With so little money, these people have no way of ever escaping the rat trap of AM country western stations and Styrofoam cups filled with rancid coffee. The detail of their lives accumulates in the long hours I enter overdrafts into the computer and in the dumpsters behind my apartment building. At night I hear police sirens and the heavy growl of freight trucks along Highway 99. Sometimes a victim is still inside the car, crushed in the metal. I am there, almost on the radio, almost in the ears of all the people stuck in the rain, frozen in the rush hour.
Today is a good day.
I shower for ten minutes, buy groceries, and catch the evening line up. I don't feel like the workout, so I walk to the store and buy a Tombstone Pepperoni Pizza, a carton of milk, a head of lettuce, low calorie Italian dressing, a block of cheddar cheese, a six pack of diet RC, and The Seattle Times . I read the paper while I eat my pizza. Using the sports page as a plate, the grease in the cheese turns a picture of a football player clear. I read the column of words through his face.