“It’s chocolate,” Jonesy says, stifling a laugh. “It’s, ahhh, you know. Wetback chocolate. Made special. Just for him. Unless you want some?”

The third miscreant in the trio, the one she thinks of as Chomp-Chomp, is watching everything with a deliberate stare. Arms folded, hands tucked tight into his armpits. He’s mule-kicked, she thinks. Or a sociopath. Or just scared of what he’s gotten himself into.

She slides her hand into her tie-dyed bag. Leaves it there.

Virgil blurts in what he thinks is a whisper but what is instead just a really loud hiss: “Dude. Don’t you know who that is?”

“What?” Jonesy asks. Then he takes a long look at her.

She knows what they see. On the surface, at least. Tangled red hair, a little too long, too frizzy, hasn’t been cut. A patch of freckles across the bridge of her nose in the shape of a small Band-Aid. Old, ratty bomber jacket.

They don’t all recognize her. Not yet. But Virgil does. He’s got a wary look like he’s watching a rattlesnake at a distance. And the kid in the dumpster looks like someone’s been beating him up and trying to force-feed him a pile of dog shit. No telling if he’s figured her out yet.

But then she sees the light come on behind Jonesy’s eyes.

Now he gets it.

“Right,” Jonesy finally says. “Riiiiight. Burns, yeah. Atlanta Burns. That’s a name.”

“Sure is,” she says. “So, listen. Why don’t you boys go home?”

“Is that like a Southern accent?” Jonesy asks Virgil. Virgil nods, but it’s not like it’s a secret. Up here, middle of Pennsylvania, her accent sticks out like a bent and broken toe. “Cool. My dad’s got a rebel flag on his pickup.”

“Then your daddy’s a jackass.” She says it before she means to say it, but that’s how she is: it’s like the bouncers who are supposed to be guarding the door to her mouth are on an eternal smoke break. Even still, she continues: “That flag’s not just the emblem of being a racist asshole, a club to which your daddy probably belongs happily. But it’s also the Confederate flag. The one carried by Southerners to say to the Yankees—that’s your daddy, a Yankee—‘Don’t tread on me or I’ll pop a musket ball up your ass.’ Northerners driving around with the Dixie flag is like a Jew wearing a ‘Go Hitler!’ baseball cap.”

Jonesy’s smile has fallen off his face. He squirts a jet of spit from between his two front teeth, then hands the shovel to Chomp-Chomp, who takes it, shell-shocked. The ringleader then gives a look to Virgil and nods at Atlanta. It isn’t subtle.

They both take a step toward her.

“You sure you wanna do this?” she asks.