"What?"

"I dunno." Stony pushed away from the counter, shoved his hands into his back pockets and paced the floor. "I finished up today, so now I can go back to the hospital, right? And I can do it too, you know? It's completely on me."

"So what's the problem?" Butler set the bottle under the counter.

Stony reached over and retrieved it. "I was thinkin' about you this week, takin' over the store, what you said to me on the phone, you know, if I work with my family, like, so what? You know? I mean, shit, Butler, they're such a heavy number on my head, you know, like I love them, I don't wanna hurt them, or anything, ah, I dunno what the fuck to do. I don't wanna be a fuckin' construction worker but then I think, what's the dif? A job's a job, right? I mean, it's only what you do for bucks, right? What the fuck do I know about hospitals? I mean, who the fuck do I think I am, Albert Schweitzer? I go to the hospital to help people an' I kill my family."

"You ain't killin' anybody, an' gimme the fuckin' bottle. I don't wanna hold your head over the bowl all night."

Stony didn't resist. "I talked to that cat Harris, remember him? He knows... he knows what's goin' down. I was all gung-ho with the hospital, the this, the that. You know what he said to me? Here I think the cat's gonna be all hurrahs and back slaps, he says to me, 'I hope you're strong enough.' I figure, 'Fuck him, what's that, code?' Strong enough for what? An' now I know, I really know. He said to me leaving home is the hardest thing in the world. I said, 'Who's leavin' home?' The fuckin' construction site's farther away than the goddamn hospital." Stony rubbed his mouth and nodded solemnly. "He's right though, Butler, he's right. I do that hospital gig an' I'm on my way out. Gettin' that gig is like gettin' a divorce from them, you know? Really, it's like a split wit' that whole head set. There's no way they could ever understand or dig what I'm into. We'd have too many fuckin' fights. I'd have to get my own crib, you know?"

"So?"

"So first I get my own crib. I go over for dinner a few times a week, and we'd fight at dinner, 'cause all the daily fights I would be havin' if I was still livin' there would all get stored up for the times I would visit, so then I'd start comin' over less an' less, an' the fights would get more concentrated, you follow? Finally, I'd stop goin' over there all together."

"How do you know?"

"I know, I know."

"So, you're not gonna do the hospital, right?"

"No, no. I'm gonna do it, these are just the things runnin' through my head."

"Uh-huh, what else is runnin' through yah head?"