The storage unit smelled like old people’s clothes and motor oil. Waylon braced his legs and tilted the ancient CPAP machine toward the front corner of the cobwebbed room. He let a sharp puff of air out through his matted silver beard, slamming the old breathing machine onto a rusted dolly. Dale stood in the doorway next to his wheelchair, one hand on the push handle, breathing thin in the thick August air.

"Just leave it," Dale said.

"You just watched me go through all the damn trouble, Dale."

"I said leave it."

From the rusted red Chevy idling outside, a Lynyrd Skynyrd song bled through a blown speaker, just treble and distortion. Waylon straightened up, wiping his hands on his jeans, Carolina red dirt ground in so deep the denim had gone pink at the knees. He looked at the machine– white plastic yellowed by use, the hose coiled like a dead rattlesnake.

"You still need it," Waylon said.

"No I don't,” Dale said.

They stood there in the heat, Dale’s eyes to the ground and Waylon’s pointed right through him. They both knew one thing: the machine would be the only thing making sure Dale’s lungs didn’t finally roll to a stop from a dirty war in the jungle all those years ago.

A bead of sweat ran down Dale's temple. He'd lost so much weight the Vietnam Army Veteran cap sat too low on his head now, the brim casting his cloudy eyes in shadow. He patted the front of his threadbare Piggly-Wiggly t-shirt roughly, like he was searching for a gun or another vice and Waylon knew what he was looking for.

"Alright," Waylon said finally. "Alright." He pulled a loose American Spirit from the front pocket of his shirt, lit it, and held it for Dale to take a single, flickering puff.

Dale shuddered, knees knocking to a wobble until Waylon grabbed his shoulders and sat him down in his wheelchair. Waylon cringed. In the chair, Dale was small and frail as a bird, bones soft enough to split.

Waylon wheeled the rickety dolly to the back of the truck, grunting and swearing and spitting as he jammed the ancient CPAP among a bed of old tarps. Dead snake in the garden, he thought.

The passenger seat handle in Waylon's pickup was busted, so he had to jam it open from the driver's side, stretching over the seats covered in rotting sunflower shells. He stepped out of the car, spitting again into the asphalt. He came around the rusted hood and hauled Dale's frail body from the wheelchair into the cracked leather.

"You ready, bud?"

"No." Dale let out a heaving cough.

Waylon cranked the engine and the tape deck kicked back in, midway through "Simple Man." He pulled out of the storage grid, onto the road, heading back through Burlington. The August sun bleached everything the color of bone.

Dale picked at the skin of his purple fingertips, worrying them to a raw red, red like fresh skin he'd never get back. Through a window, a leashed pitbull trotted alongside his tattooed owner. Two men at the bus stop stared at the empty road across from them. At the light behind Waylon's truck, the bus roared to a stop. The two men at the stop did not board. They sat quietly instead.

Dale watched a man with a fragile skeleton in an Army Veteran hat settle into his walker outside a brick building of public restrooms. They met eyes for a moment– something passed between them that Waylon saw but couldn't name. Dale looked away, back to Waylon, who was looking down and picking a hole in his dirt-stained jeans.

"You remember when we used to fish Church's pond?" Waylon said.

"Yeah."

"Caught that catfish big as your leg."

"Your leg. It was big as your leg."

Waylon almost smiled. "That's right."

They drove in silence for a while. A horn honked somewhere behind them. Waylon didn't speed up.

"I'm stopping at the Quality Plus," Waylon said. He needed something he wasn’t supposed to have and Dale knew it. He didn't say anything back.

The fluorescent lights inside the gas station hummed like dying wasps. Waylon shuffled to the cooler and grabbed a 40 of malt liquor, the glass cold and alive and sweating in his hand. The cashier had blonde roots growing through black dye, her name tag, “Sandra,” crooked. She rang him up without looking at his face.

Back in the truck, Dale was slumped against the door.

"You know you can't drink that," he said, his voice thin.

Waylon twisted the cap. "I know."

Dale coughed—a wet, rattling sound—and brought his hand away from his mouth. Blood spotted his palm, dark and viscous in the sunlight. He wiped it on his jeans without comment.

Waylon lowered the bottle. "Dale—"

"Just drive."

They sat in Dale’s driveway as the engine ticked and cooled. The sun was starting to dip, throwing long shadows across the patchy yard. Neither of them moved to get out. Waylon took a deep drag from the bottle. Then another.

"I should've gone," Waylon said finally, voice muddy from the liquor. "Should've been me over there in ‘Nam instead of you."

Dale turned his head slow, which hurt. "You had that heart condition. Now mine’s just caught up to how yours always was."

"It still hurts, bad."

"Then what're you talking about? This ‘cause I’m the sick one now?"

Waylon stared at the steering wheel. "You came back thin as you are now. And I was just here. All that weight on me. Working at the mill. Drinking beer. Living."

"Ain’t never thought you were living. But I didn’t want you out in them jungles dying," Dale's croak turned into another cough. When he caught his breath, his voice was softer. "Waylon. We were kids. You couldn't help your heart any more than I can help mine now."

"But you're the only one still around for me,” Waylon's voice cracked. “Sherry and them kids ain’t coming back for me, not after I drank myself stupid. You're sick as a dog and you're still—"

He wanted to shut up but he hadn’t cried since the night his wife ran, holding the kids’ little hands, sprinting down the train tracks. Twenty-two years together had soured with each sip of malt like the old family home’s drywall inked in cigarette tar.

"It ain't right. And I’m fuckin’ sorry, Dale. I am." His breath was ragged now.

Dale reached over and gripped Waylon's shoulder, his hand light as paper but steady. "You know you my brother from down the street. Brothers help each other. That's all there is."

Waylon nodded, not trusting his voice. Dale pulled another cigarette from Waylon’s shirt pocket, bent and stale. His hands shook trying to light it and Waylon took the lighter from him, cupped his hand around the flame, held it steady while Dale leaned in. The tobacco caught and glowed.

Dale drew in deep, held it, let it out slow.

"That's better," he said.

They sat there as the evening came on, the tape deck still playing, Ronnie Van Zant singing about going home. The cicadas started up in the trees. Waylon held the 40 between his knees, the glass warming in his hands. The condensation ran down like sweat.

Dale smoked slow, watching the street. A kid rode by on a bike with no hands, head thrown back, laughing at something they couldn't hear. The sound carried and faded. A dog howled. The cigarette burned down to the filter.

"You think those boys ever got on the bus?" Dale asked.

Waylon looked at him. "What boys?"

"At the stop. Earlier."

"Dunno. Why?"

Dale nodded like that was the answer he expected. He dropped the cigarette butt out the window. It smoldered in the driveway, a small orange eye in the gathering dark.

The sun touched the horizon, and the light turned everything gold– the rusted truck, the dying grass, Dale and Waylon’s faces worn down by time and circumstance. The tape clicked off. The cicadas got louder, filling the silence with their high, mechanical screaming.

Waylon looked down at the 40 in his hands. The label was peeling at the edges. He didn't reopen it. He didn't put it down either.

Dale's breathing had gone shallow and rhythmic beside him. Not sleep. Something else. The sky deepened to purple, then blue-black. Stars began to show through, cold and distant. The porch light across the street flickered on, then off, then on again, like it couldn't decide.

Neither of them moved to go inside.

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