Lexicon

here I want.”
    • • •
    “What the fuck?” said Benny.
    She kept walking, hunched over, her Pikachu bag on her back, the floppy hat wobbling about. The sun was setting but heat radiated out of the sidewalk, coming off the brick tenements in waves. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
    “You
never
let a guy like that win the first game.” Benny was carrying the table. “He gets ahead, it’s over. He doesn’t care about money. He cares about beating you. You gave him what he wanted.”
    “I flipped the wrong card, okay? I flipped the wrong card.”
    “That guy was going to play.” Benny kicked a plastic bottle. It spun across the sidewalk and onto the road, where a passing car ran over it with a crunch. “He was good for twenty, easy. Maybe fifty.”
    “Yeah, well.”
    Benny stopped. Emily stopped, too. He was a good guy, Benny. Until he wasn’t. “Are you taking this seriously?”
    “I am, Benny.” She tugged at his arm.
    “Fifty bucks.”
    “Yeah. Fifty bucks.” She felt her eyes widen. This would piss Benny off, but she couldn’t help it. She was perverse sometimes.
    “What?”
    “Come on.” She tugged his arm. It was like stone. “Let’s get some food. I’ll cook you something.”
    “Fuck you.”
    “Benny—”
    “Fuck you!” He shook her off, let the table drop to the sidewalk. His fists bunched. A passing man in a collared business shirt glanced at her, then at Benny, then away.
Thanks, guy.
“Get away from me!”
    “Benny, come on.”
    He took a step forward. She flinched. When he hit, he meant it. “Do not follow me home.”
    “Fine,” she said. “Jesus, fine.” She waited until the violence drained out of him, then put out her hand. “At least give me my money. I made a hundred twenty today; give me half.” Then she ran, because Benny’s eyes popped in the way that meant she’d pushed him too far, again. Her Pikachu bag bounced against her back. Her floppy hat fell off and she left it on the sidewalk. When she reached the corner, Benny was half a block back. He’d chased her, but not far. She was glad she’d held on to her bag. Her jacket was in there.
    • • •
    She slept in Gleeson’s Park, beneath a hedge that people didn’t notice and that had escape routes on two sides. She woke to a midnight screaming match, but it was nobody she knew and too far away to be a threat. She closed her eyes and fell asleep to
fuck
and
cunt
and
mine
. Then it was dawn and a drunk was pissing on her legs.
    She scrambled up. “Dude. Dude.”
    The man stumbled back. “Sorry.” He barely got the word out.
    She inspected herself. Spatters on her pants, boots. “Dude, the fuck?”
    “I . . . didn’t . . . see . . .”
    “Fuck,” she said, and pulled her bag out of the hedge and went looking for a bathroom.
    • • •
    There was a public restroom in a corner of the park. It wasn’t a place she went if she could help it, but the sun was rising and her pants were stiffening with urine. She circled its cinder block exterior, carrying her boots, until she was sure it was empty, then stood in the doorway, thinking. Only one way out, was the problem with public restrooms. One way out and you could holler all you wanted; nobody would come to help. But she went in. She checked the lock, just in case it had been repaired since the last time she was here. No. She tugged off her pants and stuffed them and her sock under a faucet. Concrete air tickled her skin. She threw glances toward the doorway, because this was a really bad position to be in should anyone appear, but no one came, so she got confident and lifted her leg to wash beneath the faucet. The paper towel dispenser was empty, so she mopped herself dry with translucent squares of toilet paper.
    She opened her bag. Maybe better clothes had materialized while she wasn’t looking. No. She closed the bag and wrung out her jeans as best she could. What she would have liked to do was carry them over to the park and dry them on the grass while she lay in the sun, legs bare, eyes closed. Just soaking up rays. Her and her jeans. Another time, maybe. Another universe. She began to pull on her damp pants.
    • • •
    As she wandered down Fleet, her stomach tweaked. It was too early for the soup kitchens. She thought about hitting up a friend. Maybe Benny had cooled down. She chewed her lip. She felt like a McMuffin.
    Then she saw him: Lee, of the long hair and cheap suit, Lee who had taken her two dollars. He was planted on a