As soon as he turned the motor off, the car became indistinguishable from the fifty or more cars strewn around him. Every once in a while the township supervisor would stop by on the pretext of wanting advice about a problem he was having with his car. After he had made the kind of jokes people make when their hearts aren’t in them, he’d say to Wilson’s dad, “Ty, it don’t make any difference to me, but some folks along the road, and I’m not saying their names, are complaining about all the cars you got scattered around your lawn.” His dad would thin his lips into two straight lines, like he always did when he got angry, and say to just tell those nosey so-and-so’s to mind their own business. “This is a free country and what I do with my yard is up to me and nobody else.” After some more talk the township supervisor would slink away and not return till the Catchners’ neighbors got after him again. Wilson noticed Lyle Barch had dropped off his motorcycle. Wilson had promised to fix the starter.
