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car with a nudge of his worn work shoe.   Then he walked out to the tow truck parked behind the station.   I followed reluctantly.   In passing, he nodded at the BE BACK SOON sign in the window next to a symmetrical stack of oil cans, saying, “I’m still on break, see.   And hey, did you know you look kinda like that actor guy?”
    â€œYeah, I get that a lot,” I admitted, lazily.   “Michael Keaton.”
    â€œNo, I mean the guy who played Superman.”
    â€œYou mean Batman.”
    â€œWhatever.”
    â€œMichael Keaton.”
    â€œThat’s his name?”
    â€œWas.   He’s lost his name, and is losing his hair, too.”
    â€œJust like you?”   Wally sporadic laughter was beginning to annoy me.   It sounded as though the chicken bone permanently stuck in his throat had meat on it.   “Where ya from?”
    â€œRichmond, Virginia.”
    â€œReally?   Wow.”
    â€œCar’s a rental, from the airport in Omaha.”
    â€œYeah?   Where ya headed?”
    We climbed into the old tow truck, which had little explosions of stuffing where the seat cushion foam had burst from the frayed stitching.   “Here, actually,” I said.   “A friend moved here recently, thought I’d surprise him.”
    â€œThat right?   Well, I sure surprised you, didn’t I?   What’s yer friend’s name?   I know everybody round here, but then so does everybody else.”   He chuckled halfheartedly, winding down from his high of the day.   I could see that he only partly understood a foreigner’s point of view, so I didn’t answer him at first, hoping the name question would lose itself.   When the truck started up, after a few backfires, we headed north.   It was a direction where no one had ever needed to point.   “‘Course if you wanna surprise him, well . . .”
    After a too uncomfortable silence, I tried, “You know Walter Mills?”
    â€œNo, can’t say I do.   Yet.   How long’s he been here?”
    â€œNot long.”   I extended my hand slowly, reluctantly.   “I’m Freddy, by the way.   Freddy Wilson.”
    We shook hands.   Wally’s grasp across the truck’s tight cab was loose and cool, like the blood had lost its way, and only muscle memory remained.   He even pumped my hand too, before letting go suddenly, as if remembering not to be too friendly.   “Glad to know ya , Freddy.   I never forget a name or a face.   Sorry ‘bout scarin ’ ya , back there.”
    â€œI’m getting used to it,” I told him, sincerely this time.
    Â 
    The Taurus was canted into the deepest section of the ditch, undisturbed in the warm afternoon sunlight.   Wally pulled alongside, got out, and began to hook up the tow truck’s rigging to the Taurus’s undercarriage, whistling as he worked.   Then he saw something, and bent down further for a closer look under the car.   Flopping himself down next to it, he put his head all the way to the ground, under the bumper.   Then his whistling took a familiar downward note before it stopped.
    â€œUh-oh,” Wally announced, and just as I was imagining his head becoming stuck, and the car shifting to decapitate him.
    â€œWhat?   What is it?”
    â€œBroken tie rod.   Take a while to fix that.   Lucky you ain’t just passin ’ through.”
    I attempted to peer under the front from the driver’s side, to verify it.   But I couldn’t see, and so I couldn’t tell what I was looking at, exactly.   “Tie rod?”
    â€œYup.”   Wally got up with difficulty, dusting his hands, and returned to the tow controls.   With the chains taut, he proceeded to activate the truck’s hydraulics to lift the car up.   Then he climbed into the cab, gears forward, and finally edged the Taurus out,