“Didn’t think so,” Jake said. He turned and took Geri’s arm and pushed her toward the door.

“We need to turn him on his side,” Nancy said. Her voice was unhappy and shaky with nervousness. “If he’s passed out drunk and he vomits, he could choke on it.”

“Not our problem,” Jake said.

Geri said, “Nan, I bet he’s passed out this way a thousand times. If he hasn’t died yet, he probably won’t die tonight.”

“Paul!” Nancy cried, sounding almost hysterical. “Please!”

My insides were knotted up, and I felt as jittery as if I had chugged a pot of coffee. I wanted to leave more than anything and can’t explain why I reached for the operator’s wrist instead, to search for his pulse.

“He’s not dead, asshole,” Jake said, but he waited nonetheless.

The operator’s pulse was there—raggedy and irregular but measurable. Close up he smelled bad, and not just of urine and booze. There was a cloying odor of caked, rotten blood.

“Paul,” Nancy said. “Put him on his bed. On his side.”

“Don’t do it,” Jake said.

I didn’t want to, but I didn’t think I could live with myself if I found myself reading his obituary in the weekend paper, not after we jacked him for forty bucks. I put my arms under his legs and behind his back and lifted him out of his chair.

I lumbered unsteadily to the camp cot and set him on it. A dark stain soaked the crotch of his green velvet pants, and the smell aggravated my already twitchy stomach. I rolled him onto his side and put a pillow under his head, the way you’re supposed to, so if he threw up, it wouldn’t go back down his windpipe. He snorted but didn’t look around. I circled the room, pulled the cord hanging from the ceiling to switch off the light. On the radio, the Gypsy was telling Pat Boone’s fortune. It wasn’t good.

I thought we were done, but when I came out, I found Geri getting her own revenge. She’d helped herself to the operator’s pocketknife, and she was carving a message into Judy Garland’s horse: FUCK YOU. It wasn’t poetry, but it made a point.

On the walk back to the boardwalk, Jake tried to hand the forty dollars to Nancy, but she wouldn’t accept it. She was too angry with him. He stuck the bills in her pocket, and she took the twenties out and threw them on the pier. Jake had to chase them down before the wind could snatch them away and cast them to the darkness.