Free Marvel and a Wonder by Joe Meno Page B

smoking generic, unfiltered cigarettes and also doing a few lines of crystal cut with inferior cleaning products. He coughed and spat again. This one landed directly above the majestic outline of the blue post office eagle. Why an eagle? Who do you think you are? America. America. You ain’t nothing anymore. And he strode on, his boots rattling as he walked. His mother had chased him out of the house this morning, so he had not bothered to fasten the buckles. He tripped once, then again, before leaning over and hitching them. He looked up, out of breath.
    Two boys, school-age, were playing with their yo-yos on the corner, sitting on the curb. Red-yellow, red-yellow, the yo-yo rearing up and down, the other silver-flecked like a comet, both of them spiral-like, spinning scientifically beside their knees. The sight of it made him dizzy. And then angry. He made a grab for one, yanking it from the boy’s hand. Boo. The kid screamed like a girl, the yo-yo rolling down the curb toward the sewer grate, lying faceup beside a soda pop bottle. The other kid dropped his, the two of them running off together. Two shadows disappearing down an alleyway. The sound of rubber soles on hot pavement.
    On he strolled. The Band-Aid on his nose falling off. He stopped in front of the Bide-A-While and found the door to the saloon locked. He made a disappointed sound in his throat, and then coughed again. He squinted inside, the glass window coated with a black film that only reflected his unwashed face. His jawline was coated in blackheads and stubble. He looked like a charity case in need of a haircut. The hair was dark hanging over his ears. He tried the door again. Locked. He blinked up into the sun. Hot for August. Too hot. He turned to squint at the clock tower in the center of the square. One of its faces read 1:30, the other 2:15. The sign on the door read 4 p.m. Either way, it was still too early so he fumbled for the pack of smokes rolled up in his sleeve, lit one, then ambled back down the street. A semi pulling a trailer full of dairy cows crawled past. A song was blaring from its cab, I know it’s only rock ’n’ roll but I like it . . . He whistled along, traveling westward now.
    On down the sloping street, he stopped before the parking lot where as a boy he’d always run whenever he had stolen something. There. He might have curled up right there in between those rows of parked cars, the smell of motor oil and gasoline and his own fear as distinct a memory as the taste of the powdery, brittle bubble gum that came with each pack of baseball cards he slipped inside his coat. The gum not at all enjoyable but something which you put in your mouth simply because it was there. It being part of the practice of opening a pack of cards which had been carefully pocketed. The ones he stole always came out to be doubles of players he had already. Carlton Fisk. Dwight Gooding. Reggie Jackson . Even at a young age he learned that crime was something you did simply for its own fun. Because when you stole something, it usually wasn’t worth the trouble you spent.
    When he crossed the street again, back to the saloon a half hour later, he found it was still locked. So. He had a serious coughing fit just then, his chest feeling like it was on fire once more. Until he could bring up the phlegm which looked to contain little pieces of his lungs. He fumbled for another cigarette and again noticed how the tips of his fingers were swelled up. Much too round, like the digits of a cartoon character. A boy he had been fucking back in San Diego, Derek, another ex-con, had said he had Mickey Mouse hands. The boy’s sister was an RN and took one look at them and declared, “You got something wrong with your circulation. You oughta make that cigarette your last,” and he had tried for a week or so, even going out to buy the nicotine patch. But it didn’t last, and neither did the boy. Derek had been the only one he had ever met who did not say no to