Nine by Andrzej Stasiuk

with overhead cables and the straight vein of tram tracks along which chassis are brought three times a day and three times taken away.
    Now he was doing a hundred in the left lane, gazing at all he had managed to avoid. The lot next to the test track glittered with a thousand colored roofs in the sun like a Pop Art version of ocean waves. He sneered at an Opel he passed; he was doing a hundred and twenty now, and his Beamer was barely purring. He sneered at all the people—at the moment only a few here and there—waiting for him to go by so they could cross the road and, raising their pass, enter the main gate, or the one by the body shops.
    Kids kicking a soccer ball around on a cold court, their bodies helplessly white against the asphalt. In a few minutes they’d get dressed and go to their next lesson in the trade, because their fathers were getting older and more tired.
    He passed the school building. In the distance, the Torurńka overpass. A few seconds, and he was in the cement shade, parking outside the iron gate of a church. He locked the car, straightened his belt over his gut, and ran across the divided highway.
    Three Ikarus buses at the terminus, their drivers waiting for replacements. Bolek went into a brown shack where a few men stood with Królewskie beers thinking about a cigarette, because inside it was no smoking and outside it was cold. A small-boned guy drinking wore black gloves with ripped seams and a red Windbreaker with a Porsche logo. His two-day stubble stopped just below his eyes.
    â€œWhat’s the matter, Iron Man—cold?” asked Bolek.
    â€œNo, it’s just that the water was off this morning and I didn’t wash.”
    â€œCouldn’t you have done it somewhere on the way?”
    â€œIn the bus?”
    â€œFair enough,” said Bolek, and waited for the man to finish his drink. This the man did quickly, then nodded toward the bar.
    â€œStand me one, Boluś?”
    â€œLater, Iron Man, I’ll buy you as many as you like.”
    â€œWhat’s the job?”
    â€œNo job. I just want you to go with me to a place and be there.”
    â€œWhat do I do there?”
    â€œNothing. Keep your eyes open.”
    â€œOh,” said Iron Man. He looked left, right, said, “Let’s go then.”
    Bolek shook his head, tapped his Rolex. “In a minute. I don’t want to wait there.”
    Iron Man took hold of Bolek’s wrist.
    â€œNice. Gold. Does it keep good time?”
    â€œYou’re still in the business?”
    â€œYou have to do something. But it gets worse and worse. Pieces of crap at two hundred a pop. And anyone who wears anything better doesn’t ride the bus.”
    â€œDo you ever think about giving it up?”
    â€œThen what? Go work at the plant? I’d come back from the late shift, fall asleep, and they’d steal my watch . . . That’s not for me.”
    â€œThere are options.”
    â€œI got set in my ways. Maybe things will change. People can’t go on being so poor.”
    â€œWould you like to be rich?”
    Iron Man spread his elbows on the counter and looked up at Bolek. “No, Boluś. That’s not for me. I’m too delicate.”
    â€œYou never did like fighting. I had to watch out for you. Remember?”
    â€œOn the other hand I was fast. You had to fight because they always caught you.”
    â€œOne or the other, Iron Man. Those were the days, eh?”
    In the end Bolek stood Iron Man that second one. He gave him a five and didn’t blink when Iron Man brought back a mulled beer but no change. They stood and reminisced about the terminus buses and trams hidden behind lilac bushes, in green evenings, about the yellow streetlamps so low you could break them without effort.
    â€œAnd that beer shack,” Iron Man went on. “On pay day they’d just lie there like in some war film, but I was too young then.”
    â€œRight,”