together and stop making dumb choices,” and “I’m going to start going back to school for my GED.” And eye contact, lots of eye contact.
“I’m not saying it isn’t terrible,” Carol continued. “But I mean, we actually have an employee whose mother died. And she had no insurance or anything. The county paid. You know, they give you three hundred dollars or whatever for the funeral. And that’s the funeral she got.”
Eye contact.
“So what changes are you going to make so that I’m not throwing you out in a month?” Carol tapped her pen.
At this point, Arleen had applied for or called on twenty-five apartments, and Carol was her only hope. Sensing that hope pulling away, Arleen played the only card left in her hand. She offered Carol the option of arranging a “vendor payment” with W-2, which would automatically deduct rent from each month’s check. “So that by the time I get my check you already have your payment.”
“I like that!” Carol responded, surprising herself. “That sounds like a good compromise.” Then she added, “The cat can’t come.”
“Okay.”
“I was going to say, you got to worry about feeding you and your kid.”
“I want to give you a hug because, let me just.” Arleen hugged Carol, who blushed and dashed out the door. Arleen hugged Crystal and ran around and danced. “I got a house! I can’t believe it! I got a hoooooouse!”
—
Carol told Arleen that she could move in the first of the month. Until then, Arleen planned to take her boys to a shelter and lock her things in storage. As a shelter resident, she would be eligible for Red Cross funds that would cover her security deposit. It was the only way she could give Carol all her money.1 Arleen collected cardboard boxes from neighborhood liquor stores and began packing her things.
“Don’t cry when I leave,” Arleen told Crystal as she placed dishes in a box.
“Bitch, you act like you gonna be gone forever. You gonna come around. ’Cause you can’t live without me now.”
“And you can’t live without me either.” Arleen smiled.
Crystal began clapping her hands and singing, “I ain’t going. I ain’t going.” Then she slapped Arleen on the back.
“Ow, Crystal!” Arleen said, and the two women wrestled a bit, laughing.
As Arleen resumed packing, Crystal asked, “Could you leave me some dishes?” Arleen set a few aside.
At sunrise on Thursday, the sky was the color of flat beer. By midmorning, it was the color of a robin’s egg. The still and leafless tree branches looked like cracks in the sky’s shell. Cars rolled slowly through the streets, caked with salt and winter’s grime. Milwaukee Public Schools canceled classes because of the cold advisory. Arleen’s boys weren’t going anyway. She needed them to help her move. Jori loaded a U-Haul truck that a family friend had rented for them. The cold gripped him. His fingers and ears began to sting. Icy air filled his mouth, and it felt like his gums were hardening into one of those plastic molds of teeth in the school nurse’s office. His breath was a thick white gauze circling his face. He smiled through it, happy to be useful.
After a few trips, Jori ate his pride and put on Crystal’s sand-colored coat. Crystal herself sat on the floor, covered in church-donated blankets, eating banana pudding and watching talk shows.
The night before the move, Arleen had glued on a new wig and cleaned her shoes. She wanted to look younger than she was because who knew whom she might meet at the shelter or Public Storage. No shelters had called back, and Arleen didn’t know where she and her boys would sleep that night. She would have to worry about that later. For now, she was focused on taking what she could to a storage unit.
The man behind the counter at Public Storage wore a pinky ring. His hair was slicked back, and he smelled of liquor and cheap aftershave. Arleen’s storage unit would be C-33, a ten-by-ten-footer. “It’s the same size as the truck you got,” the man said with a Texas drawl. “All you got to do is be creative.” Everything fit easily. Arleen had scraped together $21 for the discounted fee by selling some food stamps and a space heater. (Next month’s fee would be $41.) But she didn’t realize she had to buy a lock and $8 worth of insurance too. She didn’t have it. The Texan, whose weatherworn face told her that he had seen hard times
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