Fragments Read Free Page A

peanut butter scrapings and
noodles. It had been too wet, for too many days. She’d three
outside coats in all, as drying out a wet one was painfully slow
with little heat. Each were battered, bruised, and patched but
didn’t smell and did a fair amount of work in keeping her from
dropping down dead with cold, or being refused entry to the mall or
the library. But all were still damp. She spent ages sifting
through in her mind which one to go with. Outside, the rain was
turning to snow and driving into the windows horizontally. Sleet.
She hated sleet the worse. Snow was warmer than half snow, half
rain, she was convinced. Sleet hit you physically, like little
bullets, far more raw and draining than hailstones. Hailstones
bounced off you. Sleet clung to you, drenched you, drained you,
shivered into your veins. Sleet soaked through and down faster than
anything. She looked out at the slushy streets and the people
wading through to get to work, to get home from work, to do
anything to get off the street at all costs.
    If it had been
just after social security day, as opposed to a couple of days
before, she’d had stayed in, holding onto the last of the morning’s
heat doggedly, spinning out the hours until the evening bounty
arrived. Or maybe gone to the Laundromat and relished the sultry
rush of steam laden air, as she worked through her few clothes
methodically. Then rushed back to watch TV and hide, holding the
warm clothes in a bag as protection against the cold as she dived
back to her room. But it was not to be. If she stayed in the
spinning disk on the meter might betray her. ‘Sides, she needed
food and had empty pockets.
    She wrapped her
feet in three layers of socks and two layers of plastic bags. She
really needed to find new boots, with intact soles, but soles were
thin by the time she got her feet into any shoes, and the streets
long and hard. Walking kept up her wiry strength, kept her heart
pumping and her bones from growing too fragile. Walking was life,
not just for the scavenging that could be achieved en route.
    She took a deep
breath before launching out the door, pulling warm air into her
lungs and praying it would hold there for as long as it took to get
to somewhere else.
    It was, without
doubt, the worst day of her life. Nothing had worked on any level.
It was dark again, and she was wet, frozen, shivering, and hungry.
She’d been so cold that when she’d walked past the filthy lump of
rags that was Dolly, and Dolly had offered the usual swig of
something foul and very alcoholic, she’d almost been tempted.
Almost allowed herself to feel the flood of warmth as whatever gut
rot it was rolled down her throat and set fire to her belly.
Almost. Her hand had stayed, and then retreated, and she’d smiled
at Dolly and moved on, as she always did. Dolly swore at her heels
for being a stuck up bitch, as she always did. But next time they’d
see each other, they’d smile, and Dolly would offer the bottle. And
if she had it, Maggie would hand Dolly some food. It was a miracle
to her that Dolly somehow kept going. No doubt she was so foul the
rats were scared to nibble on her. Maggie knew that she wasn’t so
foul that some of the equally foul street men didn’t woo her for
her favors. How else was a girl to get ethyl alcohol? There but
for the grace of God...
    It was a long
way back to her room. Even now, crying silently under her breath
with the cold and the effort to keep moving, Maggie couldn’t face
returning. If she went too early, the room would be cold. She’d be
locked in there waiting out the moment the radiators sprang to
life. It could sometimes take forever, it seemed, and it unsettled
her badly. Brought her hard up against the walls of her life. No,
she must get another hour, maybe two, out of today. Somehow. She
had to eke out some comfort, somewhere, before she went back. She
had to walk into the welcoming heat, and take advantage of every
scrap of it: she had to stay away just a bit