Red Wheelbarrow 2008 text FINAL REVISED.indd - De Anza College

or at least shield her from the sight of his treachery, but she pushed
him away.
“I can’t believe this. All this time you’ve been lying to me.
All this time I’ve been sleeping with you your arteries have been
solidifying and your entire intestinal tract has been filled with poison
and death! Get away from me. I need a shower.”
Mark felt terrible. More than terrible, he felt weak. He really
had tried to keep his promise. But, the way he saw it was, beef jerky
is solid protein, and you need protein otherwise you’ll die, and peanut
M&Ms were practically a whole food if you really thought about
it—milk from the chocolate and, again, protein, which you’ll die
without, from the peanuts. OK, so maybe they weren’t a complete
whole food, but having two out of the four food groups in one single
M&M is pretty impressive.
Sonia was starting to lose it. Mark hated to think of her as
being hysterical because someone had told him once that “hysterical”
was a sexist word, used mostly by men to describe women, but, short
of saying she was going nuts, he couldn’t think of any other way to
put it.
She was picking up packages of M&Ms and hurling them at
him. One of them hit him on the forehead. Her strength and stamina
never ceased to amaze him.
A small trendy hybrid car pulled up and parked next to
Mark’s. A man, about 40, with a nicely trimmed beard and thinning
hair got out. He was extremely Eddie Bauer with a smattering of REI.
He smiled a greeting at them just as a bag of M&Ms went whizzing
past Mark’s ear. The man took a new duffel bag, tags still on, out of
his trunk. He was exactly the kind of guy you would expect to use
something and then return it.
“Hey, so, how’s it going?” the man said, trying to sound
casual as he walked past them.
“You promised!” Sonia pulled her arm back and lobbed a bag
of beef jerky at Mark. The man stopped in his tracks. Mark ducked
just in time. The bag landed at the man’s feet.
“Whoa – is that beef jerky?” the man asked, bending down
to pick it up. He wasn’t quite fast enough; Sonia whipped it out of
his hand before he could even straighten up.
She grabbed the man’s arm, pulled him up to a standing
position and hooked her arm through his. “Let’s go,” she said, heading
toward the trail. The man looked startled but put up no resistance. He
had never gotten this lucky so fast. He glanced quickly back over his
shoulder at Mark and shrugged. They disappeared around a bend.
Red Wheelbarrow | 87