"Yeah, I jus' wanna walk a while."

"You want me to walk with you?"

"Nah, I wanna be alone for a while. I'll go home soon."

Tommy hesitated. "Call me when you get home, yeah?" Chubby hugged his brother. "Go home, Tom."

"You call me."

"Yeah, I'll call you. Thanks for comin' down, babe."

Tommy walked to his car, looking over his shoulder at Chubby. Chubby stood there with his hands in his pockets until Tommy drove away, then started walking down Eighth Avenue. He thought of trying some pussy again, but he was too scared. The Scotch was starting to make him spin a little. He kept thinking of his father, gaunt and wasted. He thought of pee stains in his underwear, helpless. The wheeze crept back into his lungs. He leaned against a parked car. He needed to sit. He went into a topless bar and sat staring at his drink for half an hour, oblivious to the fishnet and pasties dancing above his head. Sooky was a woman. The only real woman he'd ever known.

"I ain't sorry for nothin!" Chubby declared to the barmaid.

"O.K., then," she said unimpressed, taking his money and ringing it up.

He started weaving in his seat. "She was a real woman. You ain't shit!" She gave a little nod to a big Puerto Rican in a double-knit suit who came up behind Chubby. "You jus' a whore." He gestured at the dancers. "You all jus' fuckin' whores. You—" Chubby felt himself lifted off his seat and shoved out onto the street before he could finish his sentence.

He stood bewildered in the middle of Eighth Avenue looking around for his drink.

***

Summer night Forty-second Street was luminous black and slick wet. Strange and dangerous. Chubby walked past the gaudy neon, weaving through multicolored crowds, his lime green shirt open to the waist. Cardboard blowups of tits and fists wrapped around his head like a red band. In Chubby's rageful dream state he could only see blurred colors. Voices came from far away like he was dozing at the beach. The subway—go home.

"Blood, you got twenny-fi' cent?"

Chubby turned from the head of the subway stairs. A tall, young spade in a bright plaid shirt stood behind him, hands in pockets.

Chubby scowled.

"What you lookin' at, sucker?" Chubby turned to go down the steps. "Fat mothafucker."

Chubby stopped, took a deep breath. Mumbled something to himself. Turned again. He kept his head low, chest-level. The young spade's shirt was box plaid. Big boxes. Yellow-red-orange-green. Chubby hesitated until the kid's hands came out of his pockets empty. Then he zeroed in on a red square over the heart. Two quick strides, fingers closed around a chicken neck. Chubby slammed him twice in the same spot, lifting him off the ground both times. The kid grunted, dazed, finding himself on the pavement. Shouts. A crowd forming. Chubby swung around to face the crowd, they stepped back in unison. Chubby laughed. Taxis flew by in the street. Yellow blurs. Bruce Lee devastated a cardboard enemy across the way. Chubby lifted the kid with one hand, thumb digging into the soft flesh under the chin. The kid's eyes wild, teeth bared clenched, hissing in pain. Chubby carried him three steps to a parked Cadillac, sat him down on the hood, the crowd closing in. Laughing. Chubby held out a nickel.