Motley always fleshed out the story of a century when asked about witnessing a Boeing 777 nosedive on his bakery. He made quite the profit from writing about it, more than what the bakery made him. Before the crash he was broker than a potato farmer during the Great Depression, and with his parents herding him towards a hypothetical cliff, he'd been more desperate than ever. He didn't mention the crash saved his life and reputation and whatnot, but I could see it bubble in his eyes whenever the topic came up.

I'd been working for him, and instead of rejoicing, I drove back to my sister's place in Columbus. I had no interest in profiting, and I knew the reporters would come swarming for me, so I begged Motley not to say my name in hopes of keeping my identity secret.

As a boss and person, Motley was the opposite of a leech. He left his parents' hold when he was sixteen after learning his girlfriend was pregnant. After eloping with the woman I know only as 'the bitch who took my daughter', he built a bread-making business out of dirt and maybe his best friend's help. It was after he became well-known around the town I applied for a position as a pastry chef.

It was hard to believe he had somehow become one of the most powerful bakery moguls in town. He had a stout, stunted height, his nose squashed at the tip and black-brown hair rippling in an intermittent breeze. His teeth too, were golden-colored, and could be easily mistaken for kernels of corn if one had seen them unstuck from the gums. But looks were definitely not his forte. His solemn demeanor was the thing praised. The man could have been a great lawyer.

Motley never yelled, and when he did, it was too soft for anyone to hear. Lots of his employees trampled over that fact, horsing about with the oven and glass shelves and biscuit dough, but when Motley fired them they knew their real rank here. When he raised his voice you had to run; that's how serious it was.

I wasn't there when it happened, and Motley wasn't either but he had been enjoying a smoke behind the liquor shop on the corner of the street where his bakery was. He was the only one to hear the sonic boom as the plane sliced through the stratosphere, finally driving into a low-hanging hill behind the bakery.