The girl from school kept stealing his thoughts. Her hair the color of a black walnut shell. Her downturned eyes, her lips. Something about her was beyond his understanding. He said her name in his head and then said it out loud. Ava. She must’ve been new. He’d never seen her before. He tried to figure out why she’d run away from him in the hallway, but he couldn’t. She was scared. Why? Doesn’t matter, he thought. You’ve got more to worry about than a girl. A whole long list of things.

Matty.

Money.

Job.

If he didn’t find a job, they’d be out of food in two days. Maybe three.

Could be the Caprice ought to be sold.

He plodded along the sidewalk, peering in windows. A barbershop with a faded sign above the sloping metal roof: $5 CUTS. The candy-striped barber pole was dead and rusted. A furniture store advertised in weathered red paint on the windowpane: EVERYTHING MUST GO. The whole street slowly decomposing.

He checked the gas stations, but there was no work to be had. Nothing at Big J’s Burgers either. He went on. White chunks sifting down over everything. Dusk darkening to night.

At the corner of the second block, a hazy yellow light beckoned from inside a storefront. Hunter’s Drug & Hardware. He walked over and stopped and looked in the big front window by the door. A display of beef jerky and cigars and whiskeys. On a red checkered tablecloth lay a radiator hose next to a baking sheet. A KitchenAid mixer. Put up against the glass in the corner was a cardboard sign with two words written in black marker.

HELP WANTED

He pushed open the door, his legs weak. A bell jangled on the handle. Inside he saw rows of aisles cloistered under the glow of fluorescent lights. Cough drops, fever reducers, pain relievers, antacids, thermometers. Canned goods on another set of shelves. Beans, corn, chili, soup, tomato sauce. Jam and Wonder Bread. A wire stand of greeting cards for $0.99 each. Sleepy music from a radio somewhere. Patsy Cline’s “I Fall to Pieces.” He stood on a black doormat and kicked snow from his boots and unzipped his coat and smoothed his snow-dampened hair. Nerves: sliding in like garter snakes. He jammed them down. You can do this. You can.

“I’m closin’,” the owner said from behind the counter. “Storm’s comin’ in. Newsman says we’ll have least a foot by mornin’.”

He stood wiping the countertop with a shabby barmop towel. Old and bent and paper-thin, eyes shrouded under creases of wrinkled and spider-veined skin. He wore a checkered button-front shirt with brown suspenders and a vinyl apron tied over the top.

“I saw your sign,” Jack said. “I’m looking for work.”