The man in the hat awoke to a screaming in his ears, an ear-splitting screech. A jackdaw flew soaring across the sky, splitting the horizon in two. Behind it a cormorant whirled and spun, its tail feathers unfurling like a dimestore canopy. Behind the cormorant a porch owl guttered and glommed, probing the sky for gnats and June bugs. The man in the hat pulled his hat down over his ears, cinching the tie-string round his chin, and lit a half-smoked cigarette, the other half a blue memory of smoke and coughing.
In Ambler Pennsylvania the man in the hat met a man who worked as a dockhand for the KVAERNER PHILA SHIPYARD, INC. As he had one arm, he hoisted and steved cargo with one hand, the left. Before he worked for the KVAERNER PHILA SHIPYARD, INC., the man worked as a chemist’s gopher for the Gauteng Pill and Tincture co. in Midrand South Africa. And before that as a mailroom clerk for the Torbay Bros. in Torquay Devonshire, a position he left once he realized that mailroom clerking was beneath him.
In Belgium he filled in for a sick janitor at the Bree Limburg Cement Co., resigning his position early due to an undersigning cough. In Auckland New Zealand he had a brief stint as a carpet-layer, a job he much enjoyed but found too laborious. And in Montreal he took a part-time job as a news editor for the Quebecor Methodist newsweekly, leaving after a run in with the Arts and Entertainment editor. He ended up in Stockholm living in a walk-up working for Bredbandsbolaget Pet Groomers, where he stayed for the next 27½ years.
In Ambler Pennsylvania the man in the hat met a man who worked as a dockhand for the KVAERNER PHILA SHIPYARD, INC. As he had one arm, he hoisted and steved cargo with one hand, the left. Before he worked for the KVAERNER PHILA SHIPYARD, INC., the man worked as a chemist’s gopher for the Gauteng Pill and Tincture co. in Midrand South Africa. And before that as a mailroom clerk for the Torbay Bros. in Torquay Devonshire, a position he left once he realized that mailroom clerking was beneath him.
In Belgium he filled in for a sick janitor at the Bree Limburg Cement Co., resigning his position early due to an undersigning cough. In Auckland New Zealand he had a brief stint as a carpet-layer, a job he much enjoyed but found too laborious. And in Montreal he took a part-time job as a news editor for the Quebecor Methodist newsweekly, leaving after a run in with the Arts and Entertainment editor. He ended up in Stockholm living in a walk-up working for Bredbandsbolaget Pet Groomers, where he stayed for the next 27½ years.
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