I Kicked Cardboard Beneath an Old Shepherd Outside the Repair Shop That Had Just Fired Me — Five Minutes Later, I Was Kneeling Over Him in the Rain

1. TITLE

I Kicked Cardboard Beneath an Old Shepherd Outside the Repair Shop That Had Just Fired Me — Five Minutes Later, I Was Kneeling Over Him in the Rain

2. DESCRIPTION

I shoved wet cardboard beneath an old dog, then a guard brought out one worn glove. Five minutes later, why couldn’t I get off my knees?

(136 characters)

An original work of realistic fiction.

3. PHẦN 1 – A (CAPTION NỘI DUNG A)

I kicked the cardboard under an old shepherd beside my truck while a security guard shouted at me—but five minutes later, I was kneeling over that same dog, holding my jacket above his head in the rain.

It was 4:42 p.m. on Friday, April 17, 2026, outside a repair shop off Wayne Avenue in Dayton, Ohio. I was twenty-eight, with a shaved head, three days of beard, and a wrench tattoo above my right wrist.

My gray work shirt hung below a brown canvas jacket. In the office window, I could see the red patch the safety glasses had left across my nose.

Twenty minutes earlier, the owner had let me go. Work was slow, but I’d also missed two mornings and snapped at a customer. Both things were true.

My landlord had texted twice about the $680 I still owed. I checked my phone again beside the truck, although I already knew what it said.

Then I saw the dog.

He was lying on a flattened box against my front passenger tire. Black saddle, tan legs, white muzzle. An old red collar had rubbed pale along the buckle holes.

The tip of his left ear was split. When he tried to stand, his hind legs needed two attempts to get underneath him.

He kept turning toward the closed side door, even while watching my boots.

There was a leash attached to his collar, trailing under the truck. I didn’t bother looking for whoever held the other end.

“Move, buddy. Come on.”

He lifted his chin, then lowered it again.

I hooked my boot under the cardboard and kicked it sideways. The wet edge slapped against his belly. He scrambled, slipped on the painted parking line, and crawled farther beneath the engine.

I had kicked the box rather than his body. That’s the distinction I made out loud. It didn’t make the sound of his nails against the pavement any easier to hear.

“Hey! Get away from him.”

Leon, the evening security guard, came around the truck carrying a folded yellow rain poncho. He had a narrow gray mustache and always wore his radio too high on his chest.

He planted himself ahead of my hood.

“You aren’t starting this thing.”

“Then move your dog.”

“Step back first.”

I pulled my keys out hard enough to tear the loose lining inside my pocket.

“If you care so much, take him home.”

A woman beside a blue minivan stopped loading groceries. A bag of hamburger buns rested on her roof. She raised one hand toward me.

“Are you serious right now?”

I told her to mind her business. Her cart rolled backward until it caught a crack in the asphalt.

Leon didn’t budge. “He’s frightened. Give him room.”

Rain ticked against the hood. Somewhere behind the shop, an air compressor shut off, leaving my voice louder than I’d meant it to be.

“I need to leave.”

“Then stop making it worse.”

I stepped toward him. He pointed at the ground between us, and I stopped there, jaw clenched, keys cutting into my palm.

He crouched slowly and said, “Sarge. Easy.”

The dog shifted under the engine. His collar ring tapped metal.

Leon reached into his coat and laid a brown leather work glove beside the tire. Its thumb had been repaired with uneven white stitches.

The dog’s nose appeared first. Then one cautious front leg.

He crawled into the rain, ignored my boot, and lowered his muzzle into the empty palm of that glove.

My fingers opened around the keys.

4. PROMPT ẢNH A

Tạo ảnh ghép dọc tỉ lệ 2:3 chia hai cảnh trên và dưới, cùng bãi đỗ xưởng sửa chữa gần Wayne Avenue tại Dayton, Ohio, cùng góc máy từ người đứng dưới mái hiên cách chiếc bán tải khoảng ba mét, cùng ánh sáng chiều mưa xám, hai khoảnh khắc cách nhau năm phút. Cảnh trên: chàng trai Mỹ 28 tuổi, đầu cạo sát, râu lún phún, hình xăm cờ lê nhỏ phía trên cổ tay phải, áo khoác canvas nâu bên ngoài sơ mi thợ máy xám, quần jean bạc và giày bảo hộ bẩn; anh cau mặt, mũi giày đẩy mạnh tấm carton ướt dưới bụng con chó về phía gầm xe, carton đang trượt ngang, con chó loạng choạng lùi lại trên vạch đỗ ướt. Chó German Shepherd già có lưng đen, chân vàng nâu, mõm bạc trắng, chóp tai trái chẻ nhỏ, vòng cổ đỏ bạc màu, chân sau đứng cứng và thấp. Phía đầu xe, bảo vệ lớn tuổi có ria xám mảnh, bộ đàm gắn cao trên ngực, cầm áo mưa vàng gấp lại, giơ tay và há miệng ngăn cản; xa hơn là phụ nữ cạnh minivan xanh, túi bánh mì trên nóc. Cảnh dưới: chàng trai đã cởi áo khoác, quỳ cả hai đầu gối trên nền ướt, giữ áo phía trên đầu và lưng chó như mái che, một cánh tay vòng hờ ngoài lớp áo, mặt cúi sát lông vai nhưng không ghì giữ; chó vẫn thu mình, nghiêng người về phía bảo vệ, không biểu hiện vui mừng. Bảo vệ đứng sững cạnh dây dắt; nữ nhân viên vừa xuất hiện dưới mái hiên, tay che miệng, cầm phong bì. Một chiếc găng da nâu có đường khâu trắng lệch nằm cạnh bánh xe. Hậu cảnh có cửa phụ đóng, biển xưởng chữ không đọc được, xe đậu và trạm xe buýt. Ảnh điện thoại người chứng kiến, hơi nghiêng, lệch tâm, nét sâu tự nhiên, nhiễu nhẹ, chuyển động hơi nhòe, màu đời thường, không cinematic, không HDR, không bokeh, không máu, không thương tích, không chữ, không logo.

5. PHẦN 1 – B (CAPTION NỘI DUNG B)

I sent a piece of cardboard sliding under a gray-muzzled shepherd while the guard yelled for me to stop—five minutes later, I was on both knees beside him, sheltering his face beneath my own jacket.

Friday, April 17, 2026, at 4:42 p.m., I walked out of a repair shop near Wayne Avenue in Dayton, Ohio. I was twenty-eight, bald by choice, with beard stubble and a small wrench inked above my right wrist.

I wore a gray mechanic’s shirt beneath a brown canvas jacket. The office glass showed the red mark my safety glasses had pressed into my nose.

I’d lost my job twenty minutes before. There weren’t enough orders, and I’d contributed two missed mornings and an argument with a customer. I couldn’t blame the whole thing on business.

Two messages from my landlord sat on my phone. The unpaid balance was $680. I read the screen again next to my truck, expecting nothing different.

An old dog lay against the front passenger tire.

He’d settled on a soaked, flattened carton. His back was black, his legs tan, his muzzle nearly white. His red collar had faded around its worn buckle holes.

A notch divided the end of his left ear. He tried getting up, but his back legs didn’t cooperate until the second push.

He looked toward the shut side entrance, then back at my feet. He did it more than once.

A leash ran from his collar into the darkness underneath my truck. I didn’t look around for the person it belonged to.

“Come on. Get out of there.”

He raised his face without moving his body, then put his head down.

I caught the carton with my boot and drove it sideways. Its soggy edge struck underneath him. His feet skidded across the parking stripe before he squeezed deeper beneath the engine.

“It was the box,” I said later, standing there. I needed that difference to matter. His claws had made a scraping noise I couldn’t quit hearing.

“Hey! Back off.”

Leon, who guarded the property evenings, hurried around the bumper with a yellow rain poncho folded in his hand. His gray mustache was thin; his radio rode high against his chest.

He stopped directly in front of the hood.

“That engine stays off.”

“Get your dog out, then.”

“Not with you standing there. Back up.”

I yanked my keys from my jacket and felt the pocket lining rip.

“You want to worry about him? Take him home yourself.”

A woman unloading her cart into a blue minivan turned around. Her hamburger buns were still on the roof. She held up a hand.

“You can’t be doing that.”

I said it wasn’t her problem. The cart drifted backward and stopped in a split in the pavement.

“Give him space,” Leon said. “Look at him.”

The rain made a light rattling sound on my hood. Behind the building, the compressor stopped running. Without it, I could hear how loud I’d become.

“I’ve got to go.”

“You’re the one keeping him under there.”

I took a step at Leon. He pointed between our shoes. I stayed there, teeth pressed together, squeezing the keys until the edges hurt.

He lowered himself beside the wheel.

“Easy, Sarge.”

A metal ring clicked against the truck’s underside.

From his coat, Leon took a worn brown glove and put it on the pavement. White thread crossed a crooked repair at the thumb.

A nose emerged. A front paw followed.

The shepherd dragged himself clear, passed my boot without looking up, and settled his muzzle in that empty leather palm.

I stopped gripping my keys.

6. PROMPT ẢNH B

Tạo ảnh ghép dọc tỉ lệ 2:3 gồm hai cảnh trên dưới ở bãi đỗ xưởng sửa xe Dayton, Ohio, chiều mưa xám; dùng góc máy thấp ngang ngực từ gần đầu minivan xanh, khác ảnh A, nhưng hai cảnh trong ảnh B giữ nguyên góc máy, nhân vật, xe và ánh sáng. Cảnh trên chụp lệch vài giây sau lúc tấm carton bị đẩy: chàng trai Mỹ 28 tuổi đầu cạo sát, râu ngắn, xăm cờ lê nhỏ trên cổ tay phải, áo khoác canvas nâu, sơ mi thợ máy xám, jean bạc, đang cáu giận, bàn chân còn đưa về phía carton; chú German Shepherd già lưng đen chân vàng, mõm trắng, chóp tai trái chẻ, vòng cổ đỏ cũ, chân sau cứng, đang trượt lùi vào gầm bán tải, đầu quay tránh người. Bảo vệ ria xám, bộ đàm cao trên ngực, cầm áo mưa vàng, giơ bàn tay chặn và há miệng gọi; phụ nữ cạnh minivan nhìn sang, xe đẩy hàng dừng nghiêng. Cảnh dưới sau năm phút: chàng trai quỳ sát bánh trước, sơ mi xám thấm mưa, hai tay giơ áo khoác thành mái che quanh chó, mặt cúi gần vai chó, miệng hé nhưng không nói; chó nằm thấp, vẫn tránh nhìn anh, dây dắt hướng về bảo vệ. Một nữ nhân viên đứng dưới mái hiên tay che miệng, phong bì trong tay kia; găng da nâu nằm trên nền ướt. Tại đường giao hai cảnh đặt ảnh tròn nhỏ viền vàng dày, cận chiếc găng da với đường khâu trắng vụng ở ngón cái, không giải thích vật thuộc về ai. Dưới cùng đặt dải đen, hai dòng chữ nguyên văn “I SHOVED HIM UNDER MY TRUCK” và “FIVE MINUTES LATER, I WAS ON MY KNEES”; chữ in hoa đậm trắng, riêng “SHOVED HIM”, “FIVE MINUTES LATER” và “ON MY KNEES” màu vàng. Hậu cảnh cửa phụ đóng, biển xưởng không đọc được chữ, vài xe Mỹ. Cảm giác ảnh điện thoại chụp vội, hơi nghiêng, nét sâu, mưa và bóng nước thật, nhiễu nhẹ, không cinematic, không HDR, không bokeh, không máu, không thương tích, không logo.

PART 2

I knew the stitching.

I’d done it with fishing line at a workbench because the man who owned the glove wouldn’t throw it away. I’d pulled the thumb so tight he’d complained he couldn’t bend it.

The dog pressed his nose farther into the leather. His eyes stayed on the side door.

“That’s Frank’s,” I said.

Leon looked up. “You know Frank?”

“He let me stay here. Years ago.”

I tried to swallow and couldn’t. The keys fell between my boots. I bent to collect them, missed, and ended up with one knee in a puddle.

Frank had worn that glove with the fingers folded back while working on bicycle chains. The repaired thumb used to catch loose threads on his coffee sleeve.

“Where is he?”

Leon didn’t answer immediately. He put the poncho over his own knees and kept one hand near the leash.

“He died in February. His daughter asked me to keep Sarge while she sorted things out.”

I looked at the window above the side door. The blind was down. I’d been working on the opposite side of the building for eleven months without going upstairs.

Sarge shifted away when I reached toward his collar.

I pulled my hand back.

Rain ran from the tip of his nose. I took off my jacket and held it over him, leaving space at the sides. My other knee went down beside the first.

He crouched beneath the canvas but kept his body angled toward Leon. When I lowered my face near his shoulder, he turned his head away. I stopped moving.

The woman by the minivan wasn’t shouting anymore. She stood with her cart handle against her hip.

A shop clerk came outside carrying my final pay envelope. She stopped under the awning, one hand covering her mouth. I hadn’t noticed anyone watching through the office glass.

I couldn’t get enough breath to finish a sentence.

“His back legs. Does he—”

“He’s got arthritis,” Leon said. “And you scared him.”

“I know.”

“I’m telling you because you keep reaching.”

I put my free hand flat against my thigh.

Leon explained only what we needed then. He’d been walking Sarge around the property before his shift. The dog had pulled toward the side entrance and lain beside my tire while Leon fetched the poncho. The leash had slipped from under his elbow.

There wasn’t an abandoned dog in the lot. There was an old dog temporarily out of reach of the man caring for him.

I asked for the number of Sarge’s clinic. Leon held his phone where I could read it, without handing me the leash.

I called beneath the jacket. The receptionist could hear the rain and asked me to repeat myself.

I said I’d frightened an older dog and wanted him checked for injury. I didn’t say I’d found him.

They had an opening before closing. Leon would take him. I could follow.

I asked whether he needed help getting Sarge into the back seat. Leon said he’d manage. I stepped away from the passenger door and waited beside my own truck, holding the wet jacket by its collar instead of trying again.

The clerk set my envelope under the awning. The woman retrieved the buns from her roof. Nobody helped me explain myself.

When Leon got Sarge standing, I held the jacket above them both. The dog walked around me to reach him.

PART 3

Frank had first found me asleep behind the shop in August 2017. I was nineteen, using a rolled sweatshirt as a pillow beside the scrap bins.

He was sixty-eight then, with a missing little finger and a habit of keeping pencils inside old prescription bottles. He’d served in the Army long before I met him. At the shop, he mostly repaired bicycles and sharpened mower blades.

My mother had put my bags outside after I took money from her purse. I’d told people we’d had a disagreement. Frank got the shorter version when he asked why I wouldn’t call her.

“You eat yet?” was all he said afterward.

He brought me a microwave burrito with one end still frozen. Then he asked the owner if I could sleep in the spare room above the side entrance while I found work.

I stayed nineteen nights.

Each morning, Frank opened the side door, and a young shepherd came down behind him. The dog’s collar was red even then, though it hadn’t faded.

I remembered the animal before I remembered his name. Mostly ears and feet, always stealing a clean rag from the lowest shelf.

Once, he’d caught the tip of his left ear on damaged fencing behind the building. Frank had taken him to the vet and afterward repaired the fence himself, swearing at every bent staple.

The split hadn’t disappeared. I’d simply failed to look at the dog attached to it.

Frank used to rest one gloved hand on his knee during lunch. Sarge would place his chin in the palm and wait for the last corner of a sandwich.

That was what I’d watched beside my tire. The glove wasn’t an identification tag. The dog had put his face where a hand used to be.

I also knew why he watched the door. Frank’s upstairs room and downstairs bench were on the other side of it. I couldn’t know what Sarge expected, but I knew what had been there.

One Saturday, Frank let me rebuild a child’s bicycle on his bench. I stripped a bolt and tried covering it with grease.

He rolled the bike back to me.

“Fix that before somebody rides it.”

I got angry. Said he could’ve just told me instead of making me feel stupid. He went back to sharpening a blade while I found the right bolt.

That afternoon I sewed his glove. My apology was mostly complaints about the needle.

After I got a room elsewhere, I visited less. When I returned to the repair shop as an employee, Frank had stopped coming regularly. I learned he’d retired and accepted that as the whole explanation.

I could have asked after him. I didn’t.

At work, I’d walked past his empty stool to buy soda from the machine. The bench had become a place to stack deliveries. Once, I’d left an oily filter on it and forgotten to put a tray underneath.

At the clinic, Leon sat across from me while Sarge stood between his knees. The veterinarian examined him and found no obvious injury from the parking lot incident. His stiffness needed ongoing care; it hadn’t begun that afternoon.

I paid the examination charge, $86, from money intended for rent. Leon paid for the prescription refill he had already ordered.

When I said I wanted to take Sarge, Leon shook his head.

“You’ve known about him for an hour.”

“I knew him before.”

“Then you had a chance to recognize him.”

I went quiet. Sarge rested his head against Leon’s knee until they called us back to collect the medication.

PART 4

The next morning, I brought a bag of food to Leon’s house. He read the label and handed it back.

“Wrong one. He gets sick when we switch it.”

I’d bought the largest bag I could afford without asking what Sarge ate. I kept the receipt and returned it that afternoon.

Leon wasn’t looking for another dog. His wife used a walker, and Sarge’s bed narrowed their hallway. But he wasn’t handing him over to the man from the parking lot just because that man had started crying.

For the first week, I visited after Leon’s morning coffee. I sat on a kitchen chair near the back door. Sarge stayed beside the refrigerator.

I didn’t bring the glove.

Leon kept it in a drawer and said it wasn’t something I could use to make the dog come closer. We argued about that once. I told him he was enjoying having something over me.

He opened the door.

“Come back when you’re done with that.”

I lost two days because I was too embarrassed to knock again.

Meanwhile, I took temporary shifts unloading parts at a warehouse. I called my landlord and arranged smaller payments instead of letting the messages stack up.

My apartment lease required written approval for a dog. The landlord wanted a pet deposit and proof of vaccinations. I couldn’t afford the deposit that week, and wanting Sarge didn’t change the number in my checking account.

On my ninth visit, he took a piece of his regular kibble from the floor beside my shoe. He carried it back to the refrigerator before eating.

I left my shoe where it was.

Leon contacted Frank’s daughter, who lived outside Toledo. She was named as the person handling his estate and had the veterinary paperwork. I spoke to her once by phone, standing outside the warehouse beside a vending machine.

She asked whether I’d kicked her father’s dog.

I said what I’d done, including the cardboard. She didn’t make the distinction for me either.

She wasn’t ready to approve anything yet. Neither was Leon.

That Sunday, I washed the mud from Leon’s porch steps and installed a loose handrail bracket he’d bought months earlier. He paid me for the bracket work. I needed wages, he said, and Sarge needed someone who could buy his food next month.

I spent some of it on a nonslip runner for my apartment. I put the rest toward the deposit.

At the shop, the owner let me collect the tools I’d left behind. I also asked about Frank’s old bench, which was pushed against a storage wall. He said we could discuss it when I had somewhere to put it.

I left without it.

That evening, I wrote down food, medication, and the next clinic appointment on an old envelope. Leon checked the figures. I’d missed the cost of refills. We crossed out my total and added it again before talking about anything else.

By the third week, Sarge would walk with me if Leon came along. He still flinched when a shoe scraped behind him. Once, I reached down too quickly and he tucked himself against Leon’s leg.

I didn’t tell him it was okay. I backed up.

Before we tried a supervised visit at my apartment, Leon walked through it himself. He checked the gate, the rugs, and the empty water bowl. Then he made me fill it.

We set the visit for Saturday. No one called it an adoption.

PART 5

Friday night, before that visit, Leon called at 10:18.

Sarge had slipped through the back gate when a delivery driver left it unlatched. Leon had been searching for twenty minutes. His wife was by the telephone in case anyone called the number on the tag.

“He headed toward Wayne,” Leon said.

I pulled on my boots, then stopped with one foot on the kitchen chair. The torn lining of my brown jacket was still hanging through the pocket. I put on a sweatshirt instead.

I met Leon near the shop. He was carrying a flashlight too large for his shaking hand.

We checked the lot first. Nothing under my old parking space, nothing beside the closed entrance. A truck went by, and Leon called too loudly over it.

“Sarge!”

We listened. A loose sign clicked against a fence.

We called the county shelter’s after-hours line and followed the recorded instructions for reporting a lost dog. Leon sent me the clearest photo he had. I posted it in the neighborhood group with his permission.

Then he said, “I should’ve checked the latch.”

I almost answered with something sharp. I was scared and recognized the feeling arriving in my mouth before the words did.

I walked to the curb instead.

From there I could see the alley behind the building. The space beside the scrap bins was blocked now, but a narrow passage still ran toward the old basement steps.

I’d slept there to stay out of sight. The stairwell couldn’t be seen from either street, and its bottom landing stayed dry when the lot flooded.

I asked Leon to hold the light while I checked.

Halfway down, I heard a collar ring tap concrete.

Sarge was wedged beside a plastic tote on the bottom landing. He’d gone down the steps, but his hind legs wouldn’t push him back up. When the flashlight crossed his face, he lowered his ears.

I turned sideways and sat two steps above him.

“Hey, buddy.”

He looked beyond me toward the top.

Leon wanted to come down, but the stairs were narrow. We called the emergency clinic for advice about moving him without making his pain worse. Leon went to the truck for a blanket while I stayed put.

My knee began to ache against the concrete. I had one hand on the step, fingers loose, and kept the other near my own chest.

Sarge sniffed my cuff.

I didn’t move it closer.

He tried standing, stopped, and leaned his shoulder against my shin. Then he lowered his chin across the back of my hand.

There was no glove between us.

I waited until Leon returned. We used the blanket as instructed and moved him together, slowly enough that Leon had to remind me to breathe.

At the emergency clinic, I sat on the floor while they prepared to examine him. When Sarge was brought back into the room, he walked past Leon and lowered himself beside my knee.

He stayed there through the estimate and the paperwork. I signed for the bill. Leon put my sweatshirt over the chair instead of taking Sarge home before sunrise.

The receptionist asked which phone number to call first. I looked at Leon. He nodded toward me, and I gave her mine. Then I made sure the ringer was on. I hadn’t left it on overnight in months.

PART 6

Sarge came home with me the following Wednesday, after the veterinarian adjusted his care plan and Leon agreed to a trial week. Frank’s daughter signed the ownership transfer after that.

We updated the clinic and microchip records. I kept the papers in a kitchen drawer with the vaccination certificate my landlord had requested.

The trial week wasn’t tidy.

Sarge barked at the upstairs tenant’s laundry basket. He left half his breakfast when I moved the bowl. On the second night, I knocked a pan off the counter and he disappeared behind the couch.

I sat on the floor until my back hurt. Eventually, I went to bed and left the hallway light on. He came out after midnight, drank water, and slept by the door.

That was all he did.

By June, we had a routine. At 6:15 each evening, after my warehouse shift, we walked around the block slowly enough for him to sniff the same storm drain twice.

On Saturdays, we went to the shop.

The owner had agreed to let me use the narrow storage bay for three hours in return for sweeping it and keeping the alley clear. Frank’s bench fit against the wall. I bought the tools I lacked one payday at a time.

I repaired children’s bicycles there: loose brakes, dropped chains, one back wheel installed backward. When a repair needed parts I couldn’t cover, I told the parent before taking the bike apart.

Sarge had a mat beside the bench, away from wheels and pedals. I kept the door open but used a gate. Leon checked the latch on his first visit and didn’t apologize for checking.

One Saturday, the woman from the minivan arrived with a child’s purple bike. I recognized her before she recognized me.

She looked at Sarge, then at my wrist.

“Parking lot,” she said.

“Yeah.”

She stayed while I adjusted the brake cable. She remembered me wearing a black jacket that day. I said it was brown. Neither of us argued about the rest.

Sarge got up when I dropped a wrench. He took two steps back and waited. I put the tool down before reaching for anything else.

After a while, he returned to his mat.

The woman paid for the new cable and asked which Saturdays I’d be there. I wrote the hours on the back of her receipt.

The child wheeled the bike outside and squeezed both brake levers before getting on. I watched the rear wheel stop. Then I went back to the stand and picked a loose piece of cable housing off the floor.

Later, Leon brought a cardboard box of Frank’s odds and ends. I thought he meant to clear space in his garage. Inside were the pencil bottles, a battered chain tool, and the glove.

“His daughter said you could use these.”

I reached for the glove first. Sarge lifted his head.

I set it beside his mat, but he sniffed it and walked past. He came to my stool, waited while I wiped the grease from my fingers, and rested his chin on my bare palm.

Leon stayed by the gate. I could see the cardboard box tucked beneath his arm.

I still start every Saturday by checking the bikes I repaired the week before. Loose bolts go back on the stand. Sarge waits beside me until I finish.

His chin rests in my clean hand.

Follow this page for more stories about older dogs, second chances, and the people who learn to earn their trust.

Word count: PHẦN 1 – A = 589, PHẦN 1 – B = 601, PART 2-6 = 2,866, Total (A + Parts) = 3,455.