Rats

    A radio is on somewhere. In the kitchen maybe, or the office. The noise of it drones on quietly. The words blend together, a tone more then anything, nearly flat, the slow swells and falls of an ocean gone nearly still. I get this sensation of the ocean surface moving far above my head as I walk down the hallway. There door at the end of it is open. Just a few inches. Something is stuck in the hinges maybe. Its heavy when I push it open the rest of the way. I'm familiar with the weight. I go out this door two times a week maybe, three. One arm pressed against it up to the elbow a bag hangs from the other, dragging against the door frame as I push my way through. The plastic is sturdy enough that it doesn't tear.

Its raining. Not too hard. For a minute the light from the hallway catches in the fat drops that fall from the overhang, then the door closes most of the way and the darkness goes kind of flat.

The bag is big. I have to bend my arm at a slightly uncomfortable angle to keep it from dragging on the concrete. When I step out from under the small rectangle that protects the door I realize its hardly raining at all. Frail scraps of dampness touch my face once or twice, barely enough to darken my cloths I think. I slowly walk the ten or fifteen steps to the dumpster. From one of the apartments above me I can hear the round nasal wail of some dissatisfied baby. At the distant end of the ally there's the noise of traffic moving by. My eyes are on the dumpster though. Its full enough that the metal lid isn't closed. Plastic bags pile against its side. In the uncertain light it looks as if one of the bags has been pecked open, some of the contents are strune across the ground. Empty yoghurt containers, juice boxes, something wrapped in toilet paper. There are cigarette butts too, a dozen maybe, burnt down to less then an inch. I can't really see them but I can imagine the dampened ends.

I stop a few feet short. I don't really want to walk on the trash. I toss my bag against the others. There's a sudden movement in behind the bags. I turn my head, watch as a mouse or something runs along the dumpster and finally between two buildings. Another follows a few steps behind. They're too big to be mice I think. Pale brown bodies and long tails. If I had a can or something I'd throw it at them, but I don't. I turn around and head back to the door. I hear stories once of rats biting babies. Chewing off the ears of a baby that sits on the cradle on the floor.

I hate rats.

The door had closed all the way this time. It doesn't lock though. Both of my hands are free now but I use only one to pull it open. The dense slab of grey seems to resist for a moment but then I'm inside. I feel the over cranked air-conditioning when I step back into the stairwell. My cloths had gotten wetter in the rain then I'd realized. Its a bit uncomfortably cool.

For some reason I feel worn out. Already. I stand just inside the door. There is a stairway going up to the bathrooms. The lights in the stairwell are off but I know the concrete walls are painted over grey in the stairwell. At my shoulder level the collar cuts from dark grey to light. There was once a tinge of blue to the paint. There are caulked over scars in the wall under the paint. The shade is a little off. The walls aren't very clean anyway, people draw on them sometimes, so it doesn't really matter.

I've leaned against the wall. Just for a minute. Without the scrape of the plastic bag against my leg the noise of the radio becomes clearer. There are numbers. After a second of two I understand what the commentator is talking about. Unemployment rates. I don't really have to hear the details to know what he's saying. 9%. Something like 9%. What its been for as long as I can really remember now. It wonders vaguely higher or lower some months but its always around there. Every time time they try to give it some meaning, the manufacturing sector has added this many jobs so that means. . . this or that or the other. I wonder if its really 9% sometimes. It seems like its higher. It feels like its higher. Maybe its just the people around me though.

The note of the radio has changed though, a kind of glassy chipper, some kind of commercials. I start moving again, my hand dragging quietly along the wall.

Maybe its the rain that makes me feel so tired. There's some line I can't quite remember about walking in the rain. 'Sliding through the rain.' A man that never tells what he is told. I don't remember things like that too well. The books I read, or the poems, they don't seem that important. I hear them, or read them, and then I forget. There are paper back books in a box in the corner of my living room, the newsprint already smelling musty. I know that I have read them all but I can't really remember what most of them are about just looking at the cover, reading the title. From time to time I crouch over the box, pick one up, consider reading it again. I usually don't. I'll read a page or two and vaguely remember what it was about, a sad summer, or a car ride or people that were somehow always mildly repellent and I loose my interest back in the box. If I have a free evening I might go out and buy a new one instead, destined eventually to end up in that box, or some other, more then half forgotten. “Why don't you order them?” the bus boy had asked me once. He'd been standing against the wall smoking a cigarette, his stained off white apron bunched up from how his other hand shoved in his pocket. He'd been looking at the paper bag in my hand.

“Oh.” I'd said half distracted. “Its kind of easier to find what I like.”

He'd nodded.

“Anyway its cheaper too.” I had added.

A gray crumb of ash hand wondered down his apron. The books I buy are only a dollar or two. I get the old beet up ones at the used bookstore. I don't really care if the cover falls off or something. They'd had a lot of books like that back. . . where I'd been before. A shelf full beside the board games. Books older then I was, covers taped back on, the pages had the softness of cloth. I could almost feel the brush of a thousand other fingers. They had to remind me once or twice, 'when your done put them back.' I don't think they cared much though. Most of the others didn't read.

There are only a few customers when I come out of the hallway. Its that kind of night. A man sits at one of the tables, the side of his head rests against his raised fingertips. His milky blue eyes watch me. He's got a plate of hash browns in front of him. I'd gotten it for him a few minutes after I'd come in. He hasn't eaten much since then. I've seen him before. I think I heard he works at some factory, maybe the the metal piping factory at the corner. I think he has for a long time, twenty years, thirty, who knows. If it wasn't that factory it was one like it.

Most of the lights are out. I heard the boss said people don't like drinking under the bright florescent lights but I have a feeling its really just to cut down on the bills. The super market near my house is the same. At night only every second or third light is on, these long thin tubes of brightness that must be six feet or so. I wonder if they're made special for places like that, stores, factories, whatever.

The buss boy is out on a smoking break that has probably lasted 30 or 40 minutes. I can see him through the glass of the door, sitting on the curb letting the rain sink slowly into his long sleeved t-shirt. His head is turned, watching down the street as if there is something coming. Not a lot of cars drive on this street, at least at this time in the evening. He doesn't like the night shift, says there are no tips. Its pretty much true. People will leave a dollar or two, bills as soft and over used as the pages in my book. There aren't enough day shifts to go around though. He can only get 2 or 3 days a week, even if he's lucky. Sometimes he give up and takes the night shift. Most nights he only stays until 1. We don't need a buss boy after 1. I can carry the dirty plates and bowls for the few people that wonder in and the cook can wash them.

With most of the lights off the window into the kitchen glows an almost eery blue. There's a clang of dishes being washed when I go near. The cook kind of looks up. “Do you have rat poisoning?” I ask voice kind of quiet.

“What?” he puts down the large metal bowl hes washing. There's a note of surprise.

“Just wondering. If there's some in the office, or up in the bathrooms or something.”

“Rat poisoning?” he repeats.

“There's rats.” I say. “Out by the trash cans. I thought I could put down some poison or something.”

“Outside right?” a touch of concern on his brow. “Not in here.”

“Ya. Outside. Like I said, the trash cans. I saw one Friday too.”

He shakes his head. “You can't do it.”

“Do what?”

“Lay down rat poisoning outside.”

“I don't like rats.”

“One way or another.” he shakes his head. “Someones cat might eat it. Or someones kid.”

“Not someones kid.” I reason. People watch their children. It stirs an image though, dirty faced children scrambling though a pile of rubbish, planks on the street and mud that flowed and sucked at your feet. I'm not quite sure where the image came from. Must have been a movie I'd seen. There were a lot of movies at the place before. Nice movies, ones that wouldn't upset people. I remember I had gotten bored, wondered to the window and watched the lawn through the diamonds of wire reenforcing the glass. 'They used to tell me scary stories when I was young.' I'd told . . . who was it by then. Mr. Millers? Sitting in his off white office, looking off at the high window. There had been more wires on that one for some reason. 'So we would be good.' I'd been pulling at the seam of my long sleeve. I think the threads had begun to pop out. The cloth had seemed strange to me, the way it stretched over my wrist, bending and pulling. 'Maybe you've got it wrong.' I had suggested to Mr. Millers. Maybe you should tell them scary stories. They might act better.' 'How about Alice?' he'd suggested though. 'Do you think she would like scary stories.' I had pictured her shuffling down the hallway in her ratty purple slippers. No. She liked romance. She liked comedy.

“I can go after them with a stick or something.” The cook offered. “Later. On my break. Don't know if I'll get any.” He admits. He's pragmatic. Pretty honest.

“We used to drown them when I was young.” I comment absently.

“Drown them?” he repeats.

I can't pin down the memory very well. “In the bathtub or something.”

He shakes his head. “Sounds like a bad idea. Like they'd bite. Your lucky you didn't get bitten.”

I almost tell him they did. That they would bite at night when you were trying to sleep. I remember being in the dark and kicking, but one of them maybe Mr. Millers told me I'm not remembering it right.

“Don't worry about it, I guess.” I sigh. It wont do any good him going after them with a stick.

He comes over toward the long rectangular window. He can kind of see out on the customers when he comes close. “Did that guy order anything but coffee yet?” he asks.

My head turns, looking at the man hes talking about. “No.” I say.

“Hes got that look don't he?”

“Look.”

“Gonna stay all night. Never order much more then coffee.”

“They don't usually tip.” I say somewhat automatically. At least if he does it will be way after the buss boy leaves and I wont have to share it. I don't care that much actually. Sometimes I even give the buss boy more then his share. He's not a boy. I think he may be older then me. The man tastes his coffee from time to time. Mostly he stares out the window, nothing is really moving. Across the street the building is shuttered. It has been for a long time. Its been for sale as long as I've worked here. The old fashioned brick work is kind of pretty but still, people aren't buying.

I see there is something moving. A homeless man that wears layers and layers covered in a jacket stiff with dirt and wear. Its not cold outside. I think the man must be baking under the hardened crust of cloth. He shuffles very slowly down the sidewalk. I see him sometimes on my way into work, there’s another man he plays some game with on a wooden board with black and white tiles.

“Its really quite.” I comment after a long moment.

“Ya.” the dishes rest soaking in the industrial sink, the goes on standing there with his elbows resting on the counter that separates us.

“You should turn on the radio.”

“Sure. Sounds like a good idea.” he agrees. Then after another long moment. “You want news or music?”

“Music I guess. Not too loud.” I add after a pause. “Some of the guys will turn it on loud enough its distracting when the customers talk.”

The radio is all the way at the other end of the rectangular window. He goes over too it eventually starts trying different channels. I don't really watch the news. Not often. I don't watch much. I'd seen a few minutes today. When I'd been leaving for work. One of the apartment doors had been standing open. I kind of know the guy, or I've seen him around. He doesn't want to pay for the air-conditioning. Or at least that’s what I always thought. He lets it seep in from the hallway. Most of the lights had been off when I passed by the gaping door. There was one on in the kitchen and a TV. The front room seemed to be empty. I'd figured maybe he was in the kitchen, or the bathroom.

My gaze had caught on the TV for a moment. Its the news. One of those channels that’s news 24 hours a day, the banner flowing across the screen. Chunky letters in red and blue. A woman with flat starkly blond hair had sat with her hands clenched in her lap brow furrowed with earnestness or anger. I've seen her before. Shes an afternoon anchor. She always has that look.

The volume is on really high. “And how much of our GNP is it precisely?” she'd bullet pointed the question with first finger pressed against thumb in a sharp manicured beak.

The ruddy bust she'd been interviewing indulged her with a slight laugh. “Well it all depends on the varsity of the numbers they're putting out. But we're projecting that into the. . .” I'd sort of tuned him out. I've heard the numbers before. If you listen for a couple of days you'll get several different versions of the same numbers. I think the last one I heard was 125. The national debt is a hundred and twenty five percent of the GNP. That's what it had been in Greece or Rome or something 8 years ago, maybe 10 when one country after another had started to go insolvent, when the Euro was in trouble. I don't remember 10 years ago very well. People tell me and I try to remember. Sometimes I think I can.

I know about now though. Some of the old men that come in at night talk about it. People don't want treasury bonds anymore. The interest rates creep higher and higher. I wouldn't get a treasury bond. Then again I wouldn't have enough money to.

The guy had come out of his kitchen eating something out of a clear plastic container. His scraggly brown hair was pulled back in a knot. His long ropy arms are naked, no shirt. Thin lined tattoos were scrawled across his shoulders and chest. “A bunch of bums.” I'd heard him mutter once. When he'd come here. He doesn't come often, but he does sometimes. He'd been staring forward, hardly blinking, eyes fixed on the radio. He'd been chewing at something mechanically.

This afternoon he'd glances up from his Tupperware of pasta. I could almost smell the tuna wafting off of it. His eyes met mine for a moment. His face silent, expressionless.

I'd looked back at him for what seemed like a minute maybe more. Maybe I was watching the TV behind him. I'm not really sure. Eventually he'd gone on eating his pasta and I'd come to work.

I can see a girl on the sidewalk she moves slowly from frame to frame as she walks past each window. She wears a black sweatshirt with the hood pulled up over her bent head. Her hands balled in each pocket gives her a kind of unflattering paunch. Is it already past 10? I look over at the clock. Its 10:14. She glances up a few moments before she gets to the door, there is something distracted and flat as she opens the door. Her eyes drift to the guy drinking coffee, the one who probably wont tip, and then sort of glance off him.

Her dark blondish hair sticks to her cheeks, she slouches into one of the booths near the door. I wouldn't say I know her but she comes in some. She has been for awhile. Every few weeks, more sometimes. When her shift ends she sits, restless, she drinks coffee or something else cheep. Her face has a kind of puffy look to it when she pulls off her hood, the skin a bit blotchy. She should quit the MacDonalds. But I guess she cant. I'd heard her mutter once shes lucky enough to have that. I know she eats the food there a lot, the workers can have it for free once its been sitting on the shelf for more then 15 minutes. 'Can't beet free.' she'd shrugged one night. I know she can't stomach the smell of beef grease anymore.

I take the small notebook off the counter and go over to her. She has her head turned staring out the window, slouched half into herself. There's the remnant of some makeup dark around her eyes, it somehow just makes her naked mouth seem more washed out.

“What can I get for you?” I ask.

Her eyes flick to me. “Oh. . . I don't know.” she sighs. One of her hands finally pulls itself out of her pocket, absently rearranging the silverware in front of her, putting the fork on one side of the napkin and then on the other. I wait, the notebooks hanging at my side. “A coke I guess.” she says eventually. “Is it OK if I just start with a coke?”

“Sure.”

She goes on watching through the window.

The guy drinking his coffee is just a few booths down. There's something about him. I keep looking at him for some reason.

I go back to the counter, shovel a few spoon fulls of ice into a tall plastic cup. I guess the cook hadn't really expected her to order anything. He's gone back to washing the dishes. I push down on the lever for the coke. It foams up brown. A wait a moment and push the lever again, I do it a few times till the drink is up near the brim.

I take it over to her. Our boss had told us a few times to bring drinks on a tray, even if its only one, set it on a tray. He said it looks professional. He almost never comes at night, I just carry it in my hand. I set it down on the table. She glances at it. “Its not diet is it?” she seems to realize. “Shit.” swearing at herself. “I was gonna start ordering diet. I forgot. Fuck it,” her voice is thick with disappointment, like shes failed at something. “I guess I'll order a diet next time.”

“I can get you a diet instead.” I offer.

“I know I ordered the wrong thing.” there’s a slightly helpless look on her face.

“I doesn't matter to me.” I admit. “Or the place. Its fountain drinks. You get free refills. Not loosing anything if we throw one cup away. Usually do one way or another when someones done with their meal.”

“Oh.” she seems to realize that’s true. “You don't mind.”

“No. Its fine.” I tell her and head back to the counter. The music pumping out of the radio is really quiet, kind of peaceful. I listen to it while I fill a second cup. I've always thought coke tasted really strange. They wouldn't give it to us at the place I was before. No caffeine. People would get upset they said. There were little cardboard boxes of milk or juice or something. All the drinks had come in cardboard boxes. They'd been hard to open. The soggy lip would sometimes get torn, either way the milk would soak more then half way through. 'Is it OK?' I had asked one of the women when she handed me the cardboard box with milk in it. 'Is what OK dear?' she had asked me. 'People get sick sometimes.' I'd told her. She had shaken her head a little sadly. 'People get sick sometimes when they drink milk.' I had repeated. 'Its not going to make you sick dear.' I remember she had patted my shoulder. I had held it in my hand a long time, looking at it. It had gotten warm and the diamond shapes of the sun thought the windows had lengthened on the floor turned a little slanty and to the side.

She has gone back to staring out the window by the time I return with a diet coke. She doesn't seem to notice me set it down by her arm for a moment, then absently nods her thanks. I wonder if she's looking at the building across the street. Her gaze actually seems a bit nearer, maybe she's just looking at the empty street.

I stand beside her table for a moment, hesitant. I'm thinking about asking the man drinking coffee if he wants anything more but I've left my notebook by the drink machine. For some reason I feel tired when I think of going over to him. Maybe I see a night stretching ahead of me going over there again and again, standing at the side of his table, asking him again and again what he would like, being told 'nothing.' or 'just coffee.'

Finally embark on the seven or eight steps that take me to him. I find myself counting how many steps fall on each tile of the floor. The tiles are a sort of marbled dark brown. I can feel the grainy sensation of dirt under the soles of my shoes but you can't see it on the tile.

The man is watching me with a kind of vague smile, leaning back easily in his chair. For some reason his expression silences me. I just stand there waiting for him to say something. “Shouldn't you be wearing an apron or something?” he asks at last.

I look over to the counter. I'd left my apron folded behind it. Its not a bad apron, the cloth is heavy, died a deep purple. When I wear it, it wraps all the way around me except at the bottom. There are pockets at the sides for my notebook.

“Or a name tag.” he suggests.

I have a feeling he was trying to be friendly. Like a joke between friends. That my silence has left him a little at loose ends. “People don't like my name.” I tell him.

“Oh.” he says.

“Would you like anything?”

Relaxed, he shakes his head no.

I go across the room to fill up the other man's coffee cup. The nest of hash browns has been whittled down to about a third, red smears the bottom of the plate in heavy lines. “You don't got many customers in here do you?” he observes.

“Not at the moment.” I agree.

“Makes you wonder why they'd bother to stay open all night.”

“Ya.”

“Gotta be some place I suppose.” he says. “All them factories around here going all night. End their shift them dead hours. Boys gotta eat something.”

“Ya.” I agree. One of the places near by closes at 10:30. Not a factory, an auto repair place. I'm not sure why they stay open so late. A lot of times one or two of the guys will come in. Their hands scrubbed and scrubbed till they're dry and raw but you can still smell the grease on them.

“How long you been working here girl?” he squints up at me.

“Three years.” I estimate. “Maybe four.”

“Never getting out hu?”

“Maybe.” I agree. I'm not trying too hard to get out. There's no where to go really, if you haven't been to school. If you've made mistakes in your past. A lot of times there's no where to go even if you have been to school. The girl by the window, they call her Lulu, I don't think its her name though, I don't think she likes it. She'd been to collage. She got out two years ago, maybe longer, about when she'd started coming here. She'd been thin and serious then. She'd come with local newspapers, circling jobs, looking. She'd gone on looking hard for months and months. About a year I guess when the MacDonalds pudge had begun to collect around her, or really began to show, she'd kind of lost the will for it. Sometimes she'd still bring the newspapers but more and more she'd just stair out the window. A few months after that when people asked about it she stopped saying 'I'm only working there to tide me through.' She'd just nod. Sometimes she still wears these collegiate looking skirts, they don't seem right on her anymore though.

On my way back to the counter I look over at her, I finally see it. The angle I'm looking from is right and at last realize what it is she's looking at out the window. Its the buss boy, or the guy who picks up the dishes, or whatever I should call him, sitting out on the curb slowly smoking away one cigarette after another.

The cook has finished washing the dishes. He's standing with his elbows resting on the broad sill. He's turned the radio to news or talk or something. It reminds me for a moment of the radio that’s on in the office talking quietly away to itself.

“How long has he been out on his smoking break?” I glance toward the door.

“Does it matter? No dishes to clean up.”

“I guess.” I'd said it more because of the rain then anything else.

“You wanna take a break you can.”

“No.” I shake my head. “I usually need a break later in the night. Around 2 or 3. Just sit out in the quiet for awhile and drink coffee or something. Anything to get me through.

The voice on the radio is a woman's. She says something about a dead and a bathtub. I turn my head kind of listening. She goes on about the details. They are unsure if its a murder of a suicide. “Who was it?” I wonder aloud.

The cook kind of snorts. “Another one.”

“Another one?” I repeat.

“Didn't they say Jamie Dimon?”

I shake my head. I haven't been paying enough attention. I haven't been paying enough attention for a long time. “I don't know his name.” I admit.

He shakes his head. “I wouldn't either, just they mentioned it on the news earlier. Used to be the president of JP Morgan or something.”

“One of those fucking fifty million a year bonus guys.” The metal pipe worker is pretty near the counter. Near enough to hear. He's looked up, the wrinkles around his mouth twisting badly when he speaks. “You'd think the tons of god damned money would be enough to keep him from drowning himself in his own tub. Spoiled fucking son of a bitch.”

“Never know whats going on with other people.” the cook says kind of pragmatically.

“Probably found out that fucking karma turned around and gave him cancer of the ass or something and he couldn't cut it. Rather end it here and now.” the metal worker sneers.

For a minute my mind has drifted off. In my mind I can see the pale bluish gray of the bathtub from years ago. It had been deep and long with sides the rolled over in a smooth porcelain curve. I can remember sinking deep into it. The water slipping over its sides and crashing to the tiny institutional tile of the bathroom floor. “Prostate cancer doesn't kill you does it?” I try to pull myself back to the conversation.

“No.” the cook shakes his head. “Not usually. Old men get it though. He was old.”

“My dad, he got cancer that ate out his insides, he died of it plenty fast.”

“Maybe it was intestinal cancer.” the cook offers mildly.

“One way or another, wasn't covered by his insurance thanks to those cock sucking bastards.” He shakes his head.

“Bankers?” I ask, a little confused. I haven't been paying enough attention for a long time.

“All those anti-fuckin' union people. Don't want to see us collective bargaining. Thanks to them Wall Street guys we can't even negotiate a good health care plan. And that was even before all that bullshit ten years ago. Socialist care, where you gotta pay one way or another.”

“There were problems with unions too.” Its strange to me how the cook can sound placating even when his words disagree with what someones saying. He's really good with customers somehow, better then me.

“One thing I'll say is we had a middle class back then, back when the unions were strong. Don't have one now.”

The cook nods that its true.

“Things have been better.” I put in. It sounds hallow because I don't really remember when they were. “Things have been worse though.”

“When?” the metal worker.

“I don't know, when working at factories turned peoples teeth green, when people died at 25 or 30.” 'When they said, might as well let them act like animals because they'll die early and in squalor anyway.' I add in my head. But they told me its not healthy, its not a good idea, my interest in history. I can see it just the same, the men with sickly green teeth, the gums pulling back so that they seem bigger then natural. Strange color staining their bulging eyes as well. Converging as the evening gets darker, teeth chattering, clicking with their talk. Noisy rough voices, swarming over the already crowded houses.

“Just cause its not so bad as the dark ages don't mean we shouldn't try and get a bit more for ourselves. People in China getting all that they want, and what do we got?” Hes kind of muttering to himself.

“Ya.” I say, a bit thinly. From what I know its not true, about China. I heard they live pretty bad, or most of them do. I've kind of lost my energy for the conversation though.

There's a minute of placated silence. “I better makes some coffee.” I murmur half to the vacant air. I turn my back on all of them. Two pots stand hot all the time. One of them is nearly empty, the one with caffeine. I pull out the top of it slowly, the dregs of the grinds make a dark sludge in the filter. I hit the plastic against the side of the trash can a few times and the filter sludge and all drops out.

My gaze wonders out the door into the empty street as my body walks through the steps of this thing I've done so many times before. Getting a new filter, measuring out the grinds, pouring the water in. Outside the buss boy has lit a fresh cigarette. His third, forth maybe. I wonder how much of an hours salary that makes. Most of an hour I think. I don't smoke so I'm not sure. I'd heard him say it once though that a box is a few hours salary. 'Bad fuckin' habit.' he'd sworn at himself jaw hard. 'Too expensive. I should quit.' 'You can't quit everything though.' someone had said to him, one of the customers, one that comes in sometimes, I can't remember the face though.

By the time I'm done with the coffee the cook has gone back to the stove, cleaning the thin metal surfaces that have been used and used through the day till they've gummed over with burnt grime. I lean against the counter for awhile, half listening to the murmur of the radio's voice. Something has happened in some county. An outbreak of violence. I think its the middle east, or maybe near Russia. The woman's voice describes it voice an empty inflection of knowledge.

Eventually I push myself off the counter. I walk to the door. I stand there for awhile. It looks like the rain has stopped, or close enough to stopped. The sky is still a flat dark. Without really deciding to I push the door open walk outside.

The buss boy glances up. I stand for a bit arms crossing against the chill in the air. The guy has gone back to nursing the last dregs of his cigarette. It has stopped raining after all.

There are some boxes pushed up against the wall. Building materials I think. They're doing something to the upstairs. Its been empty and boarded up for a few years. The boxes are piled two deep. I sit down on the top one. I was right, building materials probably. Its solid, hard. I pull my feet up arms holding my knees loosely. All of them in there, I know the type, they stay and stay and stay. If someone really wants to order I guess they'll band on the window or something.

“You want a smoke?” the guy who washes the dishes asks, glancing at me again.

“No.” I shake my head. I've had a cigarette from time to time. I don't really like them or dislike them. The taste is strong, sometimes I want a strong taste.

He looks inside the box, rattles around the white sticks. “You OK?” I ask after a time.

“Sure.” He nods, casts a look over his thick shoulder. “All they got is drinks, refillable drinks. Keep the cups all night. Not much for me to do.”

“Ya.”

The silence stretches out. Somewhere we can hear cars but we cant really see them. “Another banker drowned.” I comment, some bland scrap of conversation.

“Another?” he seems to try to place it. “Oh ya. That guy. . . that Goldman Sacks guy. . . he came up floating in his pool or something didn't he.”

“Was that it?” I wonder. It doesn't seem quite right. Maybe there was one more.

“I don't know.” he shakes his head. “Don't listen to much news.”

My mind wonders over my own question for awhile, not really settling on anything. Just two times. . . two people. . . even if there basically in the same job, or were. It doesn't really draw your attention. Was there another one? A have a feeling, something about a hedge fund manager, that kind of thing, something vague. He died. Did he drown? Or just die. People sometimes just die. Get worn out, have some heart attack in some park.

The buss boy finally grinds out the thin stub on the pavement under his feet. His attention wonders to my face for a brief time. “How long you been here? I know longer then me.”

“Three years, maybe four.”

“Where 'd you work before?” he asks. “You never said.”

“This place with chickens. What do you call it? A factory?”

“You grew chickens.”

“A bit. Killed them mostly.”

His thick soft brows crease themselves together. “Sounds pretty bad.”

I sort of shrug. I cant really remember how long I'd been there. It had been after the other place. Strangely I remember the tile on the floor had been almost the same. Tiny pale blue squares with thick plastered lines between them. I remember the noise from the factory. The constant rustle of the chickens movements and over that the grinding of the machines.

“People used to say so.” I say neutral. People always shook their head, seemed upset by it. It hadn't really bothered me. I don't really like chickens. I didn't mind killing them. One wondering across a farm yard, its fine, kind of picturesque or something but hundreds and hundreds of them, piled in dark cages. They just start looking like any other kind of vermin. There little round eyes fallowing you mutely in the dim. “I eat chicken.” I add. “Not really planning to stop.”

“Ya?”

“Its pretty much the same right?”

“As working is a place like that?” his brows are still kind of drawn together.

“The effect at least.” I reason. “They end up dead.”

“I guess.”

“I don't get it.” I confide. “The way people get about it. When people asked about my work. They'd ask . . . I don't know 'did I kill the chickens' stuff like that.”

“What did you say?” hes smiling slightly.

“No. There was a machine. You just kind of fed um into a machine.”

He nods slowly.

“They seem to get upset about it, the chickens getting killed and everything. Most of them that asked. . . they eat chicken. If they want to eat chicken the chickens got to get killed. That's just how it works. They'd . . . I don't know. . . back peddle . . . talk about cruelty and quality of life, stuff like that. Truth was though, they wanted 69 cent chicken, chicken nuggets, whatever. They go to the store that’s what they bought. You want 69 cent chicken then that’s how it is, that's how they get treated. . . how they get killed. People. . .” there’s a moment of tightness. A sort of frustration. “People gotta line up what they want with how its gotta happen. People want to get what they want and never have to face how the nuggets got on their table.”

Hes half smiling, one hand up to kind of cover it. “I guess.”

“I don't know. . .” I sigh. “They said I wasn't too good with reality.”

“Who said that?” he casts this weighing look over.

“Just. . . ya know 'them.” I shake my head slightly. “Anyway you just. . . if you want something you've got to make it. . . somebody's got to make it. . . somebody's got to pay for it. You can't just get it for nothing. I just feel like. . . people 've gotta take responsibility for how it gets there.”

“Well. . . in the case of 69 cent chicken nuggets mostly from corn fields is what I heard.” he's laughing softly. Pulls out another cigarette. He flips it end to end a few times between his fingers. Feeling it for awhile.

I turn my head, look over at the window. Lulu is at the edge of one pain staring out, the glass between us gives her eyes a blank look as they focus on the middle distance. “You heard it?” I say absently.

“Its what she says.” he motions with his head. “Like sixty percent cornstarch.”

“Sixty percent.” I'm not really surprised.

“I guess she'd know.”

“Nice girl hu?” The image of her from before looking out at him, watching him, has come back into my head. The words comes out a bit without me thinking.

“I guess.” he says it like hes never really thought about it. “Makes me glad I never went though.”

“Went where?”

“Collage. Waist of fucking money right?”

“I heard there just aren't as many jobs as there used to be.” I put in blandly.

“There are. Just not here.” he finally lights up the cigarette. “There's jobs out there, just like your fuckin' chickens. Getting kicked around and living in shit so we can get our fuckin' two dollar plastic toys.” He sort of snorts. “Ya know, if I was gonna drown one of those bankers, I'd do it in a vat of chicken shit, that'd do the trick.”

“I think they drowned peaceful.” I say from my far away thoughts. The ones that hear water falling on the blue institutional tile as I sink deeper into the warmth. Some people the the women in their drab loose uniforms come in, check how deep the water is, no more then a foot or so. The would let the water run deep for me, said it was OK, let it run right up to the brim. I liked the water and the soap. Somewhere deep inside I feel like enough water, enough soap can make you a better person.

“Ya?”

“I saw the Goldman one on the news. He looked kind of peaceful.”

He laughs at me. “They didn't show him in the bath did he.”

“He was the one in the pool.” I remind him. Wasn't there another? In a park? Shallow water. I kind of remember. He'd drowned in shallow water. It might have been a bad dream though, maybe I'd gone to sleep one night with the TV on, dreamed the news. I look inside, the cook is in the long rectangle of light again, head bent, scrubbing at something, or scraping at it. “Maybe we should go inside.” I comment.

“In a minute.” he nods. “Just gonna finish this one cigarette.”

“Ya.” I climb down off the building materials, stiff. The handle of the door is cold in my hand. I go back in.

The cook glances up from what hes scouring. “Is he OK?” he asks.

“I guess.” I say. I'm not sure how long I'd been out there. Not so long. The coffee has been done for a few minutes though, and I guess the people drinking coffee may need a refill by now. I glance over at the man sitting against the windows. There is something about him. He sits with one hand resting on the table by his coffee. There is an utter stillness to him. He feels me looking at him though I think, his head turns a bit. He seems to come out of some different place.

Before I pick up the pot of coffee I pick up the apron folded and hanging behind the counter. I wrap it loosely around myself, the long strings looping one more time around, then another. I watch my fingers tying the knot in front. Finally I take the coffee and walk over to him. I can hear the scuff on my own feet as he walk. He pushes the cup nearer the edge when I get close. He watches the coffee flow slowly into the cup. There is a ring of brown near the top. The cup must have sat at that level for awhile.

“Thanks.” he says when I lift the pot back up, still kind of watching the cup.

“Would you like anything else?” The words come out automatically.

“Yes.” he says. “But in awhile.” His voice is deep, sonorous. I have a sense his voice would be beautiful if he sang.

“Anytime you want something.”

His gaze has lifted to me, to my face maybe. It feels like a long time but I go on standing there. “Is there something?” I finally ask again. There's something about him. Maybe he'd come in before. That doesn't seem right. Maybe at the factory, a driver? A buyer? I can almost see that. Him walking through the dark rows of cages, looking at them with a kind of detached expression, valuing them while they watch with their small round eyes. Its not right though. He'd never been in the factory.

He nods toward the apron. “You didn't have to put it on. I don't really care. I just thought it was a little funny.”

“What?”

“She always wore an apron or something. And a hat usually. In the mummers shows. It doesn't matter though.”

“We don't have hats.” I answer flatly.

“No.” he agrees. “I just thought it was funny. I have a strange sense of humor I guess. Anyway don't let me bother you.”

“There's a waffle house on 29 if you'd rather they wear hats.”

Lulu has gone on staring out the window, or maybe at it. Her eyes had developed that diffuse quality of someone looking at a thing rather near. It sort of seems like she's been listening though, despite herself. Her chin lifts when I mention the waffle house. “I think its on New Hampshire.” she says when she notices me looking at her.

“You're probably right.” I agree. “I don't drive. I don't remember directions well.”

“I'm pretty sure its on New Hampshire. The one with the blue sign?”

I nod. “Would you like some more diet coke?” I ask her.

“No.” she shakes her head. “I'm fine.”

She orders pie sometimes. She'll eat the piece really slowly, carving it off sliver by sliver. I have a feeling she wont today though, not it if she ordered diet coke. Maybe a salad or something, but later.

I fill the other guys coffee as well before putting the pot back on its plate. I hold on to the handle a long time though, looking in at the brown liquid. The radio in the office is starting to get to me. Even though I cant here it. Grinding quietly away to itself in the dark. I come out from behind the counter and slip into the narrow mouth of the hallway. The only solid light is what flows out of the half open kitchen door.

It had confused me at first, the thing about Columbine. 'My sisters had flowers names.' I had told the woman in her loose uniform.

'Did they?' she'd asked. And then a little later 'you know, they cant fine none of your sisters honey.'

They couldn't find a Columbine either. They supposed I'd made it up. 'Why would you name yourself after a place where such horrible things have happened.' they'd asked. But they didn't bother much about me, after the first while. I could run the water as deep as I want and lay back in the deep tub. I'd remember Columbine the way I remembered Columbine, not some place with kids and guns, and a sad story. A slip of a dancing girl in a pantomime, little feet sticking out strait as pins with her cap and her apron, twirling around like a fairy on the head of a pin.

The office door is open. The old radio is sitting on the desk. I go in and switch it off. When I come out I stand there for a minute, indecisive. I think about going upstairs, to clean the bathroom, but maybe its better to do it later in the night.

I've lifted my hand to the wall. I'm slowly some invisible shape. My finger tip traces around it again and again.

The triangle of light from the partially open kitchen door lengthens until it almost touches the dark hem of my skirt.

I glance at the cook, where he stands in the doorway. His shoulder on the frame, arms crossed over his chest. He doesn't say anything, just watches me. “Do you ever have nights. . . . ?” I wonder distantly my words a sigh.

“Yes.” He smiles slightly. “I have nights. Everything goes wrong and I drop things and I just want people to stay far away from me.”

I smile musingly. His nights sound noisy and busy. Not a night like this, where the cavernous emptiness echoes down the dark hallway. I've turned my head after the thought. I can hardly see the back door, or the entrance to the staircase in front of it. For a moment I feel like I can hear a very quiet scratching, but its only my imagination. Like the fragment of laying in the dark, trying to sleep. Those spare moments between coughs and sniffles and shifting and crying through the floorboards. Those brief moments where its truly silent and you can hear the tiny scratching feet, the hungry wet snuffling. In the tight space pulling my feet up toward myself.

“What is it like for you?” the cook asks. “What's one of your nights.”

“I don't know.” my own voice sounds far away. “I feel . . . as if I'll walk out the door and down the street, and down another one, and then the one after that. That I'll never be seen by anyone ever again. Just dry up and drift away.”

He is silent for a minute, he looks down at the floor in front of him. “Do you want to go away?”

“Not particularly.” I've moved away a little, settled against the wall across from him.

“Then why do you feel that way?”

“I don't know.”

He nods to himself, not meaning much I think.

“I guess I should go back out. Get people their drinks.”

“No hurry.” he shakes his head dismissively.

“Because anyway all they're getting free refills?”

“That too.” he chuckles softly. Then “no. Merle came back in. He's taking care of them, more or less.”

“Its not really his job.”

A slight shrug. “He's been sitting out on the street curb for an hour, he can do it for a while. Besides like you said, its just keeping the cups full.”

“Is he talking to Lulu?”

The cook turns his head back into the kitchen, I guess he's looking out through his broad rectangle. “Not sure.” he says after a moment, and turns back to me. “Why do you ask.”

“No reason particularly. He just does sometimes.” I shrug.

“He doesn't talk to many of them.”

“No.” I agree. Merle never moves faster then hes going to move. One hand holding onto the big off white tub he dumps the dishes into, usually never looking up from the tables. The customers mostly seem like nothing to him, like manikins sitting silently dressing the tables. “He could disappear and hardly anyone would notice.”

“I suppose he must have family. I suppose they'd notice.”

“Who knows.” I've hardly heard him mention family, maybe his mom once or twice from when he was young, how she'd do one thing or another. Everyone has a mother somewhere in their past. I doubt he calls her much now though. “I think . . . Lulu would notice.” I say after a moment.

“She comes pretty often.”

“Would you?”

“Notice?” he confirms. He looks back toward the kitchen for some reason. His forehead is creased. “If Merle disappeared or if you did?”

I don't answer.

“I'd notice if you disappeared.” his tone is kind of serious.

“What would you do?”

“Call the police.”

Something stirs at me, like the rustle of drying ivy that clings to some rock. “I don't think they'd ever find me.” the thing sort of says itself. I don't know why I'm talking about this. I think I should probably stop.

But the cook is watching me and understanding has moved over his face. “They never did.” he murmurs. “They must have looked for you once, but they never found you.”

“I guess.” I've started scratching at the wall behind me a little. Short shallow scratches, my mind connecting to the sensation of my nails, the pressure of gently scratching. “I don't even remember my own name. . . . probably.”

“Probably.” he repeats.

“It might be Columbine.”

“Is is. . . important to you?”

I look for some answer. I can remember sitting quietly on the bench for hours and hours, hearing the others shuffling around me in their softly slippered feet, watching the diamonds of yellow sunlight. “Not really.” I say at last. “I just feel sorry for . . . whoever I guess.”

“You don't remember them at all?”

“I remember something. But. . . ya know . . . it doesn't matter.” I say after a minute.

“You should tell me about it sometime.”

“Sure,” I try to brush the offer away.

“After work, we can go somewhere, I'll take you out to breakfast.”

A picture of it comes to me. Sitting with him, comfortable and quiet. For some reason were at a park, not a restaurant. We sit side by side on the bench. “It doesn't matter.” I shake my head.

“We both have tomorrow night off. Why not let me take you out to breakfast.” he reaches out brushes some hair from my cheek, with hands so clean that the skin has gone a little dry. The gesture is somewhat uncommon for him, I'm not sure I've ever seen him touch someone.

“Its a long night. You'll be tired in the morning.”

He smiles. “No more tired then you.” There's a silence between us. I want to say yes, but I feel. . . not right. Like I bullied him into it. “C.” he says. Then “Columbine.”

“I should probably get back out.” I push myself off the wall. When I get to the mouth of the hallway I see that more people have come. A bunch of kids, five, have collapsed in a corner. They have drinks in front of them. They move like they've had drinks before they got here too. The buss boy is sitting at Lulu's booth. His posture is sprawled, disinterested. He's ignoring the collage kids. Lulu is watching them her expression an copy of the usual distant one she wears, but resentment has left an imprint behind on her puffy face.

I go over to their table, take their orders in a perfunctory manor. I scratch their orders onto my pad only half hearing them and never looking at their faces. I don't like this type for some reason. The way they move around. Warm dark bodies, touching things, their rheumy unhealthy eyes, their heads going back in chattering laughs.

I go to the bright window and hand over the slips of paper the orders are scrawled on without saying anything. The cook never has complained about any problem reading my writing. His head bends over then, a brief nod to me or maybe just to himself.

Another person has come in. My neighbor, from my hallway. He's slouched down low at a table near the counter, staring at glass of beer that’s half emptied. I move to his table, hardly more then a step or so. “Is there anything you need?” I ask.

He gives a snort. “I need plenty.” he says to the world in general.

“Is there anything I can get for you?”

He looks up at me. Its a long slow look. “You don't smile much.” he says after a long contemplation. “That was kind of a joke, but you don't smile much.”

I'm not sure how to answer. I try to be friendly with the customers. But it sounds too much like whining if I say something like that. I glance back at the cook, uncertain. He's something like a manager for this shift, or at least he's been here the longest.

“Na. I don't mean like bad service, kind a thing.” the lanky man at the table corrects. “You slap on a service smile when you gotta just like everyone else. I mean I noticed it, going in and out, around the apartments.”

“Oh.”

“A nice lookin' woman should smile sometimes. People around here not telling you enough good jokes?” he waves a knuckle outward.

“I don't know.”

“Come on. You'd know or not.” he badgers. “Can you remember any joke someones told you recently?”

I search for one. Merle will sometimes talk about a customer but I don't suppose it’s really a joke.

“No.” I say at last.

“Here. I got one for you. Let me think. . .” he taps his table with the backs of his thin fingers. There are rings tattooed onto two of his fingers and a black cross on another. “I got one.” he repeats. “So a Hindu a Muslim and a lawyer are broke down on a road near a farm. Oh for fuck sakes don't get that look on your face, it ain't gonna be no anti Muslim joke. You don't mind back there do you Hadji?”

The cook glances up. Hes bend over the grill, in the middle of making a burger one of the kids had ordered. “I could as easily be Hindu.” he comments mildly.

My neighbor squints at him thoughtfully. “I guess you could at that. You Hindu?”

“I'm an agnostic.”

That gets another snort. “So you don't really care then, right?”

“Sure.” the cook answers, but I'm a little uncertain if hes agreeing to his lack of investment in the joke or his lack of investment in any particular god.

“Fine then. So anyway this Muslim and Hindu and Lawyer right? They end up knocking on the door of this farm house, only place in miles, say 'can we spend the night.' Farmer goes 'sure but I only got room for two of you in the house, one of you 's gonna have to sleep in the barn. So the Hindu offers he can. Couple minutes later though there’s a knock on the door he goes 'I can not sleep in your barn.” He does a rather thick impression of an Indian accent. “Cows are sacred to my people. It wouldn't right. I can not sleep with your animals.' So the Muslim says 'Fine, I'll go.' Then what do you know it a couple minutes later the Muslim knocks. He's standing at the door. He goes 'I will not sleep in your barn. There is a pig, and pigs are unclean animal's. I'm sorry I can not sleep with your animals.' And the lawyer hes pretty mad but he goes 'Whatever, fine, I'll go out and sleep in your barn.' But sure as shit, what do you know it a couple minutes later there’s a knock on the door. The farmer opens up the door and there stands a cow a pig and a chicken.”

I nod.

“Oh Christ's nuts. Its funny. Cause the cow and the pig and all they think they're too good to sleep in the barn with the lawyer.” he looks away from me in disgust. “Course now you should make it bankers, right?” he mutters to himself.

His glass of beer is getting nearly empty. “Would you like another beer?” I ask.

He looks down into the glass, swishing around the amber bubbles. “Ya,” he says. “Sure.” but he still seems to be thinking. “Ya know, I didn't think I'd go ahead an' order anything. Had something down at the MacDonalds, but now I'm smelling that fuckin' burger. . .”

“What would you like?”

“Get me a bacon sandwich could ya?”

“Sure. I'll have the beer for you in a minute.” I tell him because one of the collage kids orders is already sitting on the counter.

I take it over along with a pitcher of beer to fill up their glasses and then come back around to pour his for him. He sits motionless while I do, still slouched in his chair one long hand on either side of the glass. He watches the liquid slide in. “Hay?” a question comes into his eyes. “Sorry if the joke bothered you. It was suppose to be about the lawyer, you get that right? It was a lawyer joke.”

“Yes.” I nod.

“Your friend over there, he ain't Afghan is he?” The cook is turned away, making some kind of pasta I think, so the man looks at me instead. “If he is tell him sorry for me. I knew a could of Afghan guys, ya know. Good guys.”

“OK.”

“They were. Good guys. Some of the other guys didn't like um too much, not me though, I got on with um fine. Good solid guys.”

“I'm sure.” I glance over toward the kitchen a little uncertain.

But across the room Merle has picked up one of his hands, holding it up there without turning to look at me. “I think she needs a refill on her coke.” I excuse.

I fill up a new cup and go over to their table. Merle lifts his head when I get near. “Why don't you go ahead and sit down with us a minute or two?” hes kind of shaking his head. “Just till most of the orders come out.”

Lulu automatically moves over to make more room for me, but I shake my head. “I think I'd better stand. At least until the collage kids get their food.”

“Ya.” Lulu agrees her voice low. “You can tell they're that type.”

I don't ask her what type. I don't really have too. I stand by her table though, kind of leaning on the table behind me.

“Don't worry about Wain too much,” she says quietly. “There's nights he just gets like that. He doesn't mean much buy it.”

“Wain?” I ask.

She nods her head toward my neighbor.

“You know his name?” Merle looks a bit curious.

“He comes to the MacDonalds sometimes.” less then a shrug. “Doesn't sleep at night I guess. Came back from the middle east with PST or something.”

“Must have been something more then PST if they let him come back at all.” Merle shakes his head, fingers drumming on the table.

“I don't know.” she shakes her head. “All I know is he gets edgy some nights.”

I glance at him. Hes drinking the beer kind of quickly. I have a feeling a person shouldn't drink much if they're feeling edgy or at odds. But its his choice I suppose.

“Do you want something?” I glance at Merle.

“To eat?” he seems a bit surprised by the idea.

“Sure.”

He shakes his head. “I might stay after my shift and eat if I'm hungry then.”

I nod.

“But anyway I'm here for another hour. After you got the collage kids their food if you wanna go out and have a break or something I can take care of stuff.”

“You don't have to.” I deny gently.

“Why not.” he shrugs. “You seem kind of tired tonight.”

“I guess I am.”

“So fine.” He nods toward the counter. “Get them their stuff and then go into the office and lie down or whatever.”

“Thanks.” I say.

Its all lined up on the counter neatly, with Wains bacon sandwich at the end. After I take it to them I stand for a minute trying to decide where to go, at last I wonder out the door onto the sidewalk. The pile of building materials unmoved and solid. I settle myself quietly on it, knees drawn up, my elbows propped on them palms out and open to the sky.

No cars come by. The street is entirely empty. My thoughts drift for awhile, maybe a long time. I can sit for a long time doing nothing. It had taken me a long time to understand that the place I'd been before was for the mentally ill. I had walked up and down the halls, quite, kind of left to myself. They had brought my meals and I couldn't really understand why, they had filled up the bathtub and I hadn't really understood why, the tepid water quietly waiting for me. For the first few months they had even helped me get into the tub and helped me when I got out, brushed my hair when I was done. It had dawned very slowly that it was a hospital, that it was a place for the insane. I would sit in the common room, with people who were unmoving, or others moving too rapidly, flapping their hands and talking to themselves too fast. I watched them, and I considered, and I realized at last this was some house for the insane.

The place where they killed the chickens, some of them had known. They'd give me strange looks but one guy, a man in his late forties, or fifties maybe, powerfully built but starting to slowly sag. Long hair knotted up under his hat, he'd kind of scoffed. “They just toss people in there for nothing.” he'd said. “They don't like what you wanna do. Stick girls in there for throwing up their food or something, make a big deal out of it. No need to make a such a big damned deal half the time.” He'd said it a couple times and in a couple different ways and then nobody cared. He'd been old, and tired, and kind of disappointed. I'd always thought he was pretty nice in his way. He'd give a chicken a vicious kick from time to time with these big fat toed boots that were all worn out. It didn't seem quite right but you couldn't really like chickens and go on working there.

I have a feeling a pretty long time has passed. Nothing on the street moves though, the glow of the lights never faltering. None of the customers leave. When the door finally opens its the cook. He has his apron off and a box of cigarettes in his hand. “They don't want any more food?” I ask.

“No.” he shakes his head. “Mostly just drinking.”

“I'm OK.” I tell him.

He nods smiling slightly. “I know. Just taking a smoking break.”

“Oh.”

“You want one?” he holds it out toward me.

“Sure.” I say. I almost never smoke but I take one. He lights his own and then leans in to light mine. I breath in, but not deeply. Tasting it but not letting it burn at my throat.

I watch his profile for a minute. Its very still. “Did anyone get anything else?” I ask.

“Lulu ordered a salad.”

“I'll come in in a minute.”

“No rush.” he shakes his head.

“I should do my job.”

“We all have nights from time to time.”

“Ya.” I sit still, the cigarette draping form the end of my fingers, flakes of gray drifting over the edge past my feet.

“Your very steady.” he observes. “You've worked steadily every night since you started here.”

“That's a good thing right?”

“Yes.” he nods. “I suppose. Its not really normal. To be too steady. People let go some times.”

I look at him. “Do they?” I ask.

“Yes.” Hes leaned against the wall near me. “I think in some old cultures they had a god for it. People would let go sometimes. Some night, once a year. Maybe we all still should.”

“I don't know.” I can't help but smile.

“You should let go a little.” he says it again.

I rest my cheek on my own outstretched arm. “For me letting go might be going round the bend. Who knows.”

“No.”

“Who knows.” I repeat again.

He takes a long breath in, the tip of his cigarette kindling bright red. “You know, I can imagine you in a place like that.”

I think about standing in the hallway, leaned against the wall watching out the window. I remember the white of the hallways, and the smooth white tiles of the floor, a little dingy from the years that had passed. A older woman walking in slow smudging steps, first one way and then the others. The hush of slippers that never seemed to leave the tile. “It wasn't so bad.” I murmur. “Kind of quite. Arid.” I stretch my one empty hand out in front of me watching the fingers spread, the tensing of tendons beneath the skin. “The same thing day after day after day. It felt. . . restful. . . I guess.”

“You could never leave?”

“I didn't want to for a long time.” I admit. I can remember watching a group of them gaggle together getting ready to go out for the day, impassive, silent.

“Didn't it get dull?”

“I suppose.”

He smiles.

“I didn't understand the men in the room.” I say after a long minute of watching the ask gather and then finally give in, swirl placidly to the ground. “The doctors. For an hour every day. Sitting there. The windows were to high to see out of.” I recall distantly. “I didn't understand why they wanted to listen to me talk. I didn't understand why they would ask me to tell them about the same thing over and over again. But anyway they were usually nice enough.”

He watches me steadily. His face is very still for awhile. “Did you understand why you were there?”

“They said I was insane. That seemed to make sense.”

He chuckles, shaking his head slightly. “Do you remember what you said when they told you?”

“Probably not the first time, no. In the beginning it was all kind of . . . vague and far away. . . I . . . wasn't too interested in anything. I remember they would lead me to meals and I would eat, lead me to a chair and I would sit, lead me to bed and I would sleep.”

“What happened?”

“I suppose I got better. There were budget cuts five or six years ago and magically I got better.” I smile a smile I know is somewhat cynical. “I shouldn't say it like that.” I correct myself. “They were good to me. One of the nurses, she helped me find the job where they killed the chickens.”

“Its better then a lot of people have.” he agrees.

“Ya.” I nod knowing its true. “They say 10 % every time, but everybody knows its not true. They just don't want to say the real numbers so they don't.”

The cook glances toward the window. “Lulu in there. Kids like her is 40%. They get out of collage, there's nothing.”

“I think about it sometimes.” I admit. “It doesn't seem fair. I don't understand why I have a better job then hers.”

“Its not so different.”

“But I can get full shifts. Shes cant.”

“There's no reason I guess.” he shakes his head. “You get offered what you get offered.”

I nod. We are silent for a few minutes. My cigarette has burned down after only a few shallow tastes. I'd ground it out on the box even though I probably shouldn't have. The night is really peaceful, an empty street bathed in the rich yellow of the street lights. I think about the hallway when he'd brushed the backs of his fingers against my cheek. “I never told the doctors. . .” I say at last. “For a long time there were no words I could use to say it. And then. . . they wouldn't have believed me. . . or they wouldn't have liked to hear it, I don't know. It was wonderful, like laying in the summer grass, or hearing a song so beautiful you cant . . . encompass it. The place I was. It was wonderful.” I repeat the word because I can't think of another. “One of the doctor's thought. . . I don't know. . . that someone did something bad to me, but I don't really think that can be true or I wouldn't remember it as this radiant place of perfect peace. It was like. . . the kind of place you can't get to unless your . . . dead.”

“Like heaven?” he asks.

“I don't know about heaven or hell.” I say mildly. “My people weren't too concerned with it. They worked everyday until it was too dark to work, or at least that’s how I remember it. It might not be true.” I think for a moment. Trying to remember what the doctors had said about that, sitting quite in the room hands folded facing in my lap while he scribbled, facing one another. “It probably isn't.”

“Columbine.” he says my name seriously. “Even if it was wonderful. Radiant. I would rather you be here then there.”

“Yes.” I agree. “I would rather be here.” it sounds a bit threadbare in my own ears. “But anyway, you see how it wouldn't be good to let go. If I did, maybe I'd let all the way go. And. . .” I make a motion of something blowing away.

“Merle said you were tired tonight.”

“I guess.”

“What is it that makes you tired?”

“I'm not sure. Maybe I didn't sleep well.” That somehow sounds threadbare too.

“The customers bothering you.”

I look in, through the long windows framing their brownish canvasses. “No.”

“Is it the collage kids?”

“No.” I say again. “That man. I know him from somewhere.”

“Oh?”

“It must be the factory. A lot of drivers would come. They were always men. They would drop the chickens off and then latter pick them up. For awhile I wondered why they raised them one place and killed them another. They told me it was cheaper to kill them closer to where they'd be eaten. Less trucks with refrigeration.”

“Ah.”

For a minute I follow him, the line of his shoulders, the movement of his hands. He has a heavy black rubber watch on one hand. It reminds me. “What time is it?” I ask.

He turns the face up to himself. “Around 1:30.”

“Oh.” Merle had said an hour and its been an hour and a half, maybe more. “I should get back in.” I climb down from the box I'd been sitting on, my back kind of soar for sitting still for so long.

The cook comes in after me, his hand resting on my back for a moment, then he goes through to the kitchen.

I lean on the front of the counter. The man from the pipe factory is talking to Wain. “They fired me.” hes saying. “Fifteen years there and eight years ago they fired me, just like that.” he snaps too heavy fingers together, one is at an odd angle. It must have been broken once under something heavy. “They hired me back three weeks latter and my pension plan, benefits, fuckin' everything just fuckin' gone.”

“Fuckin' chicken shit thing to do.” Wain is shaking his head. I can see he's getting wound up. I'm not sure about that. If its such a good idea, on an edgy night getting drunk and then getting wound up like this. “Makes you want to say shove it up your god damned ass. Qualified worker, been there all those years.”

“Ya.” the man says it like hes swearing. “But what are you gonna do? Where else am I gonna get a job.”

“I know what your saying.” Wain sighs. “Had me a job at target before they called me back into duty. Assistant manager. Law says they can't fire you cause you went off to serve. Law says, mind. You think I found my job waiting for me when I got back? Hell no. 7 years out in the fucking hot desert then 6 months in this VA hospital with more then half the lights burned out, they don't got money to replace, mold all down the god damned walls. Target says, 'all we got for you is a job in the back room hauling around boxes.' They say 'we can't have you dealing with the customers, or the people, all that. Besides you've been gone 7 years, what were we suppose to do?' Where the fuck them cock suckers thing I've been the past 7 years? Doing my god damned nails.”

“You know it.” the pipe worker growls.

“Not like I been out getting a manni-peddie and complaining about my god damned menstrual cycle or something.”

“You were out there putting your ass on the line. Defending out country.” The man throws a large accusing paw in the direction of some unclear 'them.' The ones that have done this.

When I came in Merle had tossed himself back down across from Lulu who's leaned her head against the window and looks like she may be half asleep now.

A collage kid notices I'm back and waves me over. I think Merle must have been getting drinks for people but not much by way of food. Almost all of them want something. Two order pie and a girl asks for a large serving of fries and one of hash browns. One of them is talking loudly on his cell phone and waves a finger toward a glass of beer that’s still half full.

I move back and forth for awhile, bringing them drinks, bringing them their orders when they're done. Catching gusts of conversation as I move. Wain and the pipe worker have drifted into a discussion on social security. The collage boy has called three or four of his friends, told them how great this place is. They're coming over from where ever they had been. I take it one of the girls hadn't met this friend, he launches into a 'great' story.

Finally I return to where I was leaning against the counter. “They fuckin' defaulted is the truth of it!” the factory worker is saying. “They owe us and they defaulted.”

“But that isn't right.” my neighbor is shaking his head. “How can they ever pay us all of it when were living on so long. People take out more then they ever put in.”

“45 years of putting in and putting in and putting in and one day its just fuckin' gone. They used it up on what ever the hell they use it up on and its gone. I say give me back my 45 years. Or ya know for me more like 25 but you get my point.”

“No one can't expect to get out more then they put in.”

“Which is all fine.” I can see hes getting a little hot about it. His neck hunching down into his shoulders. “I'm just saying don't make us pay in if nothings ever coming out. You make people pay in you owe them it comes back out.”

“I know what your saying, but you get what you paid for man, this is something you ain't paid for. Anyway there’s all this god damned inflation, who knows how much really went in and how much is coming out. What was fifty dollars when I put it in. Takes a hundred dollars to pay for now right?”

“What do you think C?” one demands. I'm not even really sure which, my gaze has wondered to the man drinking coffee. Staring at his distant still face. His jaw has the quality of unpolished stone.

“There are two ways you can owe.” I hear myself saying. “There is what a thing is worth and what you've been promised. What its worth . . . who knows. . . everyone has different ideas. And sometime people make promises you'd be a fool to think they'd keep. Girl goes down to some quite hillside and a boy is saying 'I'll marry you by and by.' Its what she'd owed obvious as anything when her belly swells but it would take a fool to think she's going to get it.”

Wain kind of laughs. “Should a made him wear a rubber.” he says.

“Not me.” I say. “Its only the kind of thing you hear is all.”

“Really?”

The man drinking coffee, the man I should know, he's gotten up, coming toward me, or toward the hallway. When he gets close he asks. “Which ways the John?”

“Its down this hall and up some stairs.” I tell him.

He nods toward the hallway to show he understands my directions.

“There are some lights that need to be turned on.” I follow after him. “Its here.” I say when we get near the end of the hallway. He stops between me and the switch. I move near him to reach it but when I press my fingers against it the lights don't turn on. I try turning it off and back on but there’s nothing and he stands there. Hes much taller then me, and solid. This close he seems to smell of summer, of heather and wild grass and sunlight. Its strange, I look up at him.

“They remember what they're owed.” he says mildly. “People. Somehow they always forget what they owe and remember what they're owed.”

“Do they?” I ask, meaninglessly.

“It seems that way.”

“Do I owe something?”

“To who?”

“To somebody?” I try. “To you? I don't know. . . there are things I don't know but. . . I have this feeling . . . like you'd be a bad person to owe things to.”

“Is that how you remember it?” his voice is low and quiet. “I suppose that would be a fair way to remember it.” he muses after a moment. But there’s a breath of something, perhaps regret.

“I don't remember.” I look up at him. “I know that I know you from somewhere but I don't know where.”

“It doesn't matter.” he murmurs. He touches me for a moment, my hair and the side of my face. “It can be simple. I can be your Harlequin and you can be my Columbine.”

“Harlequin was fickle.” I say. “He could leave her as easy as he could take her.”

“Is that how you saw it?” Hes overwhelming when he is close. His voice quiet. “I always thought he lost himself to her, that he was enchanted and gave his heart forever, and if he left it was with an empty chest and his heart was left behind.”

“He was just a wondering man.”

“Yes.” the man agrees. “I always thought people didn't understand what it was to be a traveling man. Nothing ahead of him and nothing behind. If he found something for which he cared then wouldn't it take the place of all the things people have to care about when they stay in one place a long time.”

There's a loud crash that startles me badly. I think one of the collage kids must have dropped a plate, I can hear them roaring and laughing. “I'll need to clean that up.” I say looking back to the bright mouth of the hallway. “There's a light switch at the top of the stairs and then one in the bathroom. If you don't mind turn them back out when your done. Our boss doesn't want to spend the money for electricity.”

I think I hear him say 'sure' or something but I'm focused on the laughter. I trail out after it, grabbing a cloth and a trey on my way. There are more of them now. Eight or nine, they move around me, laughing and chattering loudly as I clean up the shattered plate on the floor, their damp noses pointed up at the ceiling and twitching as if I'm just more food to smell. Luckily most of the food had been eaten and it was fries anyway. When its clean I take new orders and deliver them all one by one as they appear on the counter. The man drinking coffee has come back down and sits as still and remote as before.

When I'm done I go to Lulu's table. Merle is slouched down low one arm thrown over the back of the chair. He's watched me all the way over. “Do you want something to eat?” I ask when I get close.

“You don't gotta wait on me ya know,” he says. “Just cause I'm off the clock now.”

“I know.” I agree. “No reason not to eat though.”

“Might as well.” Lulu tells him absently. “At least you know there’s no rat shit in the food.”

“Does get tempting sometime though don't it.” he smiles a bit.

She glances at the collage kids, the way they wiggle and scamper around each other. Its almost repellent the way the keep touching one another's food. Pawing and petting and stroking at it with their fingers. Lulu has something near contempt on her face as well. “You could tell them.” I murmur softly. “Who knows better then you, their fun will be over in a few years. They'll get out and there will be no jobs waiting for them.”

“No.” she sighs. “There are jobs waiting for them. At their dad's companies, or the company of the guy their dad goes golfing with or whatever the hell.” Her plate had been cleared away a long time ago but the spoon she hadn't used remains on the table, she turns it first one way then the other. “They're not the same as me. Some of them have sweatshirts, backpacks. . . that school? They'll get jobs.”

I look at them again. I hadn't really noticed but some of them bear the same logo as one another. “Is it really that much better a school?”

“I don't know.” she shrugs. “All I know is its 12 and a half times more expensive then the school I went to.”

Merle looks at her kind of thoughtful for a long moment. “That's a really specific number.” he says at last.

“Ya.” there’s clear disinterest in her voice. “I had the grades to go there, but not the scholarship.”

“Scholarship.” I repeat trying to place what the word means.

“Ya. They all started drying up ten years ago, that and federal aid and everything else. By the time I went to school there was nothing. You got the fuckin' money in hand or you don't go to the school. I didn't go to the school.” she concludes.

“So fuck um.” Merle says, probably because there is nothing else to say. “Bit a rat shit in the pie. They're too drunk to notice anyway.” he says it, but he says it really quietly.

“Do you want something though?”

“Sure.” he nods looking kind of tired. “How about a mushroom burger. With Jack sauce he adds after a moment.”

“Sure.” I nod.

“And after you get it you may as well sit down for awhile.” he nods to the long expanse of seat beside Lulu. No ones getting better service off a you standing around on your feet all night.

“Sure.” I agree again.

I go to the counter and give the cook his order. After it comes out I do go and sit down. Neither Lulu or Merle have much to say. My arms fold on the table and I watch as time passes at some speed suspended strangely between fast forward and pause. From time to time I get up, get more food for the students or drinks for other people. The pipe worker goes home, and eventually so does Merle a little before or a little after Lulu falls asleep with her head on the table.

At last at 3:00 or maybe after the collage kids say they want their check. It takes a long time to calculate it, standing at the register with a pile of little slips. It comes in the end to more then my rent for a month. The tip after they leave is scattered over the table like refuse in abandoned ones and fives and some change. Picking it up scrap by scrap I'm fairly sure its not really ten percent but I hadn't particularly expected it to be.

Smoothing the bills I feel the man watching me placidly, passively.

I thread my way quietly to his table. “Is there anything you need.” I ask.

He shakes his head no. “I need to clean.” I explain. “I'll be upstairs for awhile. So if there’s anything you want. . .”

“No.” he shakes his head again. But hes looking at me in this way so I wait.

“Is there something you want?” I repeat, and I hear a strange tinge of desperation in my own voice.

“You remember me.” he says. “You remember who I am. But you act like you don't. It doesn't suit you.”

“No.” I deny.

“You do.” he says with perfect assurance.

“No.” I say. “I don't remember right. I was insane.”

“You accepted that so easily.” he sounds a little mystified, and a little resigned. “You do remember me though.”

“I remember you from somewhere.” the denial has begun to sound frail. I'm afraid though. Of him, of the man who will get what he is owed, and of them, that they will put me back where I was before, that somehow they will know, that they will find me and put me back for knowing him, for knowing who he is. They weren't that bad to me. They ran the bath and spoke in soothing voices and brushed out my long hair. At last though I owe him more then I owe them though. “I remember the music.” It comes out hushed. “I don't know why you're here but I remember the song, following the song. But anyway the past isn't that important.” I add hastily. “I have to go clean the bathrooms.”

I walk down the hallway fast, but I slow on the steep stairs. I don't remember the song well. I don't. I remember other things more. I go to the closet and pull out the broom and the rags a few bottles of cleaner. I start in the woman bathroom first. All of the lights have burned out except one and that one is half burnt out as well leaving the narrow space in some strange movie version of night a darkness in which one can be seen, a darkness that is pent and waiting for sex or a splatter of blood across the scene, because movies cant stand the tedium of changing toilet paper and scrubbing cleaner across an old mirror.

There's no bucket so I put the plug in and turn on the facet. It slowly fills with water as I clean the mirror. When I turn it off I start to hear something, the quiet, repulsive scratch. Then I see it in the reflected surface, dark, barely visible snuffling across the floor. I other things much more then I remember the song. I remember things I would rather forget. I turn and hit it hard with the end of the broom. It lays there on the floor, limp and fat and as big as a half grown cat. Blood trickles from its mouth. I can see its still breathing. I remember things.

I pick up the body, warm and limp in my hands. I remember things. I'm holding it by its neck. I hold it under the water. I remember the wet sounds coming from the straw basket, and the soft whimper of the baby. Brown haired and dark eyed like me. The baby that didn't have a name. My mother said no sense in naming a baby till its a year. Why waist a name on something that may live or die and besides for at least a year there will be no other squealing pink thing competing for the word baby.

I remember the quiet of the room. I wasn't feeling well, waking to the strange nasty wet sound and the whimpering. I got up slowly and walked over, like I was still in the dream. And then I saw the fat dark body, half as big as her, licking, nibbling at her arm. I had picked it up with my bear hands and flung it against the wall.

It had died. I remember that. Piss ran down its fat legs and it had laid there still until my mother came.

The one held under in my hands jerks for a few moments more under the cold water and finally goes limp for good. I carry it dangling to the trash can and dump it in. It makes a loud thump at the bottom.

I finish cleaning the bathroom, then the other bathroom, and then the hallway. Finally I go back down stairs. Sometime while I was cleaning Wain had woken up, paid his bill and gone. A few more bills are scattered on his table.

I stand near the hallway for a minute or two. The lights in the kitchen have been turned out. The cook has fallen asleep on a stool in front of the counter, his head down on his crossed arms.

Its nearly four. I hadn't thought I had taken so long.

I look at the man. He is beautiful and still. I look at him for a long time. He gets up comes between the tables, holds out a hand. “Dance with me Columbine.” he says.

“Dance?” I repeat. I don't remember how, not really. I don't remember the spinning ticking dance of the columbine, the flowers bobbing in the wind. But he only holds out one hand and puts the other around my waist pulling me in for some semblance of a slow dance, stepping from one side to the other moving an inch or so with each step.

And he smells like summer. For a moment, a minute, ten I am almost there again, in that radiant place. I can shut my eyes and feel that I am there. “Why did you come here?” I ask.

“I come from time to time.”

“Yes. You come from time to time.” I agree. I had heard stories. Ours was not the first. I had heard of that window in Germany. I had seen a picture. One of the doctors had showed me, in that room where I sat for one hour every day. It looked nothing like him. “Why did you come here though.”

“I wanted to see you.” he says. “I wanted to see that you were well.”

“You have seen me. Are you satisfied?”

“Somewhat.”

“What is it?” I look up into his face. “What would make you feel satisfied?”

“Nothing.” he shakes his head, looks away for a moment at the floor with dust I can feel beneath my feet as I move with him.

He turns me half a step as we dance. I let my head rest against his chest for awhile but I see that Lulu has started to stir or is maybe awake. “Can we go outside?” I ask because I don't want to wake her.

I take his hand and lead him out the door. I don't sit on the boxes this time. I stand beside him like hes a fire I can warm myself on. “I would have picked a different place for you.” he tells me distantly.

“Its not so bad.”

“I come from time to time. I don't know why. Its what I am. When I come though, that means its bad.”

“I suppose.” I agree.

“Things start falling apart at the seams. Everyone complains, everyone blames, and points and demands.”

I nod. “I don't remember to well. I was young. I remember yelling sometimes but I didn't really know why. I remember the way it would be when you walked into a larder, they would be this black mass swarming all over the food, dirtying it with their filthy paws.”

“Plagues of rats come.” he agrees. “Sometime they are small and brown, sometime they're not.”

“All rats drown the same.”

He nods. “This time though. . . I didn't ask any price. I'm drowning the rats because I think they need drowned.”

“Why did you take us?” I wonder.

“Because you needed taken.”

“You shouldn't take people's children.” my gentle tones belie the scold. “I didn't understand it then, but people love their children.”

“Some don't. Or maybe they do, and they can't take care of them or don't know how. The stories don't tell it too truly though. I only take the children that need to be taken.”

“Almost all the children. Almost all I knew. Could all of their parents have been bad? Could all of them deserve to have their children taken.”

“You were all climbing around on the machines in factories like little mice yourselves. How many times did you see a hand taken, or a finger? How many got something from the water then? You lived in filth, you ate food half rotten or made of poison. I know you blame me some. I know you always did.”

“People didn't live past 26.” I comment passively.

He glances at me.

“I looked on the internet once. The average life expectancy for where we lived, it was 26. Younger for people working in particular factories.”

“Yes.” he agrees. “I don't know about the particular numbers but everyone died young.”

“What happened to me?” I wonder. “Why am I not where I was before?”

“It happens from time to time. More and more.” there is a remote set to his face. “The children from the industrial revolution, your different somehow, it got into your blood, and into your inner workings, it planted something there. There are gears and switches in your brain. All the children I took before, almost all. . . they go on being happy. . . but you and yours. . . somethings wrong. Your gears work and work at the fabric of things and if you stay too long your gears. . . they start to get ground down.” He shakes his head. “When they took you to that place. . . said you weren't in your right mind. . . maybe it was a bit true. . . your gears had gotten ground down.”

“And after that? Children after that?”

“I can't take them at all. Children are a different thing all together then they were before.” he shakes his head, not really understanding.

“You must be lonely.” I say. “To see things change so much.”

“People want to take more they're owed, and convince themselves after its only what they deserve. It happens sometimes. It rises like a fever and everyone takes the infection. And then I come. Things don't change so much.”

“I see.” I nod.

He looks at me steadily. “Come away with me.” he says.

“You said I couldn't stay there.”

“I could find a place for you. I could find a way. I want you to be with me.”

I think about the place that doesn't seem like it can be real. The place it seems you shouldn't be able to go while you are still alive. I think about how peaceful it was. I think about the man, one hand holding mine the other resting on my back. I can't say anything though. I look back through the window. I think about walking away, off down the street and then down another. I see the cook slumped with his head on the counter.

I can't answer. Minutes pass and there is perfect silence. The man watches me and finally he nods. And then he smiles. “You know in some of the songs, in some of the pantomime, Harlequin doesn't take his Columbine. Just a very few, he leaves her to be with her faithful Pierrot.”

“Because there will always be another Columbine.” I repeat a line I half remember hearing.

“I don't think so. But perhaps with all his tricks in his heart hes kind.” the man leans close to me and kisses my cheek. I breath in my last breath of summer and watch him go.

A minute latter, maybe two I hear the door slam. Its Lulu that stands beside me, hands shoved in the pockets of a sweatshirt that pouches out unflattering at the stomach. “Hes gone.” she says.

“Yes.”

She looks at me. “Do you think. . . he'll ever come back.”

“I don't know.” I say and then “I don't think so.” I don't know, he doesn't keep his promises. Not always, but I do know that its better not to wait for him.

“I suppose it doesn't matter.” she murmurs, more to herself then me. “He always took children, didn't he? I guess I'm too old?”

I look at her. I want to ask her if she knows who he is but she seems to be off somewhere else. “Yes.” I say simply.

“The song.” she murmurs again. “It was so beautiful.”

I hadn't really noticed. I guess he had sung to me, while we danced. The radio had been on but it had only been playing static into the empty air. He had hummed down low in his chest as I rested my head there.

“I have to go home.” Lulu says before she wonders off sort of in the same direction the man had gone.

Finally I go back inside. The cook had woken to ring up Lulu's bill. To take her money. I go over to the table where she sat, and pick up the few bills she'd left there. Lulu pays fifteen percent. She always has.

“Are you OK?” the cook asks.

“Yes.”

“You knew the man after all.”

“Yes.” I nod.

“You seemed to know him well.”

“Yes.” I pick up the glass Lulu had left behind, carry it to the counter. “I knew him before.”

“Before?” the cook repeats carefully.

“Before the hospital.”

“Who is he?”

“I'm not certain.” I smile slightly. “I only know who I though he was.”

“And who was that?”

“When I was a little girl there was a plague of rats. Down on London street. A long time ago. When the factories belched coal and made the workers skin black and their lungs blacker and then they died. He came, the rats drowned. They promised him a lot of money to get rid of the rats. Not my parents, not their kind, they had no money to promise. But the rich never lived far enough to get away from the rats so they promised to pay and then they didn't. So he took the children. He took me to a place that was. . . all the good things a person could imagine, that was perfect brightness and piece, but I couldn't stay. Not forever.”

The cook looks at me. His brows are drawn together. “Do you think that’s true?”

“The doctors didn't. Of course. One of them, he thought what I remembered was a kind of truth. That there was a man who took children, that he kept me for a long time.”

“What do you think?” the cook seems unsettled. He tries not to show it but he scrubs and scrubs at the same place on the counter.

“I don't know.” I shake my bed. “But. . . but I remembered how the other banker died. The other one that drowned. I heard it on the news a week ago and kind of forgot. He was a hedge fund manager actually. He was in the park, witnesses saw him. He walked out into the middle of the pond as if he was in a daze, as if he was hearing the most beautiful song a person can hear and then he laid down, face down and he drowned in a few feet of water. He never struggled or jerked. The thing is. . . I've seen it before. I've seen rats drown that way before. Hundreds of them, thousands, a great squirming mass as thick as a road they went down to the river and they drowned.”

The cook is silent. He goes on scrubbing that small scrap of counter.

“Do you want me to stay till the day shift comes?” I ask.

“You said you'd let me take you to breakfast.” he answers.

“Oh yes.” I say as if I had forgotten.

When the first person from the day shift comes he hands over the keys and then puts his hand on my back and leads me out the door.

The End