The Best of Loose Change: Volume 4, Issue 1

laundromat quarters was empty. Other than that, everything was in place.

Ofelia slept on the Swearingen’s couch that night. She slept better than she’d slept for weeks. She saw Lamont the way she’d seen him in the pictures he’d texted to her from Afghanistan. Dressed in camo, his face dusty; he looked tired. Unsure of himself, haunted.

Like he hadn’t had a shower in a week. Like he was in some kind of movie. Not a war movie.

Sci-fi. He didn’t look at her. He was looking away the whole time, at something she couldn’t see, something out of the picture. A blue light was spinning next to Lamont. It was on the top of some kind of Army vehicle along with a big gun that stuck out of a hole in the roof. Then Lamont was standing up in that hole holding onto the gun with both hands, and the blue light kept spinning.

The next morning Mr. Swearingen walked next door to Ofelia’s house with her and they went through the bedroom and the kitchen and the bathroom together. Nothing else was disturbed, just Lamont’s picture and the laundromat jar. The only other things of value in the place were the flat screen TV, an old model, and some jewelry in a box on the dresser. Ofelia picked up Lamont’s picture, took it out of the frame. She gathered the doily up by the corners, with all the shattered glass inside, and threw it away, doily and all.

“Looks to me like somebody knew what they were after,” said Mr. Swearingen, looking at Ofelia. “Only folks we saw around here last night were the usuals. Wakeen and one of his friends came around a little after dark. Didn’t stop by our place, though.” They wouldn’t have. Mr. Swearingen hated Wakeen and Wakeen hated Mr. Swearingen.

Ofelia looked at her bed. A double, still made up from the previous day. Lamont slept in that bed with her only one time. All her craft supplies were still in a Wal-Mart bag on a chair next to the bed. When Mr. Swearingen left, Ofelia went out to the car and brought in the cross. She set it on the kitchen table and she started working on it some more. She let it dry while she got ready for work, then she put it in the trunk again.

That night, she went home by Riverwatch. This time, there was no cop car. Ofelia pulled over and sat in the car. She rolled the window down a little. The cicadas were screeching and the kudzu hung heavy on the trees. The cicadas all screeched together, like the crowd at a football game, then they’d die down. There was no breeze. She felt helpless in the blackness that surrounded her, all by herself. But finally she got out of the car and opened the trunk. She set the cross up against the inside of the guardrail, at the exact spot where Lamont passed. Then she walked across the road to see how it was going to look. It was a bitter disappointment. Even when she turned the flashlight on it, it didn’t look right. It was homemadelooking, crooked. The lettering didn’t show up, nor did the camo she’d painted on one side, the blue car on the other, the specialist stripes on the top, the photo of Lamont in a plastic casing in the middle. It looked like something a grade-school kid would make for family night.

It wouldn’t do. She put the cross back in the trunk and drove home. When she parked the car, she shined the flashlight on the front door to see if somebody broke in again. It looked OK. "32