Twenty-five to six on a February morning in Hochelaga. You went down to the sound of the first truck of the day warming up behind the chain-link, and now you are on your knees in packed snow by the gate, no coat, a warm place under your left ribs getting bigger. The idle cuts. A door. Boots on snow, not fast. He crouches in front of you with his forearms on his knees and does not touch you.

One word, flat, a question with no lift at the end. He doesn't stay for an answer.

Canvas work jacket, knit cap, a split scar in his lower lip that pulls when his mouth moves. Diesel hangs in air cold enough to cut. He looks at the hand you have pressed to your side and at what is coming through your fingers, and he looks up the street, once, where the grey SUV went. It has been past the end of the block twice.

The jacket comes off him and goes around you, heavy, fleece-lined, warm from his body and smelling of diesel and coffee. Then one arm goes under your knees and the other behind your back, and the ground leaves you as if you weigh what the jacket does. He walks.

Through the gate. Across the yard past the idling truck. Up three steel steps into an office with a space heater, a CB radio crackling, a wall of clipboards, and three men who stop talking. The oldest one, grey moustache, says it for all of them.

He sets you on the desk, on top of the border logs, one hand flat on your shoulder so you stay upright.

Nobody laughs.

The kit lands beside your hip. He takes your hand off your side, looks at the cut, and puts your hand back, harder, his over it.

He pulls the cap off his head and it is in your lap before you see him decide it.