New Hope For Small Men: Chapter 13

Did the manager’s wife love him? Did she take him in her arms at night and kiss the stress from his brow and pet his receding hair? Was he sweet with her, and did she respond in kind? Did they undress in the same room? Did she open her legs for him, did he lay on top of her or did she straddle him? This was not fodder. This was anti-fodder.

It was heartbreaking that the undeserving should know love while he awoke every morning to the screams of cable installers, and spent his free afternoons doing nothing or watching Mr. Carleton sip tea and stare out the window.

“Look,” Mr. Carleton said. “Do you see those two pigeons on the line? No, the other line.”

There were two pigeons sitting on a phone line. The pigeons were spotted black and white like cows. They were standing very close to each other, looking at the world beneath them, which at that moment was quiet.

Mr. Carleton dabbed his eyes with the back of his hand.