"Not the guy in the tie," he said. "That's Orlo. Orlo talked to her. I was the one who moved the cars so she could see it. She asked me about the vinyl top and I told her it'd need redoing in a year. She thanked me." His mouth twisted. "And then yesterday I pulled up in a car I'm not even allowed to keep, that doesn't belong to my family, to get it washed for three dollars because we can't afford a detail man, so it'd look rich enough to sell, so my father can keep pretending to the whole town for one more month. And everybody's looking at me. And I couldn't stand it. So I said the worst thing I could think of, to the one person there who had less than me, so nobody would look at me." He held my eye. "That's what happened. I didn't slip."
The shop was very quiet. On the radio, which Hutch had turned off, there was nothing. Somewhere down East Broad a dog was barking.
"The man from Akron came at two," Win said. "He walked around the car once. He saw the door. He left."
Dennis spoke first. I had been waiting for him to, the way you wait for the second shoe, but when he did, it was not what I expected.
"I'm sorry about your face," he said.
Win blinked at him with his one good eye.
"I'm not sorry I was mad," Dennis said slowly. He was picking his words the way he picked through a bin of bolts, one at a time, holding each up to the light. "You said a rotten thing about Rollie's dad and you threw money at him. I'd be mad again. But I'm sorry I hit you. I didn't have to. There were about six other things I could have done, and I did the one that broke stuff." He lifted the cast a little. "Your door, my hand, the car wash, the Akron guy. That's a lot of broken stuff for one second."
"I got out of the car," Win said. "I knew what I was doing when I got out of the car. I wanted you to swing, I think. So I'd have something else to be." He touched the scab on his cheek. "I'm sorry about your hand. And September. I heard about September." He looked at Hutch. "Is that true? You took it back?"
"I didn't take anything," said Hutch. "He put it down. Whether he picks it back up is his business and the doctor's."