Henry inhales through his teeth. Got to hold firm. Can’t sway the slightest. If it weren’t for that damn service charge, the boy could stay, but now there’s no way. He can’t pull up looking for a half day’s work with a kid in tow—no. His answer is final, his head already shaking, reiterating. He exhales. “Get out. Go. Don’t you make me say it again.”

“This is crazy!” Junior says. “What is wrong with you? I’m sick. I can’t. You can’t make me—”

“Enough!” He punches the steering wheel. The honk startles a cluster of children and sends them skittering inside, where Junior belongs, too.

“You are going to toughen up and get your ass in there this very minute.”

Not a budge, but a peep. A mutter. A grumbling from behind the hood. Henry isn’t sure, but this little shit better not have said what Henry thinks he did.

“What’d you say?” he hisses.

“Mom would never do this to me.”

In a flash Henry is out and on the other side of the truck, ripping open the passenger door and shaking the boy by the shoulders. He shoves the hood down and screams, demanding the boy look at him—now, goddamnit.

“You look at me when I talk to you, ah.”

The boy does as he’s told. His eyes lift, cloudy with hate or fear or defeat—whatever. Henry doesn’t care.

“Do you see your mother here? Or anywhere? Have you even heard from that bitch since she, since she—no. Not once, not ever. But tell me. Tell me who is here, huh?”

The boy sneers but caves. “You.”

“And what’s my name?”

The boy squints. “What?”

“What is my name?”

“… Pa?”

“You’re goddamn right.” He digs into his pocket, counts out four singles for lunch. “And you see this?”

The boy doesn’t respond, so Henry repeats the question, this time bellowed.

“I see it, I see it.”

“Sometimes a man has to do things he doesn’t want to, and today it’s your turn. Today it’s your turn to man up and show Pa and everybody else just how tough you are, got it?”

Tears have begun branching down the boy’s flushed cheeks.

“I asked you a question,” Henry says. “Now tell me: you got it?”

“Pa,” Junior whispers. “Please.”

He’s fucking had it. He crams the cash into Junior’s hands, then wrenches the boy out by his armpits. Junior’s knees buckle when shoes meet pavement, but the boy manages to stay standing, head dipped and chin nestled in the hood’s fluff. Henry stomps his way back to the driver’s side. It doesn’t feel finished, though, doesn’t feel right, and so over the truck bed, he points at his son. “Do the right thing, ah. Make me proud.”

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