The taps died on a Tuesday, and I know it was a Tuesday because Tuesday was the day I filled the big drums, and I had six of them lined up empty in the cart when the pipe up on the mid deck coughed twice, spat a mouthful of brown, and went quiet in a way that pipes are not supposed to go quiet.


I stood there with the hose in my hand for a long moment. I want to be plain about that, because plain is how I talk and plain is how I trade. I did not panic right off. Pipes in Rivet City hiccup. The old girl is a ship, a whole aircraft carrier rusting in the mouth of the Potomac, and there is not a system on her that runs clean every single hour of every single day. So I gave the pipe a knock with the flat of my hand, the way you knock a machine you do not understand and hope the knocking counts as maintenance, and I waited for it to catch.


It did not catch.


My name does not matter much to this story, but the trade does. I sold water.

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