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so many cans.
    Ara T didn’t miss one can. Other than whiskey bottles he collected a few old shirts and a pair of old brown dress shoes and something that looked like an old toaster with a long cord. He also picked through magazines when he found a stack and put a few in his cart. He managed to grab the head of a wet mop that was hanging over a high fence and then hid the mop under the canvas tarp in his cart.
    It was getting late and almost time to head back to Mrs. Worthington’s to get my newspaper bags when Ara T stopped in back of a big three-story house that faced on Peabody. In the back of the house was a garage and some smaller buildings connected by a solid wooden fence that was taller than the other fences.
    Ara T reached down to the bottom of the fence and pulled something out sideways that looked like a big nail. He did the same thing at the top of the fence. He then reached in his cart and got out what looked like an old car antenna. He stuck the antenna into a small hole in the fence and jiggled it. A big door screeched open. He took the handles of his cart and backed into the opening. The cart looked like it barely fit but then the door creaked to a close.
    Without a handle or a knob the door looked like it was part of a plain fence. When I eased up closer I saw that it was probably the door to an old coal shed. I had found where Ara T kept his stuff.

    My newspaper bags and raincoat were where I had left them under the hedges at Mrs. Worthington’s house. I crawled up to the porch to get the bags and that was when I heard the sobbing.
    I knew it was Mrs. Worthington because I also heard the ice in her glass clinking. She wasn’t very far from me on the porch swing but it didn’t sound like she was swinging. She was crying like when agirl falls off a playground ride and she isn’t really hurt but just keeps on sobbing under her breath.
    There was no way I could prove it but I knew Mrs. Worthington was crying on account of Greaser Charles.
    I couldn’t make myself leave Mrs. Worthington even though I couldn’t figure out anything to do to help her. My legs were cramping again from squatting under the hedges. About the time I was getting ready to crawl out and head home a glass crashed on the concrete floor of the porch. I thought I would hear Mrs. Worthington get up from the swing but I didn’t hear her moving.
    I waited longer and listened harder. After a while lights started coming on at houses on both sides of Harbert. I pushed my newspaper bags from under the hedges with my feet and crawled out thinking I should just head on home but instead I gathered up my bags and eased around the corner of the porch. The blue Ford was gone. I climbed the steps.
    Mrs. Worthington was lying on the swing with her head resting on one arm stretched straight out. She was wearing her green housecoat. Same as the first time I had seen her. I could smell the whiskey from the broken glass. She didn’t have on shoes and she wouldn’t be able to stand up without cutting her feet so I squatted down and started picking up the bigger pieces of glass one at a time. After putting them in a little pile beside the front door I brushed away the glass slivers with my newspaper bags.
    Mrs. Worthington didn’t move.
    The other times I had looked at Mrs. Worthington it was her eyes and mouth mostly that I paid attention to but now I could see her skin was about as white as skin could get. As white as a new baseball right out of the box.
    Talking is hard for me but listening and looking when you know things aren’t the way they should be can be hard on me too.
    I wanted Mrs. Worthington to get up from the swing and talk to me. Even ask me a question as long as it wasn’t what my name was. I wanted to know why she was crying and if Greaser Charles had been mean to her. I wanted to see her pretty mouth move even if she didn’t have on her red lipstick. I wanted to see her eyes looking at me again like she was glad I was standing in