Take What You Need

On the corner before the platform a white refrigerator stands under a fig tree, with a solar panel zip-tied to the lowest limb and the cable run down the trunk. It hums low. The door seals are cut from garden hose. Its name is painted across the top in paint pen, LORO, over three older names that still show through.

A sticker by the handle says: Take what you need, then tell me how to help tomorrow.

Inside are stacked tortillas and a carton of eggs in a woven sleeve so they do not slide.

Tomorrow is on the outside of the door, in marker, in a dozen hands. Rice. Hot sauce, any. A ride to the clinic Friday, nine. Someone who can lift. Eggs (we have eggs). A dog sitter. And lower, in a hand that leans: Someone at the ice house to watch the machine make ice.

Under that, tally marks in pencil, in fives, one for each night someone has done it. The pencil hangs on a string, worn down to the length of a match. You do not add one.

The clock over the platform says 5:05 p.m. The 5:07 is in, doors open.