Apricot Brandy and Slim Jims

‘…I never much wanted much of anything, except for a Ship Day hat and a jug-board potholder’ said the legless man totting old bottles and tins. ‘…this is a good one, or two…’ He caked the old bottles and tins into his rucksack, piling the tins one on top of the other, then cramming the bottles one on top of the other on top of the tins. He spent most mornings totting, punting across the blacktop black with two stump-height caudal sticks. ‘…a fine day indeed, a veritable day…’. When he was a wee lad boy his mamma refused to take him to Ship Day, saying it was a fools gathering and no place for a boy with crumbly legs and the whooping. ‘…this tin’s for my mamma and this bottle for da, and this broken bottle for the both of them…’. He swapped the old bottles and tins for shiny coins and string, using the string to tie his pant legs to the shunting board and the shiny coins to buy Apricot Brandy and Slim Jims. His far door drove a Chevy Impala with a doorknob steering-wheel. He cranked and bullied the wheel from left to right, never quite getting the car to stay middle. His far door had to steer left to go right and right to go left, the car tacking in the opposite oppose. He figured it was his da that gave him the whooping, as he always wore a damp shirt with the sleeves rolled up.