4

Part 4

Lunch at Winslow typically went one of three ways. You ate in the cafeteria, you grabbed some inexpensive imitation food from said cafeteria and moved somewhere else, or you went to one of the many cheap and easy food distributing eateries that were open around the prime feeding ground that is a open highschool.

Considering the make up of Winslow, the going out for lunch issue could be... tricky. I mean I loved Colonel Chang's deep fried chickenballs as much as the next guy, but a freckle faced redheaded white kid walking into that place? Hahaha, no thank you. I would rather like to skip on the side order of lead that invited.

...okay that was probably going a bit far. I wasn't Empire or anything so they'd probably just rough me up. Actually even that wouldn't be supremely likely. But it was a restaurant with a bright golden dragon in its logo. You did not walk into a place like that looking like I did. Not unless you wanted trouble.

Likewise the fact that I was not Empire meant that the Subway down the street would be distinctly uncomfortable for me to stay at. I mean yeah odds are I'd just get some very 'friendly' smile and some polite nudging, but I could also get some much less friendly ones.

There were still options. The valuemart only a quarter block away had pizza slices on cheap.

Of course all of that was redundant to me because you needed to be a senior to leave campus for lunch, so I was stuck with options one and two. Or bringing stuff I guess. As things were, I'd risk the Caf's imitation food.

So I walked down, reached my locker, ran the combo through the cheap dollar store lock, dumped my stuff in and headed for said eatery.

There at least the tensions ran mostly on the posture level. A few harsh words thrown here and there, but outside of a modest divide of certain tables being 'claimed', there wasn't a problem.

Actually according to my new memories even that wasn't that weird. It was just that there was also a table full of skinheads alongside a table full of jocks, preps, stoners, etc.

I wasn't even exempt from that.

After waiting in line for ten minutes, grabbing a cheese burger in ten seconds, loading a plate up with caesar salad in slightly more than that, grabbing a coke and paying for the lot of it. I finally made my way down to my personal 'retinue' in the sparsely crowded mess.

Don't get me wrong, I wasn't a prep, or a member of the track team or anything. Though actually that last might be a good idea to look into if I was seriously going to do the hero thing.

Nah I just had some friends I played cards with over lunch.

"Lisa, Clair," I grinned at my fellow vicious and merciless cardsharks. Glancing around as I slid over, "Looking lovely as ever, where's Bel?"

"Home sick. Think she got the flu," Lisa explained. She was a nice girl. Utterly ruthless card player, but surprisingly kind for a Hispanic girl trying to get buy in a city full of Neo Nazi's and Asian supremacists. I had no idea how she managed to walk in with a smile every day, but she did, and that made the world a little brighter in my opinion.

"Sucks," I grimaced sitting down.

Clair promptly stole a bit of my salad, "No fries?"

My eye twitched, "Why no, I like being able to eat most of my lunch rather than have it mysteriously disappear on me."

Clair shot me a mock-hurt expression on the border of full blown crocodile tears, "That hurts Dwight! Such allegations! Where is the love? Where is the trust?"

"Missing with most of my lunch money," I replied bluntly. "We playing asshole or poker? Three person game is pretty tight either way," I replied picking up my burger and biting into the salty savory taste of well masked newspaper.

Delicious.

Yeah, the cafeteria food sucked, what else was new? It wasn't like I or Todd had much cooking talent between us though so what else was I going to do? Bring peanut butter sandwiches?

"Asshole," Lisa decided on the spot.

I grimmanced, "With three players?"

"Prez, Citizen, and Asshole," she listed off.

"I'm down with either," Clair responded, ever the neutral voice as she stole one of Lisa's fries.

I never got why she did that. It wasn't like she was wanting for food either. Half the time we ordered out, she was the one treating, she just liked to steal people's food. It was a thing that she did.

Lisa looked at me eyebrow raised, "You really want to go with poker?"

I weighted my options, I could make a push for it. She'd let me, but I could also tell just what game she actually wanted to play.

I sighed, "Fine, asshole it is," I consented, then pointed at her, "But you're dealing."

Then I leaned back and prepared to get my head handed to me.