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A.J. woke to his grumbling stomach. He glanced at his watch and jumped with a start, it was thirty minutes past seven, and he was late. He wondered why Kevin did not wake him but he realized that Kevin probably went straight to dinner after making the phone call. He made his way down the stairs going slowly so he did not fall, he did not trust the hand rail to catch him if he were to grab it while falling. The other guys were sitting around the table laughing and joking with a couple faces A.J. was not familiar with.

“Hey someone couldn’t have woken me?” He jokingly called out.

The laughter stopped and the guys looked awkwardly at each other. They shrugged and continued eating.

“You’re late.” One of the strangers blurted out. “We don’t take kindly to that around these parts.” The man glared at A.J. as the woman spoke to him. “You can go right back up to your room, perhaps one of your friends will bring you a bite to eat later.”

A.J. stared in disbelief at the woman and man and the other four. He couldn’t believe what he just heard; he was being denied food because he was thirty measly minutes late. He trudged back upstairs and threw himself down on the bed. He flipped open his phone, still no signal. There had to be signal somewhere around, he had to get out of this town.

About an hour later Kevin came back into the room carrying a plate of food. “Here.” He said to A.J. holding the plate towards him. A.J. took the plate and smelled the delicious food. He picked up his fork and took a bite, hardly tasting the food before swallowing it down.

“Were you able to get a hold of Johnny?” He asked taking another large forkful and swallowing it down quickly.

Kevin shook his head. “The phone is down, broken.”

“What? And they only have the one phone?”

“That’s what John said, people in town only call their relatives every so often and they all use that phone, nobody has one of their own. Expense they don’t want or need I guess.” Kevin shrugged and began to unpack his suitcase in the chest of drawers closest to his bed.

A.J. watched his friend as he shoveled more food into his mouth. He seemed to accept his fate, something A.J. was determined not to do. He would not unpack his suitcase and give in to staying in this town. He finished his plate and shoved it on the nightstand beside his bed and fell onto his pillow attempting to fall back asleep.

Kevin stopped unpacking and turned to A.J. “You need to unpack; Shelby and Walter said that they want us to unpack, makes us feel more at home and less apprehensive about being stuck here.”

A.J. rolled his eyes hoping that Kevin did not see him; he sat up and kicked his suitcase under his bed. “There now they won’t know I didn’t unpack.” He slammed his fist in his pillow to make it more comfortable and lay down facing the window. Eventually sleep came over him once again and he settled in dreaming of being anywhere but where he was.

*****
His bed shaking up and down the next morning woke him and for one blissful moment A.J. thought he was back on the bus and the town had been an awful nightmare. “A.J. get your ass out of bed or you are going to be late for breakfast too and I’m not going to bring you a plate later if you do.” Kevin’s voice broke him out of his hope. He opened his eyes to face the window that the town lay behind. Groaning he got out of bed and pulled on a clean tank top and pants from his suitcase before pushing it back under the bed.

He followed Kevin down the stairs and took his seat with his friends around the table. “So we are paying for this?” He asked curiously.

Nick shook his head, “Nah, Shelby said she’d feed us this morning too but if we stay longer we’ll have to earn our food, no money accepted, we’ll have to work.” He made a face at the thought of doing manual labor.

“Hope you boys are hungry.” A voice called from the kitchen, seconds later Shelby emerged carrying a tray of food. She placed the plates in front and watched like a proud mother as they devoured their food. Taking her time her eyes drifted over each of the boys, letting out a small gasp when her eyes arrived at A.J. and his bare arms now showing his many tattoos. She let out a small “tsk” sound before leaving them to their breakfast.

“What do you think that was about?” Howie asked.

“Small town, probably don’t see many people with this many tattoos.” A.J. answered wiping his mouth with his napkin before picking up his fork and spearing more eggs.

Shelby walked back through the kitchen door and straight out to the back porch where Walter was sitting reading the one local paper they got in the town. “One of those boys just won’t work Walter, you should see his arms all covered with pictures.”

Walter looked towards his wife. “We can’t be that choosy, we need those boys.”

Shelby nodded and looked back towards the kitchen. “I hope John was right in bringing them here.”