They unloaded 500 boxes from the back of the panel truck in blazing sun. Even when Loomis thought he couldn’t pick up one more box, when he thought that he’d rather lay down right there on the hot pavement and just die, he went on, his body one big throb of pain, his eyes big with blood. He felt like some machine whose creator had died and whose gas hadn’t run out yet, ratcheting and banging away on some empty plain. Ferguson whistled as they stood looking at the empty truck. “Pretty good warmup, eh?” he said, showing his yellow teeth. “Little tuneup for the character.” He jumped down and beckoned to Loomis. They walked through the banging warehouse, hearing the echoing shouts of men. They went through a narrow passageway, out through a weedy lot piled with scrap metal, and into a battered wooden shed. There were shafts of light coming through the ceiling. The shelves were full of tools, of half-assembled motors, the walls had a few tool calendars in among the metrical charts, the women’s unblemished tan skin shining with oil in some faraway Beverly Hills sun of the imagination. Ferguson rooted about in the wreckage, then his hand came up with something. He lifted it into the light. It glittered. A half-empty pint of whiskey. Ferguson drank a hungry swallow, then passed it to Loomis, who drank eagerly, not bugged by the cheap burn. “A machine can’t run without oil!” Ferguson laughed. As it kicked in, Loomis didn’t feel the heat anymore, felt the ache go out of his muscles. He’d make it. Now he’d make it.
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