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started as a laborer and machine operator, and now I drove a forklift. Kind of a funny job for someone who didn’t have a driver’s license, but the company provided its own industrial truck certification training program.
    He escorted me to the front desk, which was now occupied by the woman with big hair and nails. I peeled off a few bills and handed them over to her. She snapped her gum and punched something in on her keyboard. A printer whirred to life.
    She leaned back and, ignoring me, smiled up at Mr. Ramirez. “You set for the wet weather?”
    He nodded. “The road might flood, but my house is up on a hill. Should be okay. We got enough food and water to last for a few days if we lose power and can’t get out. The road does flood sometimes, but ever since the Army Corps of Engineers did that flood control project on the river—what was it, twenty-five years ago?—it hasn’t been bad.”
    She snapped her gum. “Wouldn’t surprise me if we did lose power for a while. The electric companies haven’t been very good about fixing things when the lines go down lately.”
    “They certainly haven’t. Even in the big cities, D.C. and Baltimore, they’ve had outages that lasted days. Weeks, sometimes.”
    “I hope they get their act together better than that. But it does sound like we’re in for some flooding. There’s a lot of snowpack up in the mountains, and if we get all the rain we’re supposed to, it’ll melt a lot of that. On top of the rain.”
    They weren’t talking to me, but I listened. If the power went out, I wouldn’t be working. I couldn’t afford that. Like I had any control over it.
    The woman handed me my receipt.
    “You can go,” Mr. Ramirez said to me. “Next week. Same time.”
    “Yes, sir.” Clutching my receipt, I slipped into my jacket and waited for Mr. Ramirez to open the door so I could leave.
    He did so, and I slunk through the waiting room, avoiding looking at anyone, out the door, and up onto the street.
    Rain, harder than ever, soaked through the shoulders of my jacket in minutes.
    Maybe I’d better check the weather forecast for the next few days. I didn’t have a TV or radio at home. A TV was probably out of the question until I had a lot more money, but one day soon, I’d buy a radio. Meanwhile, I headed for the public library, where I could read the newspapers and, if I could figure out how to use it, check one of the computers for the latest weather news.
    I used the public library a lot. Mrs. Coleman, who had been my foster mother for a couple of years in my early teens, had introduced me to it. “It’s taxpayer supported. Which means it doesn’t cost you anything to use it. And it’s for everybody who lives in the area. All they ask is that you follow the rules and take care of the materials you use so they can be available for the next person.”
    Except for the computers and such, it hadn’t changed all that much in the years I was locked away.
    The prison library had been a real lifeline for me over the twenty years I was locked up. I signed up for it every week and got the three books I was allowed. I worked most days in the prison laundry for the princely sum of a dollar a day and the privilege of getting out of my cell for those hours, then came back to the housing unit, locked in, and read. I couldn’t afford a TV then either, and the one in the dayroom was a constant source of argument over what to watch. Unless there was a sporting event most of the guys wanted to watch, cartoons usually won out. I wasn’t particularly interested.
    When I was released, I was on home detention with a black plastic monitoring box strapped to my ankle. I was allowed out for work and a very limited time to run errands. I made it a point to squeeze in a visit to the public library as soon as I could.
    I’d been a bit afraid they’d refuse to issue me a card. The circulation clerk, Mandy Radman, had unquestioningly accepted my prison ID for identification and my