No, not the man in the suit; that’s Dan Keeton, our Head Selectman.

I mean the other one the black guy in the work fatigues. That’s Eddie Warburton, the night-shift janitor in the Municipal Building.

Keep your eye on him for a few seconds, and watch what he does.

There! See him pause on the top step and look upstreet? I’d bet you more dollars to more doughnuts that he’s looking at the Sunoco station. The Sunoco’s owned and operated by Sonny jackett, and there’s been bad blood between the two of em ever since Eddie took his car there two years ago to get the drive-train looked at.

I remember that car quite well. It was a Honda Civic, nothing special about it, except it was special to Eddie, because it was the first and only brand-new car he’d ever owned in his life. And Sonny not only did a bad job, he overcharged for it in the bargain. That’s Eddie’s side of the story. Warburton’s just usin his color to see if he can beat me out of the repair-bill-that’s Sonny’s side of the story.

You know how it goes, don’t you?

Well, so Sonny jackett took Eddie Warburton to small claims court, and there was some shouting first in the courtroom and then in the hall outside. Eddie said Sonny called him a stupid nigger and Sonny said Well, I didn’t call him a nigger but the rest is true enough.

In the end, neither of them was satisfied. judge made Eddie cough up fifty bucks, which Eddie said was fifty bucks too much and Sonny said wasn’t anywhere near enough. Then, the next thing you know, there was an electrical fire in Eddie’s new car and the way it ended was that Eddie’s Civic went off to the junkyard out on Town Road #5, and now Eddie’s driving an ’89 Oldsmobile which blows oil.

Eddie has never quite gotten over the idea that Sonny jackett knows a lot more about that electrical fire than he’s ever told.

Boy, people have more fun than anybody, except horses, and they can’t. Ain’t it all just about more than you can take on a hot day?