orders to the wrong address. Payments were supposed to go somewhere in Kentucky instead of the phone company’s downtown office. They finally found the money orders, but then they wanted to add a service charge for turning the phone back on. I didn’t bother.” He stared out a smudgy window on the street below. Trash collectors were making their rounds despite a long row of parked cars along the street. They tossed empty cans back onto the sidewalk without caring where they landed.
    Pete walked to the window and gazed out, placing his hand on Cal’s shoulder. “I