Wilbo Gives a Lift to a Man with Two Bags of Returnable Cans to His Name.

So at the corner of Lane and Fulton, a failed Seven Eleven has given up its corner, a new convenience store open in the building. It's a nice store but won't let customers buy five dollars or less of merchandise on a card without a fifty cent charge. A man awaited me with two gorged Hefty Hefty Flex sacks. "Evicted by his girlfriend," I wondered. The bags rattled as he picked them up to stow in my truck. He wanted to go to Duthler's on Bridge to cash them in using the can machine. That was going to cost him five dollars and five cents. I would get only two dollars and sixty cents of it. I decided to just take him. I killed the meter. He told me about himself. Living on a withdrawal from his life insurance policy, a whole life plan. Fired from his job as an industrial mechanic. Probably fired for turning fifty-one and having COPD. The inhalers cost seven hundred and fifty and he had lost insurance coverage. He paid for inhalers and blood pressure meds out of pocket. Before we took off, the store owner buttonholed him. The owner had a check for eight​een dollars and fifty cents he was holding. He wanted to know when payment was coming. Maybe the check bounced? Duthler's would take twenty-five dollars in cans, enough money to resolve the situation. When I dropped him off at Duthler's, I said, "Would you like me to wait". I could have insisted. "That's okay, it will take me a while. A walk back from Bridge to Fulton will do me good. I gotta lose this belly". "Okay, suit yourself". And I drove off to see who else awaited a lift. 

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