by roz calvert

"A big fat woman!" he shouted. "I need a big fat woman."

"There is turkey and stuffing and cranberries," the soup kitchen volunteer repeated.

"But I need a big fat woman cause I can't get warm."

"We have some hot apple cider too..." The volunteer handed the styrofoam tray to the noisy wino and looked down the line to the next comer.

"Big fat woman... Get me a big fat woman to roll all over me."

"Happy Thanksgiving," the volunteer offered ignoring the wino. "We have turkey and stuffing and cranberries."

Pebbles dropped her cigarette to the floor and stepped up to take the tray. She picked a tiny marshmallow off the candied yams and slipped it between her lips. The room was different today. There were orange and brown streamers and a big fantail paper turkey hanging from the ceiling. Pebbles moved toward the table in the corner. The nun dispensing plastic forks and knives smelled like Shower to Shower talcum powder. Pebbles slammed her knee on the edge of the bench when she climbed into the cafeteria picnic table. "Shit," she mumbled.

The man across the table looked up from his turkey. She had seen him twice before, once at Key Food turning in his cans, the other time was in the park. He was blowing up rats and not wearing a shirt. She'd seen him making tiny molotov cocktails in airline liquor bottles and tossing them into the bushes near the bandshell. He had a big scar on his shoulder like something nearly tore his arm off (maybe he'd bombed himself by accident another time) but otherwise his body was perfect like a man in an underwear ad billboard in Times Square. Pebbles ate her last marshmallow first and the sugar made her achy tooth scream.

The head nun turned on the Rose Bowl Parade, just the picture but not the sound. Pebbles saw Gloria Estefan singing silently, surrounded by orange blossoms. She was wearing a white dress with gold sunflowers sewn on the sleeves. Pebbles remembered that the zipper on her jeans had split. She pulled her sweater down and cut her turkey with the plastic knife.

Wilson sucked the juice off a cranberry from the sauce and watched the woman across the table tug at the front of her purple sweater. He saw her nipples push against the weave. He had seen her before. Once she was selling paperbacks near the F train stop. The other time she was washing her hair in a broken fire hydrant. He had watched her closely. It was a hot day and she was wearing a dress. Her arms were soaked and some of the bubbles from the shampoo ran down into her armpits and some into the neck of the dress.