Criminal Mischief

Paul Chevigny



July 20
With eyes shut, the welfare center became a bare concrete roar of sound, like a subway station with a train coming in far off on another level. Ira had been sitting on the oak bench for an hour, and the sound was gradually beginning to lull him. He opened his eyes. If he started to nod, the guard would come and hassle him, might throw him out of the place. But he new that he would see nothing different from what he had seen during the months he had worked here and the even more months he had come as a client afterward.