Folding clothes at the Laundromat last night, I could feel someone at my back, close but not quite touching. It was a black woman eating an apple. She was maybe twenty-three years old, and as I continued with what I was doing, she talked to me. “What days do we eat meat?” she asked. I thought it was a riddle at first. I mean, who’s the “we” here? I told her we eat meat whenever we want to, or can afford to. “Can we eat meat three times a day?” she asked. “Sure,” I said. “If we feel up to it.” “Where is there a Catholic church?” she asked. I told her I didn’t know, and she said, “You a lie.”
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