let the heavy, hot spray cascade over him for a long time.

Finally, he turned off the water and toweled off. The other men had departed. Waller went to his locker and unlocked it. He applied the deodorant and combed his short hair. He dressed in the clean set of clothes. He circled the money belt around his lean waist and pulled the blue shirt over it. He retrieved his pack and sleeping bag. He locked the locker. He would return in a few days. The attendant sitting behind a counter nodded at Waller as he left the area. Waller ignored the man.

It was much warmer when Waller left the YMCA and headed toward a small diner on the next block. He had eaten breakfast there every day forspikes into the crossties.

"Snowflake, you can't sing worth shit," laughed Bolden.

"You're right," Waller said laughing.

After the first month, Waller noticed that he was able to make it through the hot days much easier. He could tell that he was adding heavy muscle to his shoulders, chest and back. His arms were hard and embedded with veins and sinew. The Negroes included Waller in their stories and jokes. Toward the end of his time on the section gang, he was one hundred eighty pounds of hard muscle. He could work all day in the hot, humid air of Memphis without breathing hard.

As August loomed, Waller noticed a new waitress on the early shift. She was much younger than the others and was very pretty. Waller began to sit in