CHAPTER FOUR
Tim took his time finishing his barbecued beef sandwich. The evenings were long, much too long, and Tim had gotten in the habit of taking much more time than he needed to do even the simplest thing. Everything had to be stretched out to fill as many of the empty spaces as possible. Tim's evenings were nothing but empty spaces, except for the rare occasion when he was called on to do some small errand for Jay.
Tonight there would be no errands. Tim knew he had to decide what to do with himself before he finished his coffee; otherwise there would be a long empty space in this diner, another chain of cigarettes, more tunes on the juke box. When "Rockin' Robin" came on for the fourth time, Tim had had enough. He jumped up, slammed his money on the counter, yelled "keep the chang
