Mohawk

time. The chicken hasn’t had a chance to sit around and get soggy.”
    She was already ordering into a speaker mounted on the column. Nine pieces of the Colonel’s Original Recipe, slaw, rolls, Cokes. “You can take me out some time if you want,” she said, and soon enough was handing him the cartons, one at a time, until they formed a warm pyramid on his lap. She swung the VW into a parking space beside the dumpster. “I’ve still got a little crush on you. Or I would have, if you shaved and dressed up nice.”
    “I don’t think I’m going to be in town all that long,” he said. “Not that it wouldn’t be nice to go out with you.”
    They both ate hungrily, and the chicken tasted very good, midmorning or not. There was only one spoon, so Randall made the girl eat the coleslaw.
    “Probably just as well,” she said. “I gotta stop withthese crushes anyhow. It’s not so good when you’re married.”
    “I’m not married,” Randall said, glad that she was finally mistaken about something.
    “I know,” she said. “I am.”
    Randall stopped eating and looked at her. “You aren’t old enough,” he said, aware that this observation wasn’t particularly intelligent.
    “You’re right,” the girl conceded cheerfully. “Old enough to get knocked up, though. You should see my kid sometime.’
    She had picked her piece of chicken clean and now deposited it in the bag. “You care if I take the other wing too?”
    “Sure,” Randall said. “Live.”
    “They’re the best part. I don’t care what people say.”
    “You’re easily pleased.”
    “True,” she admitted. “I bet you’re just the opposite. I bet you aren’t happy very much.”
    “What makes you say that?”
    “I remember you from before. You always looked kind of sad in high school.”
    “I didn’t mean to.”
    She shrugged.
    “Did you like Mohawk High,” he asked.
    “Sure. Wish I didn’t have to quit.”
    “Go back.”
    She thought about it, chicken wing suspended a few inches from her lips. “Nah. I like different stuff now.”
    Randall suddenly realized that talking to this girl had cheered him. Chatter was usually annoying, but hers was so good-natured he found himself grinning. “What stuff’s that?”
    “Different things. You got any grass?”
    “Good Lord.”
    “What’s the matter?”
    “This is Mohawk.”
    “So?”
    “Nothing.” What the hell, now that there’s a Kentucky Fried Chicken. “Sorry to disappoint you.”
    “Not very generous, after I paid for lunch. You probably think I’d tell where I got it.”
    “Tell me about your husband.”
    “Mostly he just rides his motorcycle. He wouldn’t like the looks of you.”
    “That’s a shame. We might become the best of friends.”
    The girl missed his sarcasm. “I don’t think so. You’re completely different.”
    “I bet he wouldn’t be thrilled about the idea of your picking up hitchhikers either.”
    “He wouldn’t care. He’s got some girl over in Ephrata.”
    “You aren’t living together?”
    She lip-farted. “God, no! What would I want to live with him for?”
    Randall hadn’t any idea. They ate until the boxes were empty and the paper bag they came in was full of bones. Randall took the trash to the dumpster and breathed in air that smelled a little like Kentucky Fried Chicken, a little like Mohawk and a little like the dumpster. A few doors up the street was the Mohawk Grill, behind it the alley where he had been beaten, and further up the hill a vacant parking lot where Nathan Littler Hospital once stood. The scene of his greatest moment. The hero, Randall thought with a smile, turned draft dodger. There were people who probablydidn’t even remember the old hospital. For almost six years now the sirens wailed right up the highway, bypassing the town just like everything else did.
    The girl wiped her hands with one of the Colonel’s special lemony cloths after deeply inhaling its fragrance. “I love these things,” she said. “Don’t you?”
    “You can have mine.”
    “Really?” she said, dropping the packet in her open purse. “I’ll use it on the baby. You want to go to Mountain Avenue?”
    Randall blinked.
    “Like I said. I know all about you.”
    “It must’ve been some crush.”
    They drove north up Main.
    “Let me out at the fire station. I’d kind of like to walk the last few blocks.”
    “Sure.” She pulled over and he got out. To his surprise, his bedroll was still wedged behind the front seat. “I