Paco Cisneros' feet hurt. He was a heavy guy, and standing around all day was tough. Some days he felt like his mother. She used to come home from waitressing at Bob Evans and bitch about how her feet hurt and here he was, working a corner on a September night so hot that the friggin asphalt was melting and his feet hurt. A customer ambled up, some white scruffy guy from the valley. He was smoking. "I'm thinking of getting those shoes like they wear in hospitals," Paco said. Usually when Paco did stuff like that to costumers they didn't know how to act, but the blond guy with the beard just fell into it, like he'd known Paco all his life. "You mean the white kind?" "Yeah," Paco said. "You know. Arch support and all that shit." "Sure." "My feet are killing me," Paco said. "White's hard to keep clean "Yeah. But I bet they got 'em in colors now. Like those gowns hospital people wear. You know." "Scrubs," the white guy said. He took a drag. Paco decided to name him Cigarette, cuz he was lean and white, with blond hair on top like a spark. The thought made Paco laugh. Cigarette. "Yeah, scrubs," Paco said. "Used to be they was always white. Now they come in green and blue. I was in the ER last year and my doctor was wearing pink scrubs. I mean, pink!" "Yeah. They do that on purpose." Cigarette took a long drag. "So when blood spatters on them it doesn't look so frightening." "Whoa," Paco said. "No shit?" They stood for a moment in the dim, letting cars roll by. The Cigarette dude didn't look scared at all, which given which corner he was standing on in all his whiteness was maybe not too smart. Of course, need for product made a lot of Paco's customers brave. "You lookin to cop?" Paco said. "Yeah," the white guy said. "You Paco?" "Yeah." Paco was thinking this guy didn't look like a meth kind of guy. He held himself real quiet inside. Stripped down. Probably looking for junk. Junk could calm you right down. Junk could make you real brave, if not caring counted as brave. "You new here?" the guy asked. "Yeah," Paco said. "Guy who used to work this corner, you know him?" "Ruben?" the guy said. "Yeah. I knew him. He was here awhile." "Yeah," Paco said. "This didn't used to be my corner. Man things have been a mess lately. My corner, Mi Casa moved in." "Yeah?" the guy said. "This is just temporary for me, since Ruben ain't using it no more. Maybe I can work a deal with Mi Casa, maybe not. They are some hard asses over there. But I'd like to go back to working my regular." "Yeah," the white guy said. "Hey, I'm looking for some horse." "I got twenties," Paco said. "How many?" "Gimme ten." "Okay," Paco said. "I'll meet you two blocks up." "Okay." The white guy smoked the last of his cigarette and threw it away. It was funny the careful way he did it. Almost formal, like before church. He was reaching for his wallet, and then he looked past Paco and his eyes crinkled like he was just about to smile. "Hunh. That's a funny place for a canoe." Paco glanced around. The white guy pulled a USP 9mm from the waistband of his jeans and shot Paco in the back of the head.
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