“I ain’t gonna quit school,” Thomas had said.

Milton Feinberg smiled and chewed on his green cigar. “Well, when you finish high school you can come on to work full-time. Miss Hester says you’re a good worker.”

“Bagging potatoes is easy,” said Thomas.

Milton Feinberg smiled again as he drove the car. “Well, we can get you in the stockroom, if you can handle it. Think you can handle it?”

“Yeah,” said Thomas. But he was not thinking of the stockroom and unloading trucks and stacking cases of canned goods and soap in the big, musty upstairs store-room. He was thinking of how far away he was from finishing high school and how little that long time seemed to matter to Milton Feinberg.

V

THOMAS WAS EXAMINING a very ugly man from behind his window one afternoon when Miss Hester came into the produce room from the front of the store. As usual, she stood behind him. Thomas was aware of her eyes on his back. He could feel them on his shoulders as he pushed potatoes into the plastic bags. Miss Hester was silent. And Thomas went on with his work and watching the very ugly man. This man was bald and had a long, thin red nose that twisted down unnaturally, almost to the same level as his lower lip. The man had no chin, but only three layers of skin that lapped down onto his neck like a red cloth necklace. Harry Jackson, one of the stock clerks who occasionally passed through the produce room to steal an apple or a banana, had christened the very ugly man “Do-funny,” just as he had christened Thomas “Little Brother” soon after he had come to the job when he was thirteen. Looking at Do-funny made Thomas sad: he wondered how the man had lost his chin. Perhaps, he thought, Do had lost it in the war, or perhaps in a car accident. He was trying to picture just how Do-funny would look after the accident when he realized that his chin was gone forever, when Miss Hester spoke from behind him.

“Your brother’s in a lotta trouble up front,” she said.

Thomas turned to look at her. “What’s the matter?”

Miss Hester smiled at him in that way she had, like a man.

“He put a order in the wrong car.”

“Did the people bring it back?”

“Yeah,” she said. “But some folks is still missin’ their groceries. They’re out there now mad as hell.”

“Was it Eddie lost them?”

“Yeah. Miss Sarah is mad as hell. Everybody’s standin’ round up there.”