He could see her shaking her head all the way to the street. He just watched her go. Soon the clouds would break and then he would understand. He watched until she turned the corner and he couldn’t see her anymore.

Then he followed her to the end of the parking lot and turned in the opposite direction of her bus stop which she may or may not have still been waiting at and he walked down Cermak until a pizza stand emerged and he went inside. The boy behind the custom counter had hipster glasses and brown skin and it occurred to Wallo that other young men with different parents wore the same pants and glasses as the white kids who lived in his neighborhood. Everyone was fucking the same. There were drinks lined up in the cooler. Wallo opened the glass door and took a beer. This place was cool. The edges of the thick wooden tables were unfinished and the kid behind the counter did not rush him. Wallo put the beer on the counter and said, “Two slices of pepperoni.”

“I’ll bring it out,” said the kid, and jutted his chin out at the half-dozen empty tables.

Wallo sat down facing the street and waited for his slices. It was good to wait. He and Ali took the same bus and then he would take another bus home. No wonder he slept there so often. Logistics. Outside the window the first fat raindrops struck the pavement. Cars slid by and weary pedestrians rushed past, one old grandma with a newspaper held over her head. Mexican, every one. He didn’t even notice it anymore, except that he did. In Atlanta where he taught the people had all been black. “Wallo, how you know Outkast?” A half mile north of here they were also all black. He missed them, those aspiring African-American youth he’d bonded with over basketball and lines of simple code. Maroon polo shirts and khaki pants, dirty sneakers or white-hot fresh and clean. St. Alphonse’s had been a nice place to work.

The pizza came, slid across the table each slice on its own paper plate, and the hand that dropped them grabbed the napkin dispenser and moved it closer to him. The pepperoni were small and burnt around the edges like wooden nickels. The smell was greasy fat darkened the paper plate around the perimeter of the dripping cheese. Outside the rain came down fast and heavy and there was no reason to hurry and he wondered vaguely if Ali’s bus had come. He took a long drink of the beer. It was good, earthy, dark and full as dirt. He took a bite of the pizza and he took another big bite and chewed and folded the slice and swallowed and drank more beer and bit and chewed and folded and bit and the crust came soft and crunchy and hard in some places and damn Wallo thought this was some good fucking pizza. The receipt came in the middle of the second slice. He let it lay there, face down, smooth shiny white against the rough grain of the table. If he still took photos he might photo that. He downed his beer. It was dark outside, pouring. There was an app for that. Why not? He wiped his hand on his pant leg and took out his phone and magically digitally summoned a cab. CabCall. Stupid name. Black hole. Really stupid. The pizza was $4.50 and should he leave 5 or dig around for 6. There were two quarters in his pocket. That was good. The cab pulled up and he downed the rest of the beer and left $5.50 on the table and walked through the wet rain to the dry dank taxi and told the man his address and the windshield wipers wiped and Wallo closed his eyes and let him drive him home to the white neighborhood north of here where he actually lived.