THE KETCHUP IS almost empty when I sit it on the counter. Then turn on the stove, fill a pot with water, and heat it to boiling. Using a washcloth for a pot holder, I pour scalding water in the bowl. Once it’s full, I flip the ketchup top open and squeeze. Garlic, salt, and pepper go in next. By the time I’m standing at the window, I’m spooning it in my mouth.

It’s Sunday, quiet out. Slow. After me and Cricket both done eating, we go visit him.

A trash can chained to the streetlight on our corner is running over. I kick the paper, look at the ground for loose change. Do the same thing while I’m crossing the street. I found ten pennies outside the laundromat yesterday. A quarter on the sidewalk by the daycare center. Two nickels stuck in the hot tar in the street last week. Wish people threw dollar bills away.

I guess you could say he a gentleman. We step on his island, and he give us his seat. Offers me water. Sees me staring at his chips, giant size, picks up the bag and offers me some. I take a handful, then ask for more. After he make a few sales, he come back and sits on the ground facing our way.

He staring at me. Making me uncomfortable. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because of my hair. I washed it. Braided it too. You can tell I done it myself. The girls I saw that night on the street would laugh.

He got his arms out when he ask to hold her. Who’s done that since I been here? Nobody. So, I turn her over right away. She smiling, sitting in his lap, happy. I’m happy too. People don’t know what it’s like to have a baby and no help. “Hey, you got customers.” I lean down, get myself more chips.

He’s up, running, carrying her and three bottles. Soon as he get over there, another car stops, then another one and two behind that one. I sit up, watching. Then run bottles of water over to him when he ask. That car pulls off, but more stop. It’s ’cause of her. Don’t nobody stop and give me nothing when she with me.

We here two hours sweating in the sun. And the cars keep coming. I take her for a minute so he can drag the cooler to the cars. Next, I go inside for her hat and suntan lotion and soak her good. Them cars don’t let up. Most people buy more than one bottle. They don’t pay me no mind or see me, I guess. That’s okay. I ain’t mad. He better share, though.

“What you tell ’em? That she yours?” I ask when things slow down.

“Just that I’m babysitting.” He hand her over, gets back to sitting on the ground. Knees up, elbows on his knees, he say he never knew a baby could be a money machine.

I stick out my hand. “So, where’s my cut?”

He deduct the five dollars he thinks I still owe him. After he hand me twenty bucks, I look at him like he out his mind. I see all the dollars he got. But he’s good at math. Tells me how much he paid for the water, the taxes, everything including gas his friend gets paid to bring him here. He gotta take care of all them expenses, he says, before he makes a dime.

I stand up to leave.

“Where you going?”

“Wendy’s.” I rub my belly.

“If you ever need a babysitter—”

I laugh. “You wanna pimp my baby?”

“You need money. I need money. You need a break. Her too, probably.” He gets up to open a case of water, sticks some of ’em in a cooler full of ice. “I know I’d be sick of you if I had to be around you all the time.”

He sound like John-John. That’s why I’m smiling. Plus, I got money, not a lot, but more than I started with this morning. “Anytime you want her you can have her,” I tell him. But that ain’t come out right. “Sorry, Cricket.” I kiss her forehead. “We need money, is all.”

He try to get in my business, asking where my family is, her father too. “She don’t look like you.”

We was having a good time, and he had to go there. Which is why I leave without saying good-bye or thank you. He don’t know, I got questions about him too. Like what happened to his parents? What kind of grandma let a kid work in this neighborhood all times of night? I wouldn’t ask though.

Everybody’s got something that they want to keep private or all to themselves.