Chapter 6: The Dock

At five-forty the next morning, the Toledo dock was a river of headlights.

Forty drivers stood in the cold in work coats with steaming paper cups, and every one of them held the same white letter.

I stood on the loading platform next to Bridget, who had a megaphone and no idea how to use it.

"Is it on?" she said.

"It's a bullhorn, Bridget," I said.

"It has a button."

"I know, I was joking."

A little laugh moved through the crowd.

It was the last one for a while.

Nolan's truck pulled in.

He had not slept either.

He got out slowly, took the stairs two at a time, and stopped on the platform when he saw them all looking at him.

"Morning," he said.

Nobody answered.

I held up the letter.

"You signed this," I said.

"Say so."

"I signed it," he said.

"Why?"

"Because the buyer required the plan terminated at closing, and the sale is worth more without it," he said.

His voice was even.

"It's business."

A driver near the front laughed, short and ugly.

"Business," he said.

"Thirty-one years."

"I understand how it sounds."

"No, you don't," a woman in the second row said.

"My husband's hip needs a replacement in March."

Nolan opened his mouth.

I watched him look for the right words.

He had always found them.

"The plan is underfunded," he said.

"If I'd kept it, the company would have gone under in two years, and you'd have nothing."

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