Slice of Heaven

by Dot Hearn

Billy Jo reached into his brown paper lunch sack and pulled out the expected unidentifiable sandwich in a pleated baggie. He sat down on the metal beam, dangling his legs over the edge, and balanced the sandwich on his left knee. He peered into the mouth of the bag to see what else Doris had managed to scrape together: a too purple Red Delicious apple, a bag of Granny Goose potato chips, a can of Select cola, and a pair of her godawful oatmeal raisin cookies. Billy Jo removed the soda and dropped the sack between the beams, where it would join the unwanted remains of previous lunches and piles of construction debris. With the first bite of sandwich his gaze moved from the cars and cabs and buses below to the sumptuous feast in his hand: braunschweiger with stone ground mustard, red onion, and butter lettuce winked back at him. Without looking he knew Doris had found the ten dollar bill hidden in the lining of his wallet and with the second bite, he didn’t care.

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Dot Hearn is a practitioner and teacher of writing, theater, and sign language interpreting. Her passions are creativity of all kinds, which is why she also dabbles in paint and pottery and collage and crayon. She is exploring the intersections of various art forms and the processes of writing on her blog, The Writing Vein. She will soon be launching the expanded version in a full fledged website of the same name.