He was down to fifty dollars.

 

The next morning he stopped at a construction site and offered his services for

a hundred dollars for ten solid hours of labor.

 

His task was to haul bags of cement from a truck to a construction elevator

stuck back in a corner where the big trucks couldn’t reach.

 

There were three other men assigned to this job as well. They were all in their

twenties. Rogers carried more fifty-pound bags than the three of them combined.

He never spoke, never looked at the other men. He just hefted bags, hauled them

a hundred feet to the elevator, dumped them, and walked back for more. Ten hours

with a twenty-minute break for a food truck sandwich and a cup of coffee.

“Thanks for making us look good, Gramps,” said one of them sarcastically when

the day’s work was done.

 

Rogers had turned to look at him. He eyed the man’s neck where his jugular

wobbled underneath the fat. Rogers could have crushed the vein between his

fingers and watched the man bleed out in less than a minute. But what would have

been the point? “You’re welcome,” he said.

 

When the young punk snorted at him, Rogers fixed his gaze on him. He wasn’t

looking at him so much as through him to a destination on the other side of his

skull.