He had parked across from the Home Depot. Sitting in his truck, a bag of Taco Bell snug against his thigh. Diced tomatoes falling in his lap.
Had he been serious about getting the job he would have held off the burritos until after he did the minimal inquiry of a job app, busting out of the depot for the congratulatory meal. But that charade -- no.
Hank was in truth today,
Wasn't it always a job? Looking for one, looking to keep one, sometimes to lose one.
In all directions from his truck he saw store fronts: the Taco Bell, the KFC, Bed Bath and Beyond, a comic book shop; out his driver's side window he could make out a Radio Shack and a Pet Quarters just under the Burger King sign. This used to be a lake town. There were no stores here when he was a kid, just fishing holes.
These stores were for pond tourists. The pond isn't enough for them.
These dumb thoughts played the time while he ate his lunch. And after the foods, while daydreaming fishing trips, some he'd fished, some he'd invented wholly from the pictures of these others, was when he saw the daughter with her friends.
These were all boys that tagged along, all shorter than her, younger than her, keying cars, lighting her cigarettes, while she strolled from strip mall to strip mall, watching her phone for a sign.
Hank watched a long time. He hadn't meant to interrupt her, but they were coming the way of his truck, and it had been a long time since he had seen her; when they were close, he honked.
Once she recognized him she shooed her boys away. She went to his truck alone, pulling up out of the slouch she had been using to her full height taller than him.
"What are you doing?" She said to him.
"Spying on you."
"Funny."
"Yup."
"Seriously though."
"I had errands."
"Errands. Uh huh."
"What about you?, He said, "Why don't you go in the Home Depot. There always looking for pretty girls in there."
"I don't want a job."
She smiled.
You coming over for Christmas?" Hank said.
The girl, the young woman, looked off at her friends.
She said, "You know Jesus wasn't born on Christmas. Guess when he was born. September the eleventh."
-- This girl, this tall girl with the colors in her hair that made him think of the Stones, was his daughter. His girly, this thing that started nineteen years earlier when Hank had been nineteen, when he had married the daughter of the man who had first hired him to a job, (but not before impregnating her).
"Are you hungry? You want some Taco Bell?"
"Okay."
He handed her the bag.
"You know you need a job." He said.
"Okay." She said again but different than the last, softening to him.
"What kind of --"
"Dad --", she interrupted him, "I gotta go."
"Christmas." He said.
"We'll see."
As he drove away he saw his daughter hand out burritos to her friends.
