Tonight, a snippet from a scene I’ve had in my mind for a long time. It’s basically my memory of a conversation I listened to while working in a shipping and mailing room, years ago. Someday I may work it into a book, if I find a place where it will be of some use.

“People think I don’t know nothin’, but I know a few things,” said Ray as he used the slide to cut a length of corrugated cardboard from a roll at the left of his workbench. He quickly cut the length into short sections, then piled them on top of one another to fill space at the top of the box he was packing. His motions were sure and practiced, though his hands trembled a little.

“They didn’t believe you?” asked Bill, a thinner, younger man. Bill was working at the bench behind Ray, unfolding a fresh carton as he reached for the sealing tape.

“They said it was nothin’. They wouldn’t listen to me. These young snots, they think I’m all old war stories, don’t know what’s goin’ on around me. So what if I like to have a few drinks now and then, fall down sometimes? It don’t mean I’m ignorant.”

“That’s sure enough,” said Bill.

“The apartment was right next to mine. I noticed it before anybody else, but pretty soon everybody could smell it. I went to the manager and told him. He said, no, you’re wrong. He said the guy’d gone on vacation, left some garbage in there.”

“Huh,” said Bill.

Their workbenches were gray. The box conveyer to the left of the benches was gray, too. So were the steel supply shelves, and some genius from the Facilities Office had recently brought in painters to give the walls two tones of fresh gray.

“I told him, I said, ‘I was in the war. I’ve smelled dead bodies before. You listen to me. There’s a dead body in there.’”