They came in to buy lottery tickets. Dale got two. Miguel got one. Gary didn't buy one but he watched them buy theirs, the way a man watches a meal he can't afford. I was behind the counter at the gas station convenience store on Route 66, somewhere between Oklahoma and Kansas where the neon sign outside had two burnt-out letters and read OIL & FOOD instead of OIL & FOOD. The ice hummed. The lottery machine clicked. Outside, three trucks and a rusted Ford sat in the gravel lot. They started talking about a goose. Found it on the service road, hit by a car, neck twisted at a bad angle. "I could've helped it," Dale said. He was forty-five, a long-haul trucker from Texas, beer belly shaking slightly—the caffeine and cigarettes, probably eight cups a day and a pack and a half. "You can't help something that's dead," Miguel said. He was thirty-four, an immigrant worker from Arizona, ten years on the farm, calluses on his right hand, an accent that wasn't heavy but wasn't gone either. "I know it was dead," Dale said. "I could've... you know." They talked for twenty minutes. Then Gary said, "We could bring it back. Cook it." "You're crazy," Dale said. "Not crazy," Gary said. "I got a pot." We actually did it. From the service road, we picked up a dead goose. Back to the station, I cooked it on the back kitchen stove. No seasoning, just salt—white salt from under the counter. We sat at the plastic table in the corner. Three plates. Three portions. The meat was tough and stringy and tasted like nothing except the fact that we were eating it. "The head is mine," Dale said. "I drove the truck. Without me, we wouldn't even be here." "The body is mine," Miguel said. "I picked up the goose. Without me, it's still on the side of the road." "The legs are mine," Gary said. "I brought the pot. Without the pot, we're still staring at it on the side of the road." I sat in the corner eating my share. I didn't say anything. I'd seen too many things like this. Last week, three construction workers at the site divided a dog they'd stolen from someone's yard. The month before, three drunk guys in the parking lot split a six-pack of beer—and one of their wallets had a death certificate inside. His son's. People never change. "Split it evenly," I said finally. They looked at me. Dale said, "Okay." Miguel said, "Okay." Gary said, "Okay." The money came from Dale's truck—he'd planned to use it for gas. Three parts, equal. Dale got up and walked back to his rig. Miguel walked to the rusted Ford. Gary stood by the pump and looked at the horizon. I washed the pot. Put it back in the kitchen. The next morning, Dale heard on the radio that the service road had cameras. State police were looking into it. I didn't say anything. --- OTMES-v2-4786-DR-00089-M2-180-2R45I-V3C5 M1=2.0 M2=4.0 M3=6.0 M4=1.0 M5=3.0 M6=1.0 M7=0.0 M8=0.0 M9=0.0 M10=0.0 N1=0.20 N2=0.80 K1=0.80 K2=0.20 TI=20.1 MDTEM: V=0.3 I=0.1 C=0.5 S=0.2 R=0.5 Angle=180deg Style=Dirty_Realism