Ray

XXXIX

NURSES have saved me. I wander through the day like a horde often. I can’t hit the directional signal on my car. I trip over my unredeemable cockiness. I drop a can of 7-Up in the hall and fall down in front of Dr. Everything, the world surgeon I always wanted to meet and impress.

One evening, late, I was watching a nigger up in a tree picking his nose. The nigger worked for the electric company and was apparently new. He’d climbed up the tree next to the light pole.

“What you laughing at?” said another big nigger behind me, wearing a helmet.