SAL
The Friday before Christmas Sal’s customers came and went, all but the old lineman. They each bought extra bottles of medicine to get them through Sal’s Christmas break, which made every transaction more complicated, but still Sal kept an eye out for the man Mr Merkel loved the way a father loves a son. At last he saw Lucas walking down Western carrying a white plastic bag, his long legs scissoring in his baggy khaki pants. When he sat on the bench Sal tensed, but Lucas made no move to grab his arm. Instead he took a sandwich wrapped in wax paper out of the bag. ‘You probably don’t get to eat, do you?’
He was right – Sal never got to eat lunch on Fridays – but Sal refused to be disarmed by the gesture. He put the sandwich on his lap, pulled a brown bag out of his backpack, and slid i
