Josh Falcon

From the siding

From the far side of the freight siding, Josh Falcon can tell you which letter in the pie shop sign is narrow. It is the second P, and he has offered to fix it free of charge. Nella Falcon, who comes over for lunch when her son's shop is quiet, has forbidden it. She held that ladder when he painted the sign for the second time. She stood in the gravel turning the noodle of masking tape he gave her into a ball, and when he finally came down he asked her whether she'd noticed how straight the top line looked against the water tower. She told him she had noticed her ice cream had melted.

Country freight kept the lettering business going those first few years. The yard foreman needed numbers that could be read from the road through dust, and Josh would ride home past his freshly painted bay at sunset to find out whether he had made the yellow too pale. He likes work he can check from that distance. He sometimes comes back to a fence post or a little warning sticker a week after it's due.

Forecast from a napkin

When Josh first brought the Ferrari 12Cilindri to the closed practice course, he took a napkin from the pie shop and sketched the line he'd use through the long bend. There were three sweeping pencil marks and a grand-looking arrow into the exit. Grant Turismo later asked him what the marks were measured from. Josh tapped a little gum mark on the back of the napkin as if he had planned to put it there. Grant handed him a ruler. Josh painted a proper scale on a spare board for their next visit, then spent lunchtime trying to persuade Grant to take the map to the top step of the viewing stand. The curve looked different from up there.

From the seat of the Ferrari, the bend looked quicker still. Josh watched that exit so avidly that he was steering toward it before the tight part of the corner was over. The outside edge kept coming at him all at once. He borrowed a viewing spot down low and watched somebody else turn in. The napkin acquired a fourth mark.

An item between onions and dish soap

The first time James Bond saw Josh kneeling at the gate, he thought he'd lost something. Josh had looked up from his line sketch just long enough to see a little clip tremble. He took his glove off to get hold of it and the wind blew the sketch all the way under a bench. A woman waiting by the rail lent him the back of her shopping list. He copied the clip into the margin next to onions and dish soap, handed the drawing back when she wanted it, and made himself do the check again without the paper. Bond was still there watching when Josh climbed in.

That scrap now hangs alongside the ruler in the sign shop. The woman had made her purchases by then and posted it through the slot in his door. Josh has since written a better check card. He likes to keep the original because she underlined dish soap hard enough to tear the paper, which seems about right for a thing easy to forget.

The blank wall

A warehouse owner has offered Josh fifty feet of wall beside the siding. He can paint any scene he likes if it includes the business name. Josh keeps drawing the Ferrari coming off a turn with the edge of the track just visible under the rear wheel. Nella would prefer the water tower. She says they'll settle it when he finally comes round to fix the clasp on her step stool.