“—so I had to hold up the rocks with my back while the rescue crew pulled the others out of the tunnel by crawling between my legs. Finally, they got some steel beams down there to take the load off, and I could let go. I was in the hospital for a week,” he finished.
Parks was nodding vaguely. Clayton looked up at the clock above the bar and realized that they had been talking for better than an hour. Parks was buying another round.
Parks was a hell of a nice fellow.
There was, Clayton found, only one trouble with Parks. He got to talking so loud that the bartender refused to serve either one of them any more.
The bartender said Clayton was getting loud, too, but it was just because he had to talk loud to make Parks hear him.
Clayton helped Parks put his mask and parka on and they walked out into the cold night.
Parks began to sing Green Hills. About halfway through, he stopped and turned to Clayton.
“I’m from Indiana.”
Clayton had already spotted him as an American by his accent.