Once the beatings stopped Saul Steadholder put the fingers of his free hand into his mouth and checked the damage. One tooth, a back one, was broken. He fished the shrapnel out of his inner cheek and looked at it, uncaring. His left arm hurting like hell, he carefully put the crown into his pants’ pocket. Perhaps a dentist could do something with it. His jaw felt broken. He tried to whisper a word.

“Julia.” He said quietly.
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Jim Chow’s ancient station wagon lumbered down the road just as it had done innumerable times before. The windows were down. Jim enjoyed the breeze created as he drove along. Little scraps of paper and debris were caught in miniature, invisible eddies inside the vehicle, dancing. While the air was not cool, even at this near dawn hour, it was not stifling either. Soon it would be. The heat no longer sneaked up, gradually appearing like the smile of the Cheshire cat. These days it advanced loudly, an approaching army. Most motorists simply left their windows up all the time, slaves to the air conditioning.
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“Everyone’s got a tough childhood.” Big Mack said behind his beer. “Mama didn’t hug me enough. Uncle Chester touched my wee-wee. I didn’t feel valley-dated.”
He paused to take a mammoth swig.
Whatthefuckevah.” he scoffed.
I nodded. I didn’t do much talking around Big Mack. Talking could lead to misinterpretation. Misinterpretation could lead to broken body parts. Being as I liked the shape and position of all my appendages just fine, Iwe rarely spoke. Or more honestly, I rarely spoke. But I did a lot of listening. I had never even worked up the courage to ask Big Mack why he was called Big Mack. Was it because he was a large man of Irish descent? Did he eat at McDonalds a lot? None of my business. Around guys like him, and me, questions weren’t appreciated too much. Certainly neither of us would want questions about where we’d been earlier that night, or what had happened to a certain Labor Rep who had asked the wrong group of associates for a handout.
“Me?” He asked, apparently, to his beer mug, “If I had a shit childhood it’s because I was a shit child. Never gave a fuck abouts no ones or nutthin’ or schoolin’ or shit else. Liked getting fucked up, nailing cunt. Sure, I went to St. Paddys on Sunday long wit’ da rest of ‘em.”
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