“You like it, huh?” The nigger grinned and reached around to slap Denny’s pants.

Denny grunted, turned to him. “Yeah, I like it, you black … Go on, Nigg; yeah …”

Nigg swung again and bopped away, chuckling.

“Here’s your money.” Hogg held it out.

Denny, swaying, reached for it. “Hey, Dago?” His voice sounded dry. “Dago, when you … you got that ring you have, did your dick get infected?”

“Goddamn,” the wop said. “Mine is just a piece of brass wire—this guy I know put it in for me; it was sterilized and … you know, everything. He soldered it closed and all, but he used anesthetic and … well, he’d done it for a lot of guys before and he knew what he was doin’…” Dago looked worried.

“I mean it’s all right,” Denny said. A bill fell from the clutch of bills he held. “It’s all right.” He shoved the rest into the shirt pocket that wasn’t torn; he looked at the bill that had fallen to the gravel, but he didn’t pick it up.

The wop did. “Here you go.”

“Thanks.…” Denny pushed the last bill in after the others. He looked pretty unsteady.

“Hey, boy …” the nigger said, and swung.

Denny winced again, with his funny smile.

“This is yours.” Hogg handed the wop his money. “Cocksucker, I’m gonna keep yours, ’cause a kid your age wouldn’t know what to do with this kind of bread—” He didn’t even look at me or grin when he said that. “Hey, nigger …?”

The nigger nodded, took his pay, and started to count. In the middle, he suddenly dropped his hand to get in a swing. “You like that …?”

Denny laughed, with short, shallow breaths.

Nigg’s bare feet were wide on the gravel. He held the money up near his chin and finished counting. “I guess it’s all—yeah—here.” With two fingers, he jabbed the bills into his shirt. The money bulged bigger than a cigarette pack. Nigg swung his hand again: “Hey, how about that one …?”

Denny staggered.

“Goddamn, nigger,” the wop said. “Let him alone, will you?”

“He likes it,” the nigger said. “Look at the motherfucker grin. He likes it.”

“I know he likes it,” the wop said, pushing his hand back through his hair. “Now leave him alone.”

“It’s all right,” Denny repeated. “Everything … it’s all right.”

“Get on up in the truck,” Hogg said. “I’ll run you guys back to the bar.”

“Man,” the nigger said, “now I can get drunk on my own bread. They may even be happy to see me!”

“Wonder if my old lady gonna be waitin’?” the wop said. He rubbed the blackened front of his jumpsuit, squeezed it; it squeezed more like stiff paper than cloth.

“Come on,” Hogg said, “get on up. Stop standin’ around playin’ with yourselves,” which nobody, not even Denny, was doing.

We climbed back in.