The door of the community building felt heavier going out than it felt coming in.
The parking lot was half-empty, the asphalt still holding on to that overnight chill that made the soles of his boots feel thin. He could see his breath. He could see Kele’s Jeep Cherokee idling three spaces over, the exhaust a pale thread against the pale sky.
He walked. His hands were in his jacket pockets and they stayed there. The gravel underfoot made its small sound and then he was at the passenger door and he pulled it open and got in.
The inside of the Jeep was warm.
“How’d it go?”
Micah looked through the windshield. The glass had a thin film of road dust at the bottom edge. Beyond it the parking lot stretched and then the street and then the buildings of Winslow, low and spread out.
“Fine,” he said.
He didn’t move after he said it. He could feel Kele looking at him. Micah kept his eyes forward. His hands stayed in his pockets.
Kele put the Cherokee in reverse, pulling out of the space, turning onto the street.
They drove. The buildings thinned and then there were just the fences and the scrub and the telephone poles ticking past at regular intervals. The road curved and straightened and curved again. The mesas appeared in the distance, the long dark shapes of them rising out of the plain.
The mesas held their place on the horizon. The road ran toward them and didn’t seem to get any closer.
“Name?”
“Jace. Sorry, Malachi Namoki. Everyone just calls me Jace."
Jace laughed. She didn’t. The woman at the front desk ran her finger across list in front of her. She slid a clipboard across the counter. He signed his name and the date and the time. She handed him a booklet and a pencil and pointed down the hallway to the second door on the left.
The room was small. A long table with chairs spaced apart. Two other people were already seated, both looking down at their booklets, both not moving. He took the chair at the far end.
He set the booklet on the table. The cover was white with black lettering. He opened it. The pages were thin and the print was small.
He read the first question. The words sat there on the page. He read them again. His hand was on the pencil but he hadn’t picked it up yet. The edge of the table pressed into his forearms. He could feel his pulse in his thumb where it rested against the paper.
He read the question a third time. The pencil was still on the table. His hand hadn’t moved.
The chicken that Nuva had dropped off two days ago was on its last legs. Micah had cooked some rice and beans, hoping to mask the repetitive nature of it. Delvin didn’t seem to mind as he dug into his plate. The girls certainly noticed.
The table was quiet outside of Delvin’s chewing and the occasionally clearing of the throat.
"You still got that job this weekend?" Micah asked, not looking up from his plate.
"Hmm, hmm," Delvin replied, not looking up either.
"You need an extra hand?"
Delvin looked up. His fork was halfway to his mouth.
"Just figured with the season being done and all," Micah shrugged, "I got the time now."
Delvin kept looking at him then he picked his fork back up.
"I could use it."
Micah nodded. They went back to eating.
Ms. Cordova moved between the rows. Micah could hear her shoes on the tile, the soft sound of them stopping at desks, the lower register of her voice when she answered a question.
She stopped at his desk. He didn’t look up. Her shadow fell across the paper.
“Have you heard anything yet?” she said.
He kept his pencil on the page. “Not yet.”
She stood there a moment. He could see her hands at the edge of his desk, the way she held them still. Then she nodded and moved on to the next row.
He wrote the next answer. The pencil made its sound against the paper.
"You didn’t tell me about no six months."
"Obviously, they’re not just going to give everyone that walks through the door an apartment."
"Ain’t that the whole point of this shit?"
Shania sucked her teeth as she stood in front of the pot, slowly stirring it. Jace sat on the small table near the window, working his way through another sleeve of crackers.
"It’s not like you don’t have somewhere to stay," Shania opened the oven, moving the tray of chicken onto the empty space on the stove top. She stuck a fork through one of the chicken breasts and brought it to her mouth, blowing on it.
"I guess," Jace shrugged, leaning back in the chair, "Food almost done?"
Shania ignored him and kept stirring. "Besides, you still got ADHS to get through."
"How long is that going to take?" he turned his head to fully face her.
"Six weeks. Maybe five if you’re lucky. Maybe eight if you’re not.”
“And that’s not included in the six-month probation period?"
“Welcome to the state of Arizona,” she placed two pieces of chicken onto a paper plate, scooping some rice as well. "Background check goes through DPS. That’s the part that takes the longest. They run your prints against the state database, then the federal one. Then they issue the clearance card. Then ADHS approves your cert.”
“How long did yours take?”
“Seven weeks and three days.”
"Fucking hell," Jace scoffed.
She brought the plate over and placed it in front of him.
"Just be glad you passed. A lot of people don’t get it on their first try and then have to wait to take it again. If they even take it."
"Yeah, lucky me."
"What you need to be worried about is that fucking background check," she returned to the stove, making herself a plate, "I’d pay good money to see that fucking report."
The shovel bit into the dirt at the base and he leaned his weight into it. The root system resisted. He shifted his foot to the top edge of the blade and pressed down. The dirt gave. He pulled the shovel back and the root came up with it, trailing clumps of earth.
Behind him, Delvin was marking the perimeter with stakes and string. Micah could hear the hammer driving the stakes, each strike clean and even.
The house was maybe thirty feet from where they worked. Through the sliding glass door he could see the family inside. He could see the outlines of their bodies as they moved from the kitchen to the living room, back to the kitchen, disappearing inside. It was at least four of them, maybe five.
Micah set the shovel down and pulled the shrubs free from the hole. He carried it to the pile at the edge of the yard where the other shrubs laid in a heap, roots up, dirt still clinging to them. He dropped it and went back to the next one.
The sky was going from blue to something darker. He could feel the temperature dropping through the sleeves of his jacket.
Delvin finished with the string and picked up the level. He set it across the ground where the concrete would go and checked it. He moved it. Checked it again. He drove another stake where the level told him to.
Micah worked through the next shrub. Then the next. The pile grew. His hands were cold where they gripped the shovel handle.
The lights inside the house went out. The warm rectangle on the patio disappeared. The yard was dark except for the work light Delvin had set up near the truck, which threw a hard white circle across the ground.
Micah kept digging. The shovel found the next root. He pressed down. The root gave.
Delvin set the level on the ground and walked toward the truck. His boots were quiet on the grass. The truck door opened and closed. Micah heard the cooler lid. Then Delvin was walking back.
The beer came in a slow arc through the dark. The can was cold. He set the shovel against his leg and pulled the tab.
Delvin opened his own. He took a drink. Micah took a drink.
Delvin nodded. Micah nodded back.
Delvin set his beer on the ground near the string line and picked up the level again. Micah picked the shovel back up.
They went back to work.
