JUST FOR ONE DAY
          
     Found myself in the airport the other day, seeing off a friend
who's attending film school at USC.  Hate airports.  Hate planes. 
Would only fly to up my purity test score.  Only sensible thing to
do in an airport is drink.  
    From inside one of the bars there, washing down Darvocets with
Jack and Coke, we saw a young girl of maybe eight or nine stand up
on her tippy toes and put two quarters into a candy machine.  She
thought about it awhile, then carefully pressed the button for a
pack of Now & Laters(cherry).  But it was one of those machines
where the candy is separated by what looks like a long Slinky,
which, as it turns, pushes the candy forward.  Well, the girl
apparently picked a bum row, because we saw the candy rotate itself
to the front, then stop, hesitate there, but refuse to fall.  She
ran back to her dad who, grumbling, gave her two more quarters. 
She was still naive in the ways of candy machines and must have
thought the first row unlucky because we saw her stand up, put in
her quarters, and press the button for a completely different row
of Now & Laters(all grape).  It just wasn't this kid's day because
the candy again rotated ever-so-close but still wouldn't fall.  She
stared at it, incredulous, and pressed her face to the glass.  Once
more she ran back to her father.
     "That's it for her, ain't it?" said the film student, emptying
her shot.
     "Sure looks that way."  We saw her father shake his head no
and the girl dissolved into tears.  Even in the bar we could hear
him mutter something to his wife like "Kid's gotta learn the value
of money--"
     "Shit," said my friend.  "What a dick that guy is. That candy
would fall if he just sneezed at the machine."  
     The film friend and I looked at each other.  She said, "We
really shouldn't, you know." 
     "I know.  Let's go."
     "I hate you I hate you," said the girl to her father, and she
pounded her fists against him.  
     We fed a dollar into the machine and pressed the buttons for
one row of Now & Laters.  Two fell.  We fed the change from that
one back in and got two more Now & Laters.  
     "Here," we said and gave the girl three of them.  We were
rewarded with huge hugs.
     We tossed the last pack to the girl's mother.  She deftly
snatched it out of the air and we headed to my friend's gate,
leaving the fuming father in our wake.