GR translation: the plaid, hunched-up leaky handful inside

[Mike Jing]

V471.29-472.3     Lost, again and again, past poor dambusted and drowned
Becket, up and down the rut-brown slopes, the hayrakes rusting in the
afternoon, the sky purple-gray, dark as chewed gum, the mist starting to
make white dashes in the air, aimed earthward a quarter, a half inch . . .
she looked at him once, of course he still remembers, from down at the end
of a lunchwagon counter, grill smoke working onto the windows patient as
shoe grease against the rain for the plaid, hunched-up leaky handful
inside, off the jukebox a quick twinkle in the bleat of a trombone, a reed
section, planting swing notes precisely into the groove between silent
midpoint and next beat, jumping it pah (hm) pah (hm) pah so exactly in the
groove that you knew it was ahead but felt it was behind, both of you, at
both ends of the counter, could feel it, feel your age delivered into a new
kind of time that may have allowed you to miss the rest, the graceless
expectations of old men who watched, in bifocal and mucus indifference,
watched you lindy-hop into the pit by millions, as many millions as
necessary. . . .

What are "the plaid, hunched-up leaky handful inside" exactly?
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