Summary

The narrator decided to take a break from driving and stops at a truck stop. He sits down at the bar next to an older man. The bartender points to the old man and informs the narrator that “he’ll tell the story for a beer” (166). The old man stays quiet, but smiles when the narrator agrees and buys him a beer.

The old man begins, “this happened in the interior” in a mining town, pointing out towards the country (166). One day, the kids of the town were playing outside when one of them noticed the ground seeming “swollen” (167). The other kids came over to examine it, and soon they all began to dig. They came the next day with buckets and garden trowels, and soon the hole became a pit. The kids, the old man declares, started to be only interested by the...