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working the cage and he hired me.
    At night, we shared a tent. When it got dark, he would dress up, take a pickup truck, and leave for the city. He never asked me to come. And I never asked where he went. I would open the stand and he would sleep until the afternoon.
    Once, early in the morning, I stepped out of the tent and walked towards the bonfire to prepare a coffee and salvage a piece of bread. I saw a woman sitting next to the fire with a blanket on her shoulders and her hair filled with beads.
    I nodded to her. She nodded back and we both looked in silence at the coals glowing from beneath the ashes.
    You must be Fly, she said.
    Yes, I replied.
    I am Otto’s friend Aisha.
    A beautiful name, I said.
    She smiled. Otto tells me that you are a reader.
    Otto noticed.
    Otto likes you. You two have more in common than you think. Do you know where he goes every night?
    Never asked, I said.
    He comes to my place. He sits and he works until early in the morning.
    What kind of work?
    Activism. She said this and nothing more.
    I made coffee and gave her a cup, and before I left, she said to me, Take good care of yourself, Fly. I am sure we will meet again.
    WINTER CAME AND the tents came down and the stuffed animals hibernated and the guns ceased to pop and the water clowns closed their mouths for the season, and as I rolled my last shirt into my bag, Otto asked me, Do you have a place to stay?
    I will walk for now and decide later.
    Aisha told me to tell you that we could lodge you for a while, he said.
    When we arrived in Aisha’s neighbourhood, Otto pointed out the apartment building. We carried our bags up the stairs.
    Aisha kissed me and said, It is a small place but we will make do. You guys relax and catch me later. Otto, are you helping tonight?
    He nodded.
    Fly, you are welcome to come and help too, Aisha said. The ladies at the centre would be happy to see you. And she winked at me, smiled, and left.
    Otto rolled a joint and passed it to me. Have you smoked before?
    Yeah, I said.
    Started at an early age?
    Yeah, I said, and took a long puff and held the smoke in my chest.
    Otto put on a jazz LP, then he opened the cupboard and took out a bottle of vodka. Here, comrade, he said, this glass is for you. Jazz and vodka, the fuel of resistance.
    In the evening we walked down the street to a school, and Otto told me that Aisha was a social worker and that, two nights each week, she volunteered in a soup kitchen. In the basement of the school, I saw her in an apron serving food to a line of adults and children. The children were loud and their voices echoed against the low ceiling and the wide floor. Some were running in circles, others were fighting over toys, and the rest sat at little tables and ate in silence and with big appetites. Otto knew many people and he introduced me around. He then took two aprons, hung one around my neck, and tied the other around his waist, and we both stood behind tables and served food.
    Aisha kept smiling at me and she passed behind me and touched my back and said that the servers ate last, and then, in a lower voice, she added, It is all you can eat. And the ladies behind us laughed and repeated, All you can eat.
    I STAYED WITH Otto and Aisha for a few months. They never complained and never asked me to leave. Otto worked on his causes. I would hear him typing through the night. He alternated between the couch and Aisha’s bed, and I would sleep in the small room behind the kitchen. Aisha and I exchanged book titles; she was also a reader, like the rest of us. On my birthday, she bought me a cake and a book of short stories by Langston Hughes, The Ways of White Folks. And then I blew out a few candles and she turned up the music and invited me to dance.
    Aisha and I did the rub-up dance and she held me from behind and rubbed her thighs against my buttocks, and then we switched and I did the same. And Otto sat at the table with a faint smile on his face and drank vodka and watched us dance,