10


"You live in that Chevy?"

"What business that of yours?" She bit her lip. She'd kind of promised herself she wouldn't attack the old guy no more. Now, first chance she gets and she snaps at him. "Yeah. For now."

"Can't be comfortable." Waldo was at his locker fumbling.

"Somewhere to sleep." She pretended to be fumbling at hers too, 'cept there weren't nothing in it.

"Saves money I guess."

"Saves belittling." She said it easy without thinking about it. Waldo looked at her. She wasn't nothing special to him. But she wasn't nothing to hate neither. Being black, he'd had his unfair share of bigotry in his lifetime. But being big and black, most folks waited for him to walk on by before they said something. It ain't easy to get your teeth into race-hating someone who's bigger than what you are.

But this little thing here, she would of just soaked it up. He heard 'em talk about her around the shop floor. People can be real nasty. He'd like to parachute some of 'em into North Vietnam and see if they got the balls to say their shit there.

He pulled out the back-up 'B' sandwich from his locker. It was carefully wrapped in aluminum foil. He tossed it into her hands like a Pass the Parcel prize when the music stops. She caught it and looked at him all surprised.

"You can either eat it, or give it away," he told her. "But don't you let me see you throw it out. Aretha always said there's six million people starving to death in the world. Wasting a sandwich is like killing some little kid in India. I mean, she said the first part. The part about India I made up myself. It's like okay to add bits."

"You bought this for me?"

"Nope. I made it myself." He bloated up with pride, if that was possible.