the clerk if I could use the phone.
“The public telephone is at the back,” he said without taking his eyes off the television.
“I have no money. My husband left with my belongings.”
“They usually come back. Wait outside.”
The payphone was broken and no longer worked. I went back to the sidewalk and sat down in the narrow strip of shade next to the building.
It was then that I finally understood that the incident wasn’t an isolated prank. It was the latest cruelty in a pattern I
