THE METAL MAN

Frank wore worn blue overalls, his strength defied his older years. Most just knew him as the metal man who owned a scrap yard under the freeway. The yard full of metal, some in barrels, leaned against the wall and larger pieces on the ground. They came from every source imaginable, dismantled ships, demolished buildings and factories gone. 

He grew accustomed to the roughness of the material and his life, even fond enough to attach a name to some of iron pieces. Names like waterfall, desert lines, sand storm. He sold the iron to scrap buyers, contractors, architects and the occasional artists. Frank favored them the most. Their study of the metal pieces led him to think they saw the same specialness in them that he did.

Frank kept to himself aside from the occasional stop for a beer at Stellas. Most evenings he would head back to the small house on the River. The one with the garden in back. His wife gone from the cancer five years now. Still he worked each evening in her garden, keeping the weeds out and tending to the small flowers she loved. It smoothed the rough edges of his work and kept her memory alive.

Years went by and Frank passed, the yard closed. Artists would still come by not knowing of the closure and look through the fence. Perhaps remembering the metal they had bought there and the art they made. They could almost see the image of Frank moving around the yard, maybe his spirit still did…