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Family Dollar The New Choice Pregnancy Testing Kits are hung along the ramp-up to the register. The woman ahead of me would pass hers with flying colors. She’s huge and sighing, the kids in her cart keep eying my candy. I recognize the cashier—she’s the girl who used to work at the Video Cave that closed. We saw her one time after that—at the go-kart place— she told us she’d moved away, she had won some kind of scholarship, and was going to start college in Syracuse. We watched her boyfriend race her around the track, he made her howl with such abandon when he rammed her. The house just east of the go-kart place caved in a month ago. It had been peeling and boarded up for years. When I’d drive by, I used to say, I bet there’s something good in there. Then one night last July, I watched three guys come out, they were carrying the stairs. But who do you call if you see a thing like that, where do you start— do you just say, Send a cruiser right away, I just saw someone taking a flight of stairs? I wonder if she’ll remember me—I remember she was smart. The lines here take a lifetime, but it’s easy to fill your cart. When everything is next to nothing. – Joan Murray from Swimming for the Ark |