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“He did? What did he eat?” he asked.

“His favorite. Trash. I need to get a can with a lid. He was completely in there. I got him out and he threw up. Before I could grab him, he ate the vomit.”

“I think Woofarine would tell you that it’s better to have eaten something, thrown it up, and eaten it again than to have never eaten it at all,” he said.

“I feel like there’s wisdom in there, but it’s too gross for me to see it.”

He chuckled while he turned onto a dirt road, the entrance to our sixth and last billboard. They’d all been the Toilet King.

The billboard was next to the freeway, but I couldn’t get a good shot of it driving by. The board number had to be in it, and my camera wasn’t the greatest, so Chris navigated to it taking the back way.

We crept down the service road at a crawl, the car bumping along the uneven ground. It was wooded and dark. A rabbit darted in front of us and disappeared into the brush.

“Weren’t you going to tell me a story about work?” I asked, peering out the window at the moon slipping between the trees.

“Oh, right. So I was at Bergmans yesterday and a guy comes in to pick up his prescription. He was pissed because his insurance didn’t cover it.”

“Yeah…”

“He came with a ziplock bag full of change.”

“Like, to pay? What’d you say?” I asked.

“That I wasn’t taking it. He said I had to because it’s legal tender. I told him no and that there’s a coin machine at the grocery store across the street and he can cash it in there if he wants to, but I’m not counting that.”

I shook my head. “I cannot believe that people act like this. But then also, I can.”

“Why? People act like dicks at Donna’s?”

“Ha. You have no idea,” I mumbled.

He glanced at me. “Like what?”

“Like the guy who told me my tip was to get a better job? The enormous group that comes in every Sunday and leaves me pamphlets instead of money. Or the lady who likes to come in with a party of five and give me three silver dollars at the end.”

“Are you serious?”

“Oh yeah. She’s very proud of it too. She thinks they’re special so I should be excited about the two percent tip. She goes to the bank just to get them. I can’t even put them in the machine at the laundromat.”

“Wait,” he said. “Why are you going to the laundromat?”

“Because my building doesn’t have a working laundry room?”

“Go to Mike’s.”

I looked out the window again. “The washing machine is in Donna’s house. I try not to be over there more than I have to be.”

We were pulling into a clearing. The billboard loomed in the middle on its thick steel pole like a strange tree. Chris drove up to where I could get a good shot.

“Why don’t you want to go to Donna’s?” he asked, putting the car in park.

I didn’t answer.

His brows drew down. “Is she mean to you?”

I shrugged a little. “Not mean, just… unenthusiastic?”

He seemed bothered by this.