I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want anybody to think I was going with her.

“We tryin to git to Morgan City Loozeanner. M’husband’s sposed to’ve got a job down there and we’s agoin to him. But I don’t know,” she said. “That old car’s about had it.”

I looked around in the bar and looked at my face in the mirror behind the rows of bottles. The balls were clicking softly on the pool tables.

“We left from Tuscalooser Alabama,” she said. “But them younguns has been yellin and fightin till they’ve give me a sick headache. It shore is nice to set down fer a minute. Ain’t it good and cool in here?”

I watched her for a moment. She had her legs crossed on the bar stool and about two inches of ash hanging off her cigarette. I got up and went out the door, back to the little enclosed porch. By looking sideways I could see the Rambler parked under the shade. One of the kids was squatted down behind it, using the bathroom. I thought about things for a while and then went back in and sat down beside her.

“Ain’t many men’ll hep out a woman in trouble,” she said. “Specially when she’s got a buncha kids.”

I ordered myself another beer. The old one was hot. I set it up on the bar and she said, “You not goin to drank that?”

“It’s hot,” I said.

“I’ll drank it,” she said, and she pulled it over next to her. I didn’t want to look at her anymore. But she had her eyes locked on me and she wouldn’t take them off. She put her hand on my wrist. Her fingers were cold.

“It’s some people in this world has got thangs and some that ain’t,” she said. “My deddy used to have money. Owned three service stations and a sale barn. Had four people drove trucks fer him. But you can lose it easy as you git it. You ought to see him now. We cain’t even afford to put him in a rest home.”

I got up and went over to the jukebox and put two quarters in. I played some John Anderson and some Lynn Anderson and then I punched Narvel Felts. I didn’t want to have to listen to what she had to say.

She was lighting a cigarette off the butt of another one when I sat down beside her again. She grabbed my hand as soon as it touched the bar.

“Listen,” she said. “That’s my mama out yonder in that car. She’s seventy-eight year old and she ain’t never knowed nothin but hard work. She ain’t got a penny in this world. What good’s it done her to work all her life?”