A cup of instant coffee’ll make these three Tylenols work faster. Early morning is tough, when I get out the bed and my feet and ankles hurt so bad I can’t even think about putting no weight on ’em. This morning wasn’t quite as bad, but by this afternoon, if I don’t take something again, I could be mistaken for cripple. Sometimes I can’t even move my fingers to hold my cigarette. Like right now, some of ’em are swollen and curving out toward my baby fingers. And in a little while, these knots in my wrists and elbows’ll be on fire, daring me to try to straighten ’em all the way out. I don’t want my son to see me in this much pain. I don’t want him feeling sorry for me, because I don’t want his pity.

“Hey, Jamil,” I say kinda loud. “Wake up. Let’s go get some breakfast, and then I’m taking you home. I want to talk to Todd.”

His head pops up over the back of the couch. He slept in that baseball cap. “I don’t like breakfast,” he says.

“Well, I do. My stomach gets all messed up if I don’t eat. Plus, breakfast is for champions, didn’t you know that?”

He grins. The boy’s got dimples. Me or his mama don’t have ’em, that much I remember. Come to think of it, I don’t know what it’ll be like to see Donnetta after all this time. Right now, I ain’t got no butterflies in my stomach except for the mere fact that she might bring up the child-support issue, but I got a court date for that and, plus, I’ll show her my hands. Maybe then she’ll see why I ain’t been working.

While Jamil takes his shower, I smoke another cigarette and try to think of what I’ma say to Todd. I’ma be a man about this. I ain’t going out there to make a fool outta myself or do nothing stupid, but I want him to know—from one man to another—that you don’t put your hands on somebody else’s child. That’s it. I’ll let him know that if he ever touches him again there’ll be consequences. I ain’t never hit Jamil. Even when he was bad, I just talked to him. Jamil was hardheaded, couldn’t stand sitting in one spot for more than five minutes, so I’d make him sit for ten, then fifteen, then a half-hour. By the time Donnetta filed for divorce, he was up to two hours.

“I’m ready,” he says. “You need to get some new towels, Dad. Yours smell like mildew.”

“I know. All things in time. Let’s go.”

“How are we getting there?”

“My car’s running.”

“Cool,” he says. “Where are we gonna eat?”

“Coco’s or IHOP, which would you prefer?”

“I really don’t care.”

“IHOP is my favorite. My treat,” I say.

“Cool.”

If my back was turned, I’d swear this boy was white.

Jamil is busy changing radio stations when I get out to the car. He don’t say a word about the smoke coming out of the muffler, or how old and raggedy this piece of shit is, and I don’t say nothing either. I’m grateful to have transportation, even if it is twelve years old and hard to find parts for. This burgundy Riviera gets me around town when I take care of it. It’s a gas guzzler, but, I bought it off this Mexican for two hundred dollars, so I wasn’t all that particular about what other colors it came in. And, plus, I ain’t into cars that much. Not like when I was young. I just want something that can get me where I’m going. But, hell, if I ever hit the lottery, the first thing I’d do after paying all my bills is get myself a brand-new truck.