She spent days scouring barbershops and roadside bars, oily garages and smoky pool halls—the places men gathered after work or on weekends to tell jokes, talk about their trouble on the job or with their wives; the places they went to feel like men, and where, if a desperate young woman who was trying to make her father proud happened to wander in, they wouldn’t mind coming to her assistance. But no luck. Now, exhausted and even more discouraged, Charley rolled over the railroad tracks into the Quarters. On the corner, a group of young men stood on the sidewalk: XXL plaid shirts and baggy jeans like gangsta rappers, hair braided in zigzag cornrows that made their hair look like puzzle pieces. They smoked pot and drank from brown paper bags, and as Charley rolled past and waved, they jerked their chins a tiny bit, like guards at a security checkpoint, and she debated whether to pull over and ask if any of them wanted a job. Miss Honey’s house was quiet.
