fiveThat night, Robin made dinner—beans and franks, a small salad, day old white cake. She served it on a table that stood dead center in the cockroach-infested kitchen. The table was a remnant of the building’s past life as a print shop. It was a stout brute with thick wooden legs and a sheet metal surface that had once supported a paper jogger that handled 28” by 28” pages.
Sheila was out surfing the fern bars on Union Street that night so there were only three members of Robin’s fragile, little family at the heavy table. When Robin laid Mac’s plate in front of him he slid his left arm across the tin tabletop and snapped up a blood red bottle of ketchup. Mac put ketchup on everything—franks and beans, liver and onions, corned beef hash, eggs, pot roast, baked potatoes. He pulled the bot
