Read Oreo for Free Online Page A

lines in brown handwriting. Another sprig of rounded red and
     green leaves is just under the words. Touch it, children, and think of me.
    Chattanooga
    A Job I Had Before Going on the Road: I am working in a dry cleaner’s. A member walks in.
     She is huge and powerful. She is permanently ready to take offense. Her eyes slit in
     indignation, her lips form a sullen pout.
    S HE
(with eye-slitting and pouting)
: Where mah clo’es? They
been
here since
     Tuesday!
(This is Wednesday.)
    M E
(placatingly)
:The tailor will get to your
     alterations as soon as his fracture heals, his wife gets out of the hospital, and the
     baby’s funeral is over.
    S HE
(the standard slit/pout)
: Don’ gimme no scuses. Y’all must think I’m simple. They
     better
be
here t’morra, two-three o’clock.
(She lumbers out.)
    The expression on her back shows that she likes me, else I would now be on the floor with a
     broken nose. I close the shop and walk across the street to catch the trolley. I am standing directly opposite the shop when along comes Mr. Johnson with a huge pile of
     dirty clothes. I can smell them from where I stand. I stagger and hold on to a telephone
     pole for support. Mr. Johnson looks disconcerted. The shop is obviously closed. He stares at
     the door. Obviously, the thought of turning around and going back home, a matter of about
     fifty feet, does not occur to him in his disoriented condition. Oh-oh. He spots me. A
     relieved smile lights up his face. I look down the trolley tracks. I can see the trolley
     coming, but I can’t quite hear it. Meanwhile Mr. Johnson has dashed across the street.
    H E : Hi.
    M E : Hi.
    H E
(smiling)
: Glad I caught you.
    M E : Oh?
    H E : Could you do me a favor?
    M E
(trying to get downwind of the funky
shmatte
he is
     waving under my nose)
: What?
    H E : Could you check these in for me?
    M E
(flabbergasted)
: Look, Mr. Johnson, the store is
     closed. I’ve had a hard day and I’m anxious to get home and my trolley’s coming.
    H E
(considering the reasonableness of my
     speech)
: I see. Well, couldn’t you just open the door and throw them in on the floor?
     I don’t mind. They’re dirty anyway.
    M E
(lying)
: If I open the door any time between
     now and eight o’clock tomorrow morning, the alarm will go off.
    H E
(disappointed)
: Oh.
(Then, brilliant
     idea!)
Tell you what. Why don’t you just take these home with you and then bring
     them in with you in the morning?
    The trolley rattles toward us, its metallic jig fortunately out-clamoring my words as I
     tell Mr. Johnson where to go, what to do, and what to kiss. He is still standing there
     cradling his redolent bundle as I settle back and watch him recede until he is a raggedy
     blue dot.
    Davenport
    Pensées d’Hélène
: I used to think that Rudy Vallee
     was short for Rudolph Valentino. He is.
    Minneapolis
    Jobs I Have Had
(cont’d)
: I once demonstrated
     fill-in painting at a ten-cent store. I would gather a crowd around me and take out my
     Sylvan Scene Number 10 cardboard with its jigsaw of shapes, all numbered. For about three
     minutes, I would do my cyborgian routine, showing the shoppers how to put bleeding-gum
     crimson in all the 5’s—never in a 7 or a 2. Then, all of a sudden, I would go crazy. I
     could not bring myself to stay within the lines. My blind-man blue would stray from the
     52-to-75 lower-sky section, where it belonged, and would begin to invade the cavity yellow
     of the 45-to-48 cloud tinge. But the management kept me on. They merely warned against
     sloppiness, saying prissily, “Neatness counts, neatness counts.”
    I kicked at the traces. I started to seek out the potential artists among the old men and
     housewives who were my students. I told them not to bother with these
shlock
paints, to save up and buy some real oils or watercolors or even crayons. I showed them how
     to mix pigments, stretch canvas, keeping just ahead of them by studying at night. For my
     first life class,