[Glenn Wright]

Hi, Barbara—

I enjoyed this piece very much. You present a memorable and appealing portrait of the old repairman, inviting the reader to compare him with the solidly built but antiquated refrigerator he is working on. Like Jayne, I suspect, based on his thinness, stooped posture, smoking, and remark, “If I live that long. . .”, that he is in precarious health.

Using Down-East dialect is tricky. Unless you were going to go all the way: “Bin foahty yeahs on this heah job,” (which I do not recommend), you might use “Been” instead of “Bin” in S3L1.

A couple of quick fixes for Jayne’s nits:
1. In S4L2: “He unscrewed the faulty part with care;”(I don’t think you need to start with “As”)
2. In S5L1: Omit the redundant word “part.” “He showed me the undistinguished steel.” (How about “rust-encrusted” as a more visually specific replacement for “undistinguished?”)

The last line is a bit anti-climactic. You already told us in S2L1 that he is thin. Here is a possible rework of S8:
     He dug out a ciggie with practiced fingers.
     His sky-blue eyes fixed me. “Soon enough
     I’ll be goin’ up there.”—a crooked grin—
     “If I live that long. . .”—a long, gray puff.

BTW—Here’s a tip that Julie Steiner shared with me for indenting:
You can use a lower case L in square brackets to make a 5-space tab. This way, when you or someone else quotes your indented text, the “xxxxx” will not become visible.
If you go to the upper left corner of this screen, click “guidelines” and go to page 5, “Posting.” It explains this and some other typographical tricks that are very useful.

Glenn