“Miguel. And I’m hungry. You have Cocoa Puffs?”

“Naw, but we’ll get you something in a minute.”

When I walk into the bedroom, Luisa is still sleep. I want her and her son outta here as quickly as possible, but I know I need to be nice. My car ain’t running—I blew a head gasket over a month ago—and in order to go see Mama, I gotta catch a Greyhound. I know they got a 1:35 to Vegas. My only glitch is I gotta borrow the money from Luisa to catch it. I bend down to kiss her on the lips, but her breath stinks so bad from last night that I let my mouth press against her cheek instead. She kinda stirs. “Wake up, baby,” I say. “Your son wants you and I ain’t got nothing in here for him to eat.”

She struggles to sit up. Her long black hair floats over her shoulders. Her skin looks like gold. She’s a pretty woman—about twenty-something—but her body looks much older than she is. She’s built like a round square. I met her at a bar a few weeks ago. She asked me to dance, but I don’t dance, so we had a few beers and by the fifth or sixth one she asked if she could go home with me. Hell, I was relieved. I don’t like sleeping by myself if I don’t have to. My mind is too active, and no matter what kind of mood I start out in, I can think or drink myself straight into being depressed. A lot of times when I’m by myself, drunk, I cry. Sometimes I cry in front of women, too. Not on purpose. All I want is a little empathy, somebody to feel my pain, somebody to listen, to understand my disappointments, my desires—hell, my dreams. Women love men who cry, which is why I’ve cried in front of a whole lotta different ones. They feel closer to you after you let ’em see you like this. But it ain’t no act I’m putting on. It ain’t no performance, and most of the time I don’t want nothing except their undivided attention, or maybe some pussy to finish off the evening.

I won’t lie. I miss being married. I miss being a father. I miss my son. And I wish I had more than one. I know it’s been almost a year since I seen him. And I can’t blame nobody but myself for not going out there, but I can’t stand the sight of Donnetta these days. It’s true I was a little drunk the last time I went out there and I did cuss her out in front of Jamil, but that’s only ’cause she wouldn’t let me in since I forgot to call first, and she sent Chuckaluck—her big brother who makes my six-one ass look like a dwarf—to the door and I did not feel like fucking with him. But I was still fuming, so I broke the windshield outta her car, and she went and got that restraining order and I ain’t been back since.