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asked.
    “It’s shit,” he said. “What superficial things separate an educated man from an ignorant one. In the eyes of conventional society, anyway.”
    He closed his eyes.
    “Shit,” he said again, apparently relishing the word. Then he started reciting, “‘For some time he has been aware of shit, elaborately crusted along the sides of this ceramic tunnel he’s in: shit nothing can flush away, mixed with hardwater minerals into a deliberate brown barnacling of his route, patterns thick with meaning…. ’ You know Thomas Pynchon?
Gravity’s Rainbow?”
    “No, not really. Heard of Pynchon, but I never read any of his books.”
    “That’s a part that really hits home. Some days don’t you just feel like you’ve gone headfirst into the crapper?”
    “I’ve had a few of those, yeah.”
    “Ah.” Tom opened his eyes briefly, and smiled. “‘Patterns thick with meaning, Burma-Shave signs of the toilet world, icky and sticky, cryptic and glyptic … ’ Billy. You really should read him…. Hey. You know what ‘glyptic’ means?”
    I looked at the ground. I couldn’t quite place what the root
glyp
might mean.
    “I have a lot to learn,” I admitted.
    “Don’t sweat it. No one expects you to be Daniel Samuelson. They don’t make ’em like Daniel Samuelson anymore. I hope they’re teaching you a little company history at the office.”
    The city bus pulled up to the corner and Barbara struggled out of its doors, carrying about four white plastic grocery bags on each arm. She rearranged her bags and tugged at her skirt before heading toward the house. Tom kept talking as she approached.
    “People don’t generally appreciate what a hardworking man Daniel Samuelson actually was,” he went on. “Imagine writing a whole dictionary in just a few years. Now they’ve got a full staff doing the same thing. The same thing
one man
did back then. Hey, Barb.”
    “Hello.” Barbara stopped in front of the steps and tried to blow a wisp of hair out of her eyes.
    “You want help with those bags?” I asked. She smiled, then handed me a bulging plastic sack full of cans.
    “Either of you know when Daniel Samuelson started his illustrious company?” Tom asked.
    Barbara rolled her eyes. I opened my mouth to answer, but Tom interrupted.
    “Eighteen seventy-eight. See that?” He shook his head. “Barb here’s lived in Claxton her whole life and she doesn’t know a hell of a lot about Mr. Samuelson. It’s a shame. Thatcompany was here before most of our families even got off the boat. But see, many Claxtonites don’t even know about Samuelson. It’s actually a little-known fact that some of the country’s finest dictionaries are produced right here in our fair shithole of a city.”
    Tom looked at Barbara and then at me. “You want a shot of something?”
    “Please, Tom,” said Barbara, opening the screen door. “Not on the porch.”
    “Tequila okay? That’s all I got,” Tom said, getting up.
    “I’m good,” I said.
    “You sure?”
    “Yeah.”
    As soon as I closed my front door, however, I was sorry I had turned down the tequila shot. The pouring, drinking, and subsequent light-headed conversation would’ve filled up a good thirty minutes far better than I could on my own.
    I threw down my junk mail.
    “What the hell do I do now?” I whispered.
    On my kitchen table,
101 Damn Good Jokes
lay facedown, open, with its spine cracked. When I saw the book, I felt chastened. What was wrong with me lately—treating time as if it were something that simply needed to be filled?
    I opened the refrigerator and considered its contents. Chicken breasts. Celery. Broccoli. Zucchini. Heavy cream, even. What was that for? I couldn’t remember. I figured a stir fry was ambitious enough. I sat down and picked up my book. I would read it until I was hungry enough to start chopping.
    • • •
    There was an unusually tight and shiny quality to Mona’s hairdo when she stopped by my desk a few days later. As