The booze and the sight of her got him giddy, simmering, aggressive. He thought back to when she was pregnant, bent over the kitchen sink. Swelling against his inner thigh, his hard-on pressed past the seven quarters in his pocket, each ridge a caress. With one tug, her hoodie was on the floor. He pressed up to her from behind. All of her twined, tensed. He lapped at her ears and neck greedily, huffing in this new musk of her, a blend of cut grass and polyurethane. She was thinner than ever, her ribs a xylophone, her hip bones spades, but his famine overrode concern. The elastic of her shorts was loose, a worn-out rubber wavelength inviting his fingers inside. When his hand dove into her shorts, she lurched.

“Not now, Hen.”

“C’mon. Dinner can wait.”

“No.”

Henry reached. Shut off the stovetop flames. He stroked her stomach, and again groped south. “C’mon.”

“No, Hen.”

“I’m starving here.” He clawed into her panties, their threadbare cotton almost moldy to the touch. Just one yank would rip them off her. “I want—”

“I said no, motherfucker.” She snapped away, wielding the cleaver like a battle-axe. Her irises were jittering with a familiar strung-out current, though one he’d never seen coursing through her. His hard-on curled up like a frightened hedgehog, shriveling beneath the quarters in his pocket. His feet drew the rest of him back, away. Junior watched from the mattress, crouched tense as if on starting blocks, at the ready to pounce should he be called to protect his mother from Henry, the stranger.

“Easy, easy,” he said, pushing air as if warding off bonfire smoke.

“You can’t, like.” The cleaver clanked against granite. She massaged her face again. “Like, like, have your cake and eat it whenever the fuck you feel like, feel me?”

He didn’t, but fuck it. If he couldn’t have cake, then bourbon would have to do. He filled his jar, shot it, then poured a third serving to nurse. Michelle turned her back to him and resumed chopping hot dogs, her shoulders flexed and edgy. Junior glared at him, tracking his every step from the kitchen on over to the TV. Henry smacked it on, rummaged through wrappers, papers, and empty cans on the coffee table for the remote, then flopped onto the couch. The rabid mouths wheezed in unison under his abrupt weight. Michelle’s rejection and outburst had gotten him lightheaded and cold-sweaty, a feeling that seemed to match the static he found on every channel. Of course. Hunky-dory. Fine and dandy. Fuck.

“Cable’s out,” he announced.

“Really think we can afford cable?”

“Ask Al to get one of the skinnies to come hotwire this shit.”