The left side of his driveway, guided by the rock wall he stacked in 1962, narrows at the mouth like the old man’s at the news of another stone corner cracked by a seemingly blind backerupper, the wall does not lunge at bumpers, so he swears, and he shouts Slovak obscenities, while the old woman, graceful and wise, rolls her eyes, begging, Chuck, please, sixty odd years of similar exchanges dubbed the pair Sweet Heat, Brown Sugar, beacon of light for souls blown sideways by fiery squalls of the Heat, so he retreats to his cave to collect his rage, taking inventory, meanwhile:

Few dozen ball jars in assorted sizes, butter beans, spare coffee pots, twelve to fifteen kerosene lanterns (one, he notes, once rode on a carriage), ancient nail pulling apparatus, enough scrap wood to rebuild the house twice, empty JIF jars labeled minnows in sharpie on half-stuck scotch tape, wrenches/drivers/pliers floating in formation, petite cauldron of lead, hooks and lines, mounted antlers, unmounted antlers, cardboard scratched with notes dated 1997, Len jedno je potrebné published in 1907, etc., etc. 

This collection of junk that breeds in the shadows cast by Carnegie beams and cools a man made of molten steel enough, at least, to rejoin his Sweet