Hank was lumbering back from the shotput circle when he saw a news truck with a big number three on its side. He watched as the crew piled out, two heavy set long haired men with goatees, and a small woman in a pants suit that was still somehow suggestive. She had a waterfall of blond hair gleaming in the morning sun. Hank thought it was funny how easy it was to tell who was the crew and who was in front of the camera. Even if they were all wearing the same outfit it would be easy to pick out the anchor. Hank would have loved one of the fat goateed men to deliver the news. "Ya hey, this is Frank with the news. A whole bunch of shit happened in Fairhaven today, let's go to Mike on the scene."

"Ya hey thanks Frank, anyway ya, whole bunch of shit happening, ok back to you."

Hank smiled at this thought as he made his way back to the shed. He then thought about how it was almost like the crew was assigned to their positions at birth. Sure you might see a small pretty woman in a film crew, but you never see one of those slobs delivering the news. They were like the guys he worked with at the DPW. Hank would sometimes try and picture them as anything other than what they were. He tried picturing Joey, his dumb racist boss, as a professor or a librarian. He pictured Rodger, the geezer of the crew, as a lawyer or a politician advocating for open container laws or universal basic lottery tickets.

Sometimes Hank would look at himself in the mirror and try to picture himself living a different life. All he saw was a cumbersome body that felt like a burden to be dragged around and an ugly face full of crooked teeth. He even had an unfavorable view of his own brain which was always slipping into day dreams and could never process what someone told him the first time. He imagined himself out on a sale boat like some other boys in Marion, in one of those stupid polos or a pair of those ugly salmon colored short shorts that made you curse god for creating legs. He pictured himself at parties, talking to girls, one of them taking interest in him, going “I actually have a thing for ogres, do you want to go in another room and I can make out with you insane style?” Hank didn't know how girls talked.

He would get fleeting images of a different life, but it would never stick, and he'd always find himself back in the office bathroom, or behind the shed at the Old Landing cemetery with Rodger shouting "Hey! Gentle giant! How long does it take you to piss?" Hank thought about Rodger, and if he'd still be working this summer. Rodger was close to seventy, but something in Hank knew he would be there. The other guys would always joke with Rodger about how he was going to die soon. Hank suspected the reason they had Rodger work groundskeeping at the grave yard was so all the other guys could laugh and say "Hey Rodge, instead of going home why don't you just claim a plot now?"

Then Hank's mind slowly started to slip into daydream about the peace and quiet of Old Landing, when Bill screeched the gator to a halt in front of the shed. Hank flinched whenever he was brought back to the real world.

“What are you doing?” Bill asked.

“What?” said Hank, even though Hank was trying to say 'what' less so he could come off as less stupid.

“I said what are you doing, just standing around.”

“I, uh, I was waiting for you to tell me what to do.”

Bill studied the kid for a moment before saying “good answer, at least you're not on your god damn phone. Hop in the gator were going to fill the water dispensers.” Hank nodded and hopped into the passenger seat. Bill wasn't the first adult to praise Hank for his unusually unplugged lifestyle. The truth was Hank was never on his phone, because he and his mother couldn't afford for him to have one, but Bill didn't need to know that.

The sun was warm and gentle, and as the gator puttered along at eight miles per hour, the breeze cooled the light layer of sweat on Hank's face. They took the paved path up into the parking lot, and beyond the pavement, the tree line produced jack rabbits that grazed on the soon to be mowed greenery, looking up in suspicious intervals.

“What are the news crews here for?” Hank asked, taking another peak at the crew, all of whom were leaning against the van, looking down on their phones at what Hank imagined were three very different versions of the internet. Bill glanced over at Hank incredulously. “You know why, don't you? They're here to see Abby.”

Hank was embarrassed. He often found himself in situations where everybody but him seemed to know something. “I, uh, no I don't know who that is.” Bill stopped the gator in front of the athletic trainers office. He got out and grabbed one of the big orange water dispensers and Hank grabbed the other. He followed Bill to a spigot with a three foot hose attached, and Bill began to fill his dispenser. “Abby is a distance runner on the verge of breaking the state record in the mile.” Bill spoke in a way that made Hank feel this was something very important. Bill motioned for Hank to place the second dispenser next to the first.

“I haven't heard of her, what grade is she in?” Hank asked.

“Yours, she's a Junior, but she's homeschooled now. I don't think she could go to normal classes in school because-” Bill looked up at Hank, like he forgot who he was speaking to. He quickly finished by saying, “Well, she takes running pretty seriously, you'll see. Now grab your dispenser and load it in the back of the gator.”

The water dispensers were ten gallons each and weighed about 80 pounds a piece. As Bill screwed on the lid of his respective cooler, he thought to himself that this was a way to show the kid he still had some strength in him. Bill had been filling and loading the coolers for so many years, his body, which should have been too old and brittle for such exertion, could somehow still handle the weight of the awkward heavy load. Bill prepared to heave one of the coolers onto the back of the gator. He stood tall to do some twists as a warm up, when Hank reached down with one hand to grab the side handle of the cooler in front of Bill, then grabbed the other the same way, and without so much as a grunt, lifted both up and into the back of the gator. The rear suspension compressed and squeaked to bear the weitht. Hank then lumbered back to the passenger side of the gator, while Bill, wide eyed, inspected the coolers.

Bill thought there was no way they were full, water must have leaked out of them or something. But upon opening the lids he found them both to be filled to the brim. He looked at the kid, the width of him in the gator almost spilling into the driver's seat.

“How the hell are you so strong?” Bill said, testing the heaviness of the coolers and finding he had to strain to budge them. Hank looked back over his shoulder with an embarrassed smile. “Oh, thanks. I like to lift weights, and I guess my dad was strong.” Bill nodded, and got into the gator. Hank sat quietly as Bill drove, he felt stupid for bringing up his dad. He tried to never do that out of fear of follow up questions. But Bill just drove, and they shared the silence men often share, each wanting to say things to each other, but deciding not to.

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