Hypothermia

could charge them for a second hour of service. He gathered up his tools, walked between the tables, looked out the windows, and scanned the inside of the empty kitchen leisurely through the porthole on the door. He thought that if he’d known that the job was going to be so easy he’d have bought himself a newspaper to have something to pass the time with. At last, he sat down at a table next to the restroom, facing the doorway in case anybody stuck their head in. He closed his eyes for a catnap, thinking that he could be doing exactly the same thing at home.
    He was on the verge of falling asleep when he heard a very faint voice. It was calling, with a certain insistence, from inside the restroom. He got up and cracked the door open so that he could listen closely without seeing inside. The voice, he confirmed, was speaking to him, and in Spanish. A chill ran down his spine and he broke out in a cold sweat. Yes? he asked in English. The voice said something else to him he couldn’t understand. Then, with his heart in his mouth, he stuck his head inside. Whoever it was, he saw, was calling to him from inside the closed toilet stall. The tremulous voice could have belonged to anybody except a man. Probably a child. Yes? Marcus asked again. He didn’t understand the answer, which now seemed to come from a young woman. He couldn’t even say if it had spoken to him in English—he was too busy thinking that the rest of the family flock was back inside the house, a good distance away, and he was here alone, on the verge of glory. He touched the stall door with his fingertips and felt it give slightly; it wasn’t bolted. He swallowed and asked again what the person needed. The voice, perhaps an old woman’s, repeated in English that it needed napkins. He went out, got a handful of paper napkins from the counter, and went back inside. He steadied himself with his left hand on the upper part of the stall—he could see his own sweat dripping onto the paper napkin, and said: Here they are. The voice thanked him, said that he could pass them over the top. Still undecided, he rested his head against his forearm. A moment later, with his eyes closed, he raised the handful of napkins and felt them snatched out of his hand. He said, You’re welcome, and spun around. He closed up the fuse box as fast as he could, grabbed his things and left the dining room. Before leaving the restaurant he shouted to the whole bunch of them that he’d be back later for his money.
    The harsh sunlight now flooding Harvard Street was a tremendous relief. He thought that with the amount he was going to charge them, and the money he could squeeze out of his latest whore before he ran her out the door, he could buy himself a new suit and three cans of white paint, enough to redecorate his whole apartment.

OUTRAGE

    Why do I want a life without honor
    If I already bet everything I had?
    A. E SPARZA O TEO
    A highway can be like the high seas. The sun burning on your face, the fresh cleansing breeze in your lungs, your hands tightly gripping the rails along the steel deck, the rotten stench rising from the bilge. Drake Horowitz believed this for quite some time without being able to test it out for himself. Being the newest crew member aboard the Outrageous Fortune , he had to sit in the middle of the front seat, between Verrazano and the driver. Company regulations prohibited riding outside the cabin when the truck was moving at high speeds. So, with growing resentment, he stayed put, poring over the latest American League scores in the sports section of the Baltimore Sun . Drake leaned forward slightly to keep his head out of the way, hardly paying any attention to the two men as they chattered and gossiped, trading thoughts, comments, and insults.
    The idea of christening the truck came from a photo in a National Geographic they fished out of a black plastic garbage bag. All sorts of things drifted to their ship in that way, as if following the course of a secret tide. Hefting the trash bag, fat Verrazano noticed the dead ballast of printed material inside. He weighed it a moment, raising and lowering the bag clenched in his fist, eyes narrowed, lips drawn tight. Then he dropped it to the ground and squatted down, prodding and squeezing the contents: Those sons of bitches think they can fool a man who’s been collecting trash for fifteen years! he said to his coworkers. After every squeeze his expert nose pondered the smells emanating from