HOPE FOR CHANGE... But Settle for a Bailout Read Free Page A

and setting it
back down. He grabbed white bread and spread it with mustard and
piled on salami. He put cheese onto a cracker, and pate onto
another piece of white bread – all without looking up to anyone –
and powered his way through his plate, taking time only to hand his
bottle to Larry and, after the top was popped, grabbing it back and
taking a deep swig.
    Larry turned to his grandmother and they
spoke in their familiar, foreign tone. Larry dug a spoon deep into
the pate and spread the steaming baked meat onto a slice of thin,
dense, dark bread. He topped it with a wafer-thin pickle slice,
cooked beet and a sprinkling of chopped onions.
    “What’s wrong, granola girl? Cat got your
tongue?” Calvin said to Lori, as he wiped cream sauce from his
lips. “Look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
    “Just a bunch of people with guns,” said
Lori.
    “It’s that shithole part of town you live
in,” said Calvin, belching. “Everyone packin’ heat.”
    “It was on Second Street, a quarter-mile
from here,” said Larry, “in our shithole part of town.”
    A basic Nokia ringtone sounded from Lori’s
phone, as Calvin reached for his beer. Lori stepped away from the
table. “Hey,” she said, not out of earshot of the table. “Naw, I’m
still in Long Beach. I don’t like running away.” She paused and
listened. “How many? With FOX News?” More listening. “The car’s
fine. Sure, Asst Mgr would be great. I can definitely use a better
job. Benefits, if I’m more than 30 hours? I still have VA, but
that’d be great.”
    Larry and his grandmother looked at one
another as Lori returned to the table, Emma with a worried look and
Larry with his lips locked around another Carlsberg. Calvin ate,
moving food from plate to mouth in an unceasing cycle, with the
only sounds to be heard being of the water, the wind, a single bird
sounding a call, and Calvin – chewing, swallowing, drinking and
belching.
    .
    Lori drove silently, her hair whipping in
the wind, as Larry lolled his head idly in his beer buzz in the
passenger’s seat. She turned into a strip mall off of Atlantic, the
engine sputtering as she slowed so as to allow a haggard man to
push a baby carriage laden with everything but a child across their
path. The car slowly passed a liquor store, a payday lender, a nail
salon, a donut shop and a smoke shop before parking in front of
Wash-A-Teria late-nite Laundra-Mat. “You wouldn’t happen to still
have any of those quarters from earlier?” asked Lori.
    “Bought real food at an actual store,” said
Larry.
    “Frozen burritos barely qualify as real
food,” said Lori.
    “Hey,” said Larry, defensively, “they’re as
many calories as a slice of pepperoni pizza. Thirty-three cents;
250 calories. The best caloric value around.”
    “You’re gonna get hypertension with all the
salt you’re pouring in to your system.” Lori grabbed her two bags
and headed inside Wash-A-Teria. Larry followed, fiddling with his
tablet, causing him to bump into the glass door. He didn’t take his
eyes away from the screen and he kept walking. Lori dumped her bags
onto a washer and began sorting colors from warms and hots. A
television mutely displayed “Married with Children,” as she turned
each garment inside out. She went to the sole change machine and
fed a five from the tip jar. “F-u-c-k-!” she yelled, as the machine
swallowed the bill and gave no change. Lori pounded on the machine
as she cursed, and then turned to Larry, sweating. She held out
several bills.
    “I need change,” she said.
    “I got’ch’yer change,” said Larry. “Just
call me Barack.”
    Lori sneered. “The only change I’ll get from
Obama is if they put his face on a coin.”
    “A dollar coin, maybe,” said Larry. “The
Obama Buck.”
    “More like the Obama Half-Penny… worthless
from the start,” scoffed Lori.
    “Anyway, my grandmother deposited my
allowance, so I got yer hope for change covered.”
    .
    “Thanks for the roll,”