[The place was small. Lot of people living inside who didn't much care about their living overlapping one another. There were beds, but they switched out between the people awake and off working and the people who were sleeping. There was a kitchen, layered dirt and mismatched plates but Jake had enough of kitchens on account of work, and he ate good there instead of here. There was a tiny scrap of yard out back, surrounded by real high stone walls, and candles crammed in empty glass jars and that just about sold Jake on it. That garden, that was enough. It was cheaper here, than the other place. And cheaper meant maybe putting some money away for art supplies. He didn't have a scrap, just the ballpoint pen and the journal, and the idea of sketching in that was troublesome after all that awkward: he didn't know if the angry man would go on telling his aunt about the drawing. But there was only so long he could go without: it was like a river stopped up real long, now unstopped.
He was wearing work clothes clean as he could get them in the little laundry room: cheap white shirt and cheap black pants, a little shiny on account of being washed real often. His hair was damp from the snatched shower, and moment he got out front, he could hear aunt Clem, clear as day.]
You waiting for someone else? [All innocence, and big grin.]