Once more his ma had come through for him. One parole stipulation was that he had to remain gainfully and legally employed, so she’d pounded the pavement on his behalf and got him a job. He poured pine cleaner into the mopping pail, the disinfectant part of it making his nose wrinkle, then filled the plastic bucket with water in the women’s room and carried it back to the hall. He liked using the women’s room instead of the men’s room. The day he’d been released, his mother had been waiting for him outside the prison in a borrowed car, looking scared of her own shadow like always, as if she’d expected him to haul off and slug her like his old man would’ve. It’d made him mad enough he’d wanted to do exactly that. Dishwater-colored hair, body so gaunt and wasted a good wind would knock her over. It bothered him that she was so skinny, like maybe she was sick. But if she was, she didn’t let on. She’d set him up in a little one-room dump, complete with hotplate, instead of inviting him to live with her.
