``He's a good kid,'' people said.
Then they'd say ``but...'' Except one man who he once worked for taping sheetrock. That man just said ``he's a good kid,'' and didn't modify his statement.
The question was do good kids ride motor cycles a hundred miles with no lights just to visit a girl friend? Do good kids take off lightless across the sagebrush outrunning a police car in hot pursuit until they run into a barb wire fence? Do good kids test positive for methamphetamines on pre employment drug tests? Do they walk out of stores with $200 worth of groceries without paying? Do their 4th of July celebrations involve blasting caps?
He did good work though. He could set choke as well as anyone, and that was what he was doing the afternoon the log rolled on him. When they got it off him he was lying there with half his face off and his chest stove in and no one doubted he was dead.
They pulled him over to the platform and covered him with a tarp because no one wanted to look at that eye hanging loose. They were going to call for help but then they thought what the hell, might as well finish out the shift - it was too late to help the kid. Also they'd all smoked a little, so it would be good to mellow out for a while.
It was a couple of hours later that the rigger nearly lost it. The tarpaulin was sitting up, or the kid under it was.
He wasn't even that badly hurt. Couple of weeks in the hospital and he was hitting the bars again.
He wasn't a kid anymore though. Now when people mentioned his name they said ``He's a good man, but...''