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I cringed at the sight.

Very few things have made me sick over the last fifteen years, but I’ll be the first to admit that I almost puked.  His legs, well, leg plus shattered stump were still flopping around as the roll back from Possum Branch stopped in front of me.  The driver, a kid about nineteen-years-old, got out of the cab, looked at me, looked at Tinker and then puked his lunch up in the middle of the street.  After about ten minutes of this he staggered to the opposite side of the truck and stared at me.

"Goin’ my way, stranger," I asked with a grin.

"How can you joke at a time like this?" The indignant tone in his voice was real and one that I’d all but forgotten over the years.  I looked at the hearse and Tinker, now completely still on the side of the road.  I looked back at the wrecker driver.

"It's either joke or ask you what's for lunch back at the farm. Come to think of it, I’m kinda’ hungry."

Again, the driver erupted in a shower of spew that last until I was certain he was going to pass out.  When he’d composed himself, we hitched up the hearse and pulled it onto the bed of the truck.  The site was no prettier than before and led to another round of upheaval from his stomach.  The coroner’s van was heading back to collect the rest of the cadavers from Possum Branch and I flagged the driver down.  I filled out my papers, handed it all over to the deputy coroners and got behind the wheel of the wrecker as my ‘savior’ was all but unconscious in the passenger seat.  On the way back to the farm he turned, lurched I guess is a better description, and looked at me weakly.

"I’d never seen a dead guy up close before today," he said.  "Does this ever get any easier?"

"Depends," I told him.  "What did Misses Barrett fix for lunch?"

After choking down what might have been an epic geyser of what could only be bile and water at this point, he looked straight ahead and said, "Spaghetti and meat balls with jell-o for dessert."

I laughed.  "Then, no, today is pretty well gonna’ suck."  Then, as an afterthought I added, "Breakfast might be better so long as the eggs aren’t scrambled. Speaking of, did you see that guy?"

He rolled down the window and heaved along the gravel road as we rolled up to the house.  Two flat tires, a busted jack, brains on the quarter panel and nails in my leg.  With a mess like this, I needed a laugh no matter how cheap it was.