Kindness for Weakness Read Online Free Page A

that I belong here, that I can come back whenever Louis pays me. Maybe the waitress and I will get to know each other’s names. I’d like that.
    “Can I get you anything else, sweetie?” she says.
    I shake my head because I’m full, and also because Iam struck dumb by the nice things she keeps saying. I know these are not romantic things, but still, it feels good. Without thinking, I blurt out, “You have really nice eyes when you smile.”
    She touches my arm and says, “You just made my day, sweetie. If you were ten years older, I’d tell you to pick me up after my shift.”
    “So what time is your shift over?” I say, wishing I could press a button and gain ten years.
    She winks and glides away to the other customers. I leave a five-dollar tip and hustle out of there for fear of what other stupid things I might say.

9
    At school, Earl, the morning janitor, pushes his cart slowly, humming along to the oldies songs on a small transistor radio he keeps bungeed to a mop handle. Earl looks impossibly old, too old to work, but I don’t think he minds, because every time I see him, he is humming and happy to see me.
    “Morning, boy,” he says, shaking my hand. “You got my coffee, right? Two sugars.”
    I put my hands out to show that they’re empty.
    “All right, then,” he says. “Tomorrow you owe me two coffees and … and one of them egg sandwiches. With cheese and bacon on it.”
    He laughs to let me know he’s kidding, but tomorrow I
will
bring him coffee and an egg sandwich. Because I know what it’s like to be hungry and thinking about what you’d like to eat. I’ll surprise him, and he’ll say, “What’s this?” And I’ll say, “It’s just breakfast, Earl.” And he’ll say, “Naw, boy, you don’t need to do that. You keep your money.” ButI’ll insist, and maybe he’ll have a great morning because I have a job now and I can afford to buy Earl a cup of coffee.
    I walk down the hallway with a dozen or so robotics club and band students hurrying to their Advanced Placement classes. They carry violin and trumpet cases, and pieces from computer circuit boards, talking excitedly about scales and concertos and bits of programming code. They laugh and slap each other’s backs and stumble into each other on purpose in the way that kids are always touching each other.
    I am ashamed of how badly I want what they have. Am I really that different? So different that I will have to walk these halls alone, friendless, for another two years? I wish I was good at something like sports, or an instrument, or even smoking cigarettes, which isn’t really a skill or an interest but at least it’s something to do, something I could have in common with other kids who smoke. If I smoked, I could go right now to the green steel bridge next to school and say to a kid sitting on the railing, “Can I bum one of those?” and they would nod ever so slightly, looking impossibly cool and aloof. And I would lean back against the railing, too, blowing out my indifference to the world in perfect smoky rings. But I can’t do it, because it makes me cough like a spaz, and I don’t know the first thing about being cool or aloof.
    I turn away from the group of computer and band kids and go in to Mr. Pfeffer’s dark empty classroom. I take a seat, suddenly exhausted even though it’s only eight-thirty. Maybe it’s because I am finally full and warm, and for themoment, there’s nothing for me to worry about. I put my head down and close my eyes, but after what seems like only thirty seconds, Mr. Pfeffer bursts through the door with his gray-black beard and booming voice. “James,” he says, flipping on the lights. “How’s my favorite writer who doesn’t write?”
    Mr. Pfeffer insists that I am a talented writer who just hasn’t realized it yet. Why he thinks this, I’ll never know; I haven’t done anything with my life that is worth writing about, and I haven’t written a word outside of his class