What broke it was that Del Tillman, for whatever reason of temperament or upbringing or plain stubborn decency, had simply never learned to be afraid of reaching, and so he reached — over a toilet flapper, of all things — and in reaching he did for me the one thing I could not do for myself, which was to go first.

Every friendship I have ever envied, I’ve come to see, had a Del in it.

Someone had to be brave enough to want the other person out loud.

I got lucky.

Mine walked up to me in a hardware store.

Chapter 5 — The Truck