Peter took the old man by the arm and attempted to lead him back toward the car. “Come on,” he said. “We can come back later.”

“I’m not a child,” Deschutes said, yanking his arm away. He stormed up to the women, pulling his wallet from his pocket along the way. He waved it in their faces saying, “Do your job. I’m a United States veteran.”

The women stepped away and began to shout at Deschutes. One of them went and pounded on a back door to the club, calling for somebody named Big Rick. Deschutes began throwing bills at the girls, who swatted them away while giggling.

Seconds later, a bald man with a neck like a Greek column came rushing out. “What’s going on here?” he asked.

Peter stepped up and stood between Deschutes and Big Rick. “Don’t worry, we’re leaving.”

“That’s what I thought,” Big Rick said, and waited until Deschutes and Peter were in the car before taking out his own cigarette, which he sucked down like a man who had just made love. The girls scrambled to collect the money at their feet.

In the car, Deschutes banged a fist against the dashboard. “Bunch of sluts,” he said. “What’s it matter what time the club opens? A body’s a body, whether it’s nine in the morning or ten at night.” He looked at Peter, his eyes wild with desperation. “You don’t know what it’s like— to go years without being intimate with a woman. I feel half-alive. And then this hand.” He held his left arm before his face and shook it. “It’s like God didn’t want me to be with anybody anymore. I don’t know what I did wrong. I don’t know why the rest of the world gets to love but I don’t.”

“You have a girlfriend,” Peter said. He was trying not to get angry— he was embarrassed by the scene at the club. “Why isn’t that enough? Some people don’t even have that. Some people have nobody.” Like me, he wanted to say.

“What do you know about anything? You’re just a boy. Too scared to take what you want. Just like your father—he probably could have had Slinky, but he settled for your mom. I told him he was making a mistake, that she’d get fat once she had kids. You could see it in her bone structure. Was I wrong?” He looked at Peter, as if genuinely expecting an answer.

“That’s my mother you’re talking about.”

“Exactly. You know what she looks like.” There was a moment of silence and then he said, “I’m starving all of a sudden. Let’s grab a burger. Or tacos.”

“I’m taking you home,” Peter said, and then turned up the radio as loud as he could stand it.

A memory came to him as he drove. He was young, maybe five or six, and Deschutes was over for a barbecue. His father must have been out back doing something—starting the grill or messing with the sound system—because it was just Peter’s mother and Deschutes in the kitchen, where Peter sat at the table, pulling the tops from strawberries. From where he sat, he could see his mother and Deschutes at the sink, making kebabs. One moment, the two of them were talking, laughing. The next, Deschutes’s hand was between Peter’s mother’s legs, inching up and up. She sucked in air but did not, as Peter expected, pull away from the hand. She closed her eyes, leaned against the counter.