the bell ringer

He stands and rings the bell, outside the store where America shops. It’s cold, almost brutally windy, and he knows, now, that he should have dressed warmer, but it’s too late, so he simply hugs his chest with his free arm, best he can. He didn’t have much else much warmer, anyway. Maybe the old Jets sweatshirt, but that was green and he was supposed to dress in red or dark blue and he liked to follow the rules. It would be all right. He’d been colder, after all. The night the electricity’d been shut off, for one. Two years ago. Christmas night. Longest night he could remember, other than the time overseas, in 2002, with the army, in the mountains of Afghanistan, when Sammy Doune died. That other night, too, maybe last year, right? When they ran out of heating oil. That was maybe colder than both. But he decided not to think about it, about any of those, or about how cold it was, now, how chilled he could become. Maybe that would help. Instead, he just tapped his feet and rang the bell. Don’t think, just ring the bell, he told himself. People passed. Not much business. A woman who looked a little like his grandmother offered him a cup of hot chocolate. He took it, thanked her, mostly with his eyes, and kept on ringing the bell. It was, after all, his job. He had, after all, volunteered to do it. So, he did. His name was Larue, Joaquin Larue.