As he walked through the parking lot, a Mexican girl that looked skinny enough to pick his teeth with approached him. Hard nipples poked against her tattered t-shirt. She smiled and revealed a red streak of lipstick across her front teeth, which were the shape and color of raisins.

“Que paso, wey?” She bit her bottom lip, grabbed her crotch, and pressed her bony body against Juan. It was obvious she didn’t actually speak fluent Spanish. “I’ll suck your verga for twenty dollars.”

Juan scrunched his brow and continued walking.

“Come on, man. Ten!”

He walked up to the apartment door, placed his groceries on the ground, but paused before wrapping his fingers around the doorknob. There were voices from inside. Grunting and moaning.

The scene from the buffet flickered in his mind. The fat man biting into the woman’s leg like it was ham. The restaurant full of the people, eating mindlessly. Manuel and the rest of the staff as they stuffed themselves silly in the kitchen.

Hijo de puta.

Juan squeezed his eyes shut, said a quick, silent prayer, then swung the door inward.

A woman screamed.

Juan jumped and screamed too.

Manuel stood behind a scrawny white girl, ramming his brown cock into her with such violence, Juan was surprised the tip wasn’t coming out of her mouth. Manuel looked over at Juan as he pumped and smiled slightly. He never slowed. The girl looked shocked, like she was momentarily embarrassed, but as Manuel rammed into her, she went back to her grunts and groans. Her ribs pressed against her wan skin and track marks ran across her arms like tattoos.

Juan stood there, frozen. He didn’t know what he expected to find when he entered the apartment, and part of him was happy that Manuel was finding joy some way or another. Especially after losing his job. A job he’d held for over a year and lost on the very day Juan started.

But the look in Manuel’s eye. That same animalistic look he had earlier. The smile split his face like a flesh wound.

Juan set down the groceries, closed the door. He wanted to get the food in the refrigerator so it wouldn’t get ruined, but he couldn’t get out of that apartment fast enough. Police sirens and distant arguments crashed through the air as Juan stared out into the parking lot.

I can’t bring my family here, he thought. They deserve better. He would save enough money to get them a house, in a nice neighborhood somewhere. Where his daughter had a chance.

He walked across the parking lot again, passed the Mexican girl with the two ant bites for tits and the ten dollar boca. She squatted in front of a bush, a yellow stream trickling from between her frog-like legs. When she saw Juan, a smile stretched her face tight.

“Que paso, wey?”

Juan quickened his pace.

He went back toward the corner store where he’d picked up the groceries and phone card. A payphone erected from the concrete, inked with graffiti. An emaciated black man sat huddled behind the dumpster there, the whites of his eyes like neon lights. His body shook and he smiled as he placed the glass pipe to his lips.