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Lula,” Sailor said. “I prob’ly ain’t precisely got all the facts straight, but it’s about what they said.”

    â€œHoney, here we are in N.O.,” said Lula, “and it’s time to change the subject.”
    Sailor pulled off the road into a Gulf gas station mini-mart.
    â€œWe’re about dry bones, sweetheart,” he said, stopping the car next to a self-serve pump. A sign on the top of it said PLEASE PAY INSIDE BEFORE FUELING.
    â€œGet me a Mounds?” Lula shouted to Sailor as he went into the store.
    A tall black man about thirty-five years old, wearing a torn green Tulane tee shirt, grease-stained brown slacks, no socks, ripped tennis shoes and a dirty orange Saints baseball cap, was piling items on the counter by the cash register. In the pile were four ready-made, plastic-wrapped sandwiches, two tuna salad and two cotto salami; six Twinkies; a package of Chips Ahoy chocolate chip cookies; four Slice sodas; two Barq’s root beers; and a large package of fried pork rinds, extra salted.
    â€œSorry, gentlemen,” the man said to Sailor and another guy who’d come in right behind Sailor and was also waiting to pay for gas, “I’m ’most finished on my shoppin’ here.”
    â€œThis be it?” the old guy behind the counter said.
    â€œY’all take American Express?” asked the man.
    â€œYessir,” said the old guy. He had on a green Red Man chewing tobacco cap and a faded blue, short-sleeved attendant’s work shirt with the name Erv sewn in black cursive above the chest pocket.
    â€œThen lemme throw in a couple more things,” said the man.
    Sailor and the man in line behind him watched as the black man gathered up several more packages of Twinkies along with a few cupcakes and half a dozen cans of Pretty Kitty cat food, three liver and three chicken dinner portions, and tossed them on his pile.
    â€œPussycats gotta eat, too,” he said to Sailor, smiling. He had no upper teeth that were visible.
    He handed an American Express card to the clerk, who ran it through the verifier. The card checked out okay and the old guy prepared a charge slip, had the man sign it and bagged the purchases.
    â€œI’d just soon have a paper bag rather than a plastic one, if it’s same to you,” the man said to the clerk.
    â€œWe don’t have no paper bags,” the old guy said, shoving the plastic bag he’d filled toward the man.

    â€œThanks for waitin’, gentlemen,” the man said to Sailor and the other patron, picked up his bag and walked out.
    â€œAll I want’s ten bucks regular,” Sailor said to the old guy. “Oh yeah, and a Mounds bar.” He took one off the candy and gum rack next to the register and handed the clerk a twenty-dollar bill.
    â€œI ain’t got my American Express card with me,” he said, “so I got to use cash. Hope that’s okay.”
    Sailor smiled at the old guy but the clerk kept a poker face and just gave him his change. The guy in line behind Sailor shook his head and grinned.
    â€œThat took long enough,” Lula said when Sailor got back to the car. “You forget my Mounds?”
    Sailor tossed her the candy bar.
    â€œI think the country done changed just a little while I was away, peanut,” he said.
    Lula sank her small white teeth into the chocolate-covered coconut.
    â€œYou got to keep an eye on it,” she said as she chewed. “That’s sure.”
    By the time Sailor finished pumping the gas, Lula had polished off both sections of the Mounds bar.
    â€œHope you don’t mind I didn’t save none for you,” Lula said as Sailor climbed back into the driver’s seat. “I was dyin’?”

BIRDS DO IT
    â€œI love it when your eyes get wild, honey. They light up all blue almost and spin like pinwheels and little white parachutes pop out of ’em.”
    Sailor and Lula had just finished making