that town because rent was cheap and nobody asked too many questions. I worked bad jobs for worse bosses until I finally walked into Joe’s Diner during a breakfast rush, asking if they needed help. One waitress had just quit, and Joe looked me up and down.
“You ever carried three plates at once?”
“No.”
He shrugged.
“You’ve got ten minutes to learn.”
That was Joe—rough, blunt, built like a refrigerator, and still one of the most decent people I had ever met. At the end of long shifts, he
