Lit in Progress

Jake pulled himself into the truck, mumbling softly about his knee. When he was in the military – he doesn’t tell the story – he’d been drunk one night when they were stationed in Arizona, and he’d hit it on a table. That was it, his glorious war injury. Damn.

He creaked, he thought, like the seat springs. Wondered, with a chuckle, which was loudest. There in the passenger seat and floorboard were tools, rags, some baling wire. A copy of Catch 22, another of Clear and Present Danger. He kicked a styrofoam cup from under the clutch and the truck roared awake.