| OCR Text |
Show 63 "Why don't you steal something half-way decent?" said Red. "Go to hell," said Neda. "Get a job." Neda wasn't getting any fatter, she was working off too many calories perusing the stores. But she got nastier everyday. And Red never touched her. She could tell him to stick his head up his ass and he'd never do a god-damn thing. But if Neda said something nasty to Helen, even the slightest bit, then Red lit into her. It didn't take Neda long to learn that either. She'd come rolling out of her room a couple hours after ixa her last xxx candy bar and ready for a good beating. That's when she went right for Helen. Neda was a smart girl, b liJHiUiM^fflMn1 she was adas&^a&or nuts. The worst of the bad days v/ere the ones when Red came home with his public assistance dole. Red came in, his arms full of boxes and bags, his face flush, and put everything down on the kxxk kitchen table. We all watched while Helen xxiax unloaded the food, package by package; big cellophane bags of rice and white bags of flour, lard and margarine wrapped in nix pale yellow paper that Helen had to open to see what was what, round cans of coffee and cylinders of spam, xixxax big silver cans of fatty chunked beef that looked like dog food over potatos or rice, boxes xixxxxxgxxaxiaxxaaxikxixxxaaxaxaxxxiKaxKaaxxxkxaxKxaxKXxxxixxxaxa JaaxxxiaxixixBXBXxixxBBxaxxxxxxiaxB of powdered milk, loaves of two day old bread that Red got £ax ten for a dollar, tins of thick sweet £xxx£ peaches or watery beans, oblong slabs of neon orange cheese. It was good to see that food every two weeks because we always ran out of it two or three days before the next batch x was due. But it didn't make Red happy. After it all got put away he brooded at the table, his hands in front of him like mallets. He'd been happy to get the food. Anybody could see that. But after it axi got put away xxxxikaxaxxxxxiaxxxxxxxxXBxixxxx there wasn't anything for him to do but think about how he didn't have work and how the food would run out kxxaxxxaxxSx too soon a n d ^ ^ humiliating it was for him to stand all morning in line, him, Red, who could lick anybody and do anything he set out to do, but couldn't get a job, couldn't support his family. A few a insurance companies axaxxxxxaxxxxxaaaXxxxx approached |
