He worked the eastbound tollbooth
where the river split the clay,
taking quarters from the truckers
and the tourists passing through.
Had a pint of new white whiskey
in his lunchbox every day,
burned like unpaid lightning
and it never aged him true.

He’d take a sip between the Buicks,
wipe his mouth and make the change,
tell some woman from Toledo,
“Take it easy through the rain.”
There was comfort in the counting,
in the brake lights and the lanes,
in the little glass confession
where a man could hide his name.

Now the cameras read the plates, boys,
and the booth don’t need a hand.
They paved over his good years
with a wire and a stand.
He was two years shy of something
they had promised he’d be due,
now he drinks out in the daylight
with the whole damn world in view.

Nobody minded whiskey
when it stayed behind the glass,
when his sorrow punched a time clock
and came home after dark.
His daughter called on Sundays
if the weekend didn’t pass,
his son came by at Christmas
and left running in the yard.

But now he’s in the kitchen
at a quarter after ten,
with the blinds all busted sideways
and the coffee going cold.
They say, “Dad, you gotta do something,”
then they say it all again,
like a man can start from nothing
when he’s already gotten old.

Now the cameras read the plates, boys,
and the booth don’t need a hand.
They paved over his good years
with a wire and a stand.
He was two years shy of something
they had promised he’d be due,
now he drinks out in the daylight
with the whole damn world in view.

There’s a chair beside the window
where he watches taillights fade.
Every car keeps moving onward.
Every debt gets left unpaid.
He still hears the coin tray rattle.
Still smells diesel after rain.
Still says “thank you” to the silence
like the silence knows his name.

The flask is dented silver,
same one he carried then,
but the shine has left the metal
like the shine left off his face.
His kids don’t call it grieving.
They call it drinking once again.
They don’t ask what got removed.
They only ask what took its place.

And somewhere near the river,
under sodium light and flies,
the toll arm lifts for strangers
with no one sitting there.
Just a camera on a pole now,
staring down with sleepless eyes,
watching every soul pass through it,
never seeing what ain’t there.

Now the cameras read the plates, boys,
and the booth don’t need a hand.
They paved over his good years
with a wire and a stand.
He was two years shy of something
they had promised he’d be due,
now he drinks out in the daylight
with the whole damn world in view.

He was two years shy of leaving.
Now he’s two years past replaced.
There’s a bottle on the table
and a shadow in his place.

–Weez