"You'd have to talk to Bernie, my supervisor. His office is just down the hall," Fitz said and turned around.

"Where are you going?" the kid called after him. "You said you worked here."

There was a cracked ceiling tile in a conference room down the hall and Fitz was anxious to get there and replace the sheetrock. With his hand still on the mop cart, he regarded the kid's pupils, opaque with ire at the unruly snack machine.

"These food boxes are serviced by an outside company," Fitz said, his hands still on the handle bar. "Maybe if you come back I can get you the information."

"I do not have time to deal with anyone outside," he announced each word, slowly, as if certain that Fitz could not understand him if spoken to any faster.

"Look," Fitz fought a twitch. "You can speak to my boss. His name is Bernie Seltzer. He is the one who runs maintenance. Maybe you've seen him around. Little bald guy, about fifty? He is a nice guy. He'll sort this out for you."

"This thing here keeps taking my money," the kid's voice grew stiffer. "I want it fixed. Can't you just fix it?"

Fitz considered the question and said, "I can fix anything."

"Then why don't you?" the boy spread his arms. "Just grab some tools and do it. It's your job, isn't it? Maintenance?"

Damaged sheetrock was all that stood between Fitz and the rest of the afternoon spent cleaning Dodge Hall toilets. And now all that stood between him and the sheetrock was a broken vending box and this student, his face a gnawing déjà vu. With no memory of their own, his mousy features, the muddy pestilence of his eyes were like a ceaseless, impudent poke into Fitz's shoulder blade—another hopeless leap of history prodding and lurking at the edges of his vision. He let go of the cart. "Say, do I know you from somewhere?"

"Yeah," the boy said and Fitz felt his heart hit the wall of his chest. "I saw you on the steps of the library. It was you, wasn't it, sitting around doing nothing?"

Relieved, Fitz let some air out of his lungs, "Look, these machines are not school property. I can't get inside them. I am not allowed."

"I understand," the boy said. "Except I don't care. I pay fifty thousand a year in tuition. So when I feel like a Coke or a snack, I expect to put money into that little slot," he pointed to the box. "Push the green button over there and get what I paid for. And for fifty thousand I do not feel like going hungry or thirsty. And I especially do not feel like getting robbed."

"I'm not robbing you," Fitz said, his patience fading along with the image of clean, white drywall in the conference room. "But I can't give you your money back. Not like this."

"You're not a student here, are you?" the kid asked more as a statement than a question.

"No."

The boy smirked and smacked his mouth. And while Fitz knew this was meant as an insult, the anger that grew inside him felt lazy and slow, as if fighting its way up from the bottom of a deep, murky swamp. They both stood amid the passing current of young students, awash in their soft chromatic hum—future artists, healers, judges and teachers passing each other down the halls with a pep of new knowledge in their stride. Some walked in clusters, some in pairs, chatting and whispering, happily entranced with