“Darlin,’” she said, “I’ll get that. Go ahead and take it.” She was a weathered-looking woman with mousy light brown hair drawn back in a bun and the plain, honest look of one of those faces you see in Depression-era photos from the Dust Bowl, faces that don’t smile—they are just themselves, making the best of circumstances as they are. I was in a rundown convenience store attached to a truck stop near Huntsville, Texas, on a dreary, damp Saturday in February, trying to buy a Dr. Pepper with a credit card, since I was cash poor on a road trip. The cashier lady couldn’t get the store’s new machine to read the chip. A middle-aged black man in a battered old baseball cap was leaning against the wall opposite the counter, apparently a local just hanging around. I looked over at him. He grinned, and I saw lots of gold. I told the lady that maybe I had some change in the truck, but she waved me off, “It’s all right, it’s all right.” So I told her thanks, picked up the Dr. Pepper, and walked outside.
I was driving a big rental truck on my way to load up and haul furniture from a house in Houston—my wife and I were moving her sister—but I walked over to the pickup my wife was driving, making a cranking motion with my right hand, signaling her to roll down her window but forgetting that windows...