“Ain’t you never wished you didn’t want to eat so much?” the old man asked.
The fat girl was waving at the waitress. “More coffee, and a pecan waffle with sausage on the side.”
“Not that it’s my business,” the old man said.
“I never have,” the fat girl told him. “Only I wish sometimes I wasn’t so—you know—obese. Once I roomed with a girl that would go out and eat a big meal and come back to our place and stick her finger down her throat. Puking so she’d look good to the johns. She cut her wrist once in the tub. It didn’t kill her, but various things went on after that, and I don’t think I ever saw her again.”
“Miz Garth, don’t you do that.”
“Not to worry. What were we talking about? I forgot.”
The waitress called to the cook, “Step on the nuts. Pigs.”
“Headaches,” the old man said.
“Yeah, only I wish you hadn’t reminded me. I got a winner.” The fat girl ripped a paper napkin from the dispenser at the back of the table, dipped it into her water glass, and pressed it to her forehead. “My brain hurts. Why don’t they ever have contests for stuff I can do? If they gave cups for headaches like they do for bowling, I could take a bath in mine. We got any hot water?”
The old man lifted the lid of the tin pot.
“I mean back at your house. I could use a nice bath—just lie in the tub and soak. That might make me feel better than anything.”
“The heater went when they cut off our gas, but I got a little bottle-gas job set inside the furnace to keep the pipes from freezing. I’ll have to keep a eye on that anyway so’s it don’t blow up the place ’fore the wreckers come. Maybe I could pipe some bottle gas over to the water heater for you.”
“Thanks,” the fat girl said. “I mean that. You really think they’re coming today, huh?” Without removing the napkin from her forehead, she emptied her cup and put it down.
“About them prizes,” the old man said. “They don’t amount to a spot on a hog. You take bowlin’, you mentioned that yourself. What matters is that a certain feller can get down all the pins about any time his turn comes up. The cup just tells that. It ain’t the shingle makes a doctor.”
“Liquor makes you sleep too hard,” the fat girl murmured. She had shut her eyes, and was leaning her head against the padded backrest. “Last night you couldn’t have got me up with a gun.”
“You got things you could win prizes for, if they gave them. Maybe they don’t, but you’ve got them things, and that’s what counts.”
“With you,” the fat girl said.
“With me, yes. What counts, period.”
“You’re a gentleman, Mr. Free. They’re damn near all dead.”
“There’ll be gents when Ben Free is gone and forgot, Miz Garth.”
The fat girl opened her eyes; they were large, bloodshot, and startlingly blue. “I think it’s going away. I feel a little better.”
“I figured you did when you asked for that waffle.”
“That was just a habit,” the fat girl told him. “If you’re like me, you eat when you feel good because you feel good, and you eat when you don’t because you don’t.” She dropped the damp napkin on the floor and rummaged in her purse for a cigarette. “You smoke, don’t you, Mr. Free?”
“Sometimes.”
“Here, have one of mine.” She braced her wrists on the edge of the table to strike the match, and when the waitress brought their food she asked for a pack of Viceroys.
“This here is a good cigarette,” Free told her. “Usually when I smoke, it’s a pipe, or maybe the doc will give me a cigar.”
“I thought blind people didn’t,” the fat girl said. With her own cigarette between her lips, she was cutting up her waffle.
“I ain’t blind! I can see
“I didn’t mean to make you mad.”
“I ain’t mad!”
“Okay. Like some of my waffle?”
“I got plenty,” the old man said. “Thanks to you.”
“You won’t forget about fixing the hot water for me?” Shifting her cigarette to her left hand, the fat girl forked waffle into her mouth.
“Course not. You think I’m mad. I ain’t mad, I just ain’t blind. Never will be, neither. Won’t live that long.”
“Really.” The word was nearly drowned in maple syrup.
“I s‘pose you’ll be feelin’ better when you’ve had that bath?”
The fat girl nodded and swallowed. “Maybe I ought to tell you when I’m out? I mean, so you can turn off the heater and all that stuff.”
“Your room’s right over mine,” the old man said. “I’ll hear the boards creakin’.”
