Fiction | September 28, 2020

I would never have answered the phone if I’d known it was going to be Buckwalter on the other end, wheezing through his polyps, wanting to know if I was free to stop by for a visit. I usually did my best to ignore these calls, but this was not always possible, as Buckwalter liked to call on my landline, and his number came up unlisted. He was breathing hard and seemed worked up about something. I could hear the air laboring past his ruined septum. Whatever it was, I didn’t want anything to do with it.

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