Every Job Has a First Day BY REBECCA GAYLE HOWELL Slade was pulling minnows out of the dry river the day we met. Puddles, more or less, was what was left. But what could live wanted to and tried, treading narrow circles, a glide of brittle fins. He wore those rubber boots, though the sun was an anvil, and very little wet; he smiled, I remember that, his nickel smile right at me, his fingers letting fall the small fish muscles into a bag filled with yellow tap. I didn’t ask his name, or what it was he thought he was doing, [...]