When I pulled up to our little blue house the lights was still on. I turned into the driveway but didn’t get out, ’cause I couldn’t get out. The thought of being cussed out again was making my teeth grind all by theyself. I couldn’t lift my hand up to open that door to save my life. Next thang I know I heard my name, “Cecil!” She yelling it. I’m hoping the neighbors don’t wake up. I’m already embarrassed. Why she have to be so loud? “Cecil!” I rolled the window down. “Yeah,” I mumbled. “Why you sitting out there in the car like that?” I didn’t know how to tell her the truth, so I didn’t say nothing. “How much did you lose this time?” I didn’t say nothing. I wanted to tell her that tonight I got lucky—I got over four thousand dollars in my pocket, and you can have it to do something to the house. “What’s her name? Did you take a shower before you left?” I just looked at her, standing under the porch light, her hair looking like a silver blaze, and the silhouette of her big hips blocked some of the light trying to get through her nightgown. Viola was so mad she bent down and picked up a flowerpot and threw it toward the car, then she put her hands on those hips and I saw ’em swivel back and forth and saw her mouth moving a mile a minute and that’s when I felt my right hand push that gear shift in reverse and, looking straight ahead, I backed out the driveway real slow. When I got out in the street I rolled up all the windows and just looked at her. Viola looked like a statue. Frozen. All except for her head following me. But I didn’t care one way or the other what she felt. I turned on the air conditioner and then pushed “play” on my cassette. B. B. King helped me step on the gas and drive. I didn’t know where I was going and I didn’t have no place to go. I drove up and down the Strip until the brightest lights was coming from the sun.

I’m through with Viola.

Which is why I’m over there with Brenda and her kids. She used to come in the Shack all the time, mostly around the first and fifteenth. I realize now how much I looked forward to seeing her. I got a rise out of her on more than one occasion. Nice to know you can still get excited standing up. Brenda ain’t no beauty queen, but she can be pretty good-looking on a good day. She’s very clean. Always smell good. She got the longest fingernails I ever seen on any woman. With little designs on ’em. When me and Viola broke up, Brenda was so nice and sweet to me that one thang led to another. She always did flirt with me. She said she found me attractive, but I am attractive. I’m blacker than Evander Holyfield. We could be cousins. If you looked at me real hard and long and pretended like I’m thirty, you might could see some resemblance. But maybe not. I ain’t no big man, but I ain’t short neither. I used to be five eleven, but they say you shrink as you age. Viola got a little Amazon in her, ’cause she just a inch or two shorter than me which is why she stayed on me about my posture so I could look taller than her. Even now, I can be anywhere and I bolt right up. Even though I don’t wanna thank about Viola right now, she always find her way into my head, and I been standing out here in this rain like a damn fool for I don’t know how long trying to get the nerve to go back up in that hospital room and get my keys. I’ma have pneumonia in a minute. Might need a bed myself. But I need another minute or two. To drum up some courage. What I’ma say this time.