Later, I came off Hawk (who always needed it three or four times) to see Mr. Alvarez beside us, his balls hanging from his fly. His pants were wet down one inside leg.

“Hey.” Hawk reached down drunkenly and shook my shoulder. “Go on and blow him, cocksucker.” (Rat had gone off to squat by the guys back on Maria, now that Mr. Alvarez had finished.) “Let’s see you suck on Pops awhile.”

I put my hands on Mr. Alvarez’s hips and ran my nose against his balls. I could smell Maria’s pussy. Mr. Alvarez fumbled his cock into my mouth. He swayed unsteadily, but when I pulled back and pushed forward, he got hard right away.

“Goddamn—!” Ape came up between Hawk and Mr. Alvarez. “Well I’ll be goddamned!” He grinned around a mouth full of small, stained teeth. He was very tall—about two and a half heads taller than Mr. Alvarez. Ape’s nose had been messed up recently in a ’cycle accident: a scab still ran off it onto his cheek, with two parallel lines of stitch marks. “What you guys into with this shit over here in the corner, huh?” He was unsteady as Mr. Alvarez and kept rubbing his chin with the back of his hand, in a double punching motion. His hair was the color of wet sand. His beard stubble was red. “You guys are too fuckin’ much, you know?” Ape laughed; his laugh started as high as Maria’s, then trundled down to shake behind his flat, bald belly. “Oh, man—” He sucked his teeth. “I’m just about drunk enough to try some of this shit myself.…” He put both hands between his legs, bent his knees, howled out, “Whooo-peeeee!” and staggered against Mr. Alvarez, who didn’t really notice. “Oh, hey: sorry, Pops! Hey, I’m really sorry.…” Ape patted Mr. Alvarez’s arm—Ape wore a lot of rings—then looked down where I was still working out. “Oh, shit … Hey, Monk?” Over his shoulder, Ape bawled back: “Hey, Monk! You gotta get over here and watch this—I think I’m gonna fuck this cocksucker!” He slid his hands back down to his crotch.

Only two of the big rings were gold. He wore three and four smaller ones on some fingers; two thick ones with turquoise; and some, plain silver. Most were just twists of iron, though. He had one big one with a chunk of what looked like red marble in it the size of a quarter, on his thumb. His hands were grit-gray. His knuckles were like walnuts grooved with grime. His nails were ringed with it—the one on his forefinger, smashed in the accident, was half black. “Monk …! Monk? There you go … look. You gotta watch this, man. I’m gonna show these motherfuckers how it’s done!” He worked his hands between his legs. His fly was still open from when he’d been with Maria. I could see part of his cock inside and the hair around it, like a frayed length of dock rope, with the two, big crusted warts back near the base. (I’d seen them before, once, when Maria blew him; the biggest in the Phantoms—well, Chico’s was thicker—maybe it had something to do with why he was president.) Ape leaned over again to look. “Pops is just about to do it, huh?”