“I’ve made my choice, Sam,” she had written. “I had to choose between what I wanted and what I could get… — Richard Wilson

I folded the paper and wriggled around in the seat. Buses are like candy bars, I thought. The price goes up and the size goes down. Each new bus seem to have less leg room and a lower headrest that its predecessor, so that you had to be a contortionist to take a nap.

“What do you think of it, old man?”

I thought very little of it but I pretended to turn it over in my mind. “It’s got class,” I said finally. To myself I thought, with a capital K.

“‘Morning, Sam,” the coffee boy said. “How about some coffee?”

“‘Morning, Herb,” I said. “That’s the first intelligent remark I’ve heard in some time.”