"A lot of parts of Seattle were like that too," Frank said. "I got to the point where I really had begun to hate the place."
"I know exactly what you mean," John said. "Don't get me wrong. I'm not glad that this happened, but...who knows how much worse things would have gotten? At least now there's a chance to start over again, maybe."
"You know what really got to me?" Gary asked. Both men looked at him waiting for him to speak.
"You know where Mobile Alabama is?" they both nodded. "Well, I was down there a few years back to see a buddy of mine I was in the Navy with. We were always telling each other we were going to get together and finally we did. So we were driving down Airport Boulevard, kind'a the main Street so to speak, and I was, you know, sort of looking around out the window. Sightseeing, I guess you could say. Anyway, I see this young girl standing in the middle of the island that splits the lanes holding a sign. I figured it was one of those "Will work for food" signs, but as we got closer I saw it wasn't. I could also see she was pregnant, couldn't have been more than sixteen or so. I asked my friend to slow down so I could read the sign. I couldn't believe it."
"Well, what did it say?" John asked.
"Well, it was misspelled, you know, but it said, "I'm pregnant and abandoned, please help me." I couldn't believe it, so I asked my buddy to turn around and go back, but by the time he did she was gone. I couldn't believe that things had come to that."
"That's bad all right," Frank said. "I've seen the other signs, the food signs, but I've never seen one like that."
"I haven't either," John said, "but I can't say it surprises me a whole lot."
"Well," Gary continued, "that wasn't the end of it. Two days later I picked up the paper and there was an article about her in it. I guess I wasn't the only one who had seen her. The police had picked her up earlier, and told her not to stand there with that sign. That was in the morning, and it was afternoon when I went by, so she must have come back. Quite a few people had seen her back there in the afternoon, according to the paper. Well, the thing is that somebody did stop and pick her up, but not to help her. They found her body in the bay the next morning. If they hadn't picked her up the day before, they probably wouldn't have known who she was. But they did, I guess. The story said they had fingerprinted her, and taken pictures too. I guess they arrested her, ain't that a slap in the face? Anyhow, that's how they identified the body... I've always wondered about it. Who would just abandon her in the first place? I mean, being pregnant and homeless? I've always felt that I should have convinced my buddy to stop right there. Fuck the traffic, just stop and pick her up..."
"...So, I've gotten pretty sick of the world myself. It never seemed to stop, and it seemed that people kept coming up with more ways to be cruel. To tell the truth, I'm glad it's mostly gone, I hated it that much."
When Gary finished they were all silent for a few minutes.
Frank thought about the food signs. How many times had he seen them? Countless, he guessed, but he had never stopped. He had been, well, sort of afraid to.
"I think we all made our share of mistakes," Frank said. "I know I did. I wish I hadn't, but I did. I guess maybe things are better, in a way," Frank finished his beer, got up, and retrieved three cold ones from the cooler in the Jeep. He handed one to each of the men before he sat back down in the chair.
"So," John said, easing back into the conversation of where to go once they arrived in Rochester. "North side is out I think, there's no way I'd want to go back in there, especially now. East side is mostly old mansions; East Avenue, Park Avenue. West is made up of mostly poor neighborhoods and shopping centers, and farther out small business. South side is a mix, some places are as bad as the North side, and others are as nice as the east side. Farther out though, it's all malls and big discount stores. I'd say downtown would be a good place to start looking."
"Why?" Gary asked.
"Just a hunch, I guess," he replied. "But where did you go after it happened?"
"I see your point," Gary said. Downtown, Gary thought, was the first place he had thought of going. It made sense to him that it should be the first place to at least check.
"We'll have to walk, at least I'm pretty sure we will," John said.
"I believe you," Frank agreed. "A city that size has a lot of traffic I suppose."
"Unbelievable," John said. "An awful lot of it ends up on the Can-of-Worms, but its heavy downtown too. There are still a lot of small companies down there, so I'm fairly certain we'll have to walk down. We should be able
