“Yeah.…” Hawk prodded a knuckle at where Mr. Alvarez’s wet brown shaft slid in my mouth. Mr. Alvarez held my head, swaying in, and in, and in. With a hoarse, soft growl, he pumped his scum in four spurts, then (and by this I knew he was father of his son) filled my mouth with whiskey pee.

“Okay, motherfucker!” Ape got his belt open.

Mr. Alvarez pulled out, panting. Warm pee ran down my chin.

“Okay—” Ape’s ringed hand hung, hooked by his thumb, from the fork of his fly. “Get it, cocksucker!”

“You wanna come with us?” Pedro asked. “We gonna take a walk.”

“Fuck you,” Maria said and turned over on the mattress ticking. “You better gimme some money.” She lay with her back to us. “You don’t gimme some money, I’m gonna beat the piss outta you.”

“You go ask Daddy for some money,” Pedro said. “He give it to you, you want some money now.”

“You don’t gimme no money,” Maria said, “you gonna be sorry.” She raised her arm up under her head, facing the wall; her hand came out from under her dark hair. “Last night—Daddy say he gonna beat you this mornin’, for doin’ all this shit.” Her nails were like pearl-flecked beetles—the middle one much smaller than the others—in a row on her brown fist.

“Fuck him,” Pedro said. “He ain’t gonna beat me. He too fuckin’ drunk. He ain’t even gonna remember.” But he was fingering the knot in his dad’s belt that had slid to the side.

“Gimme some money.”

“Ask Daddy,” Pedro said, and to me: “Come on.”

I followed him up the steps.

The sky was just going blue.

We walked over to where the river comes up from Frontwater.

By the time we got there, the sun was still close enough to the horizon to drip gold on the sound.

Leaves and wet paper were all over the path. It was still warm. The river lapped below the rail.

“How you like that shit, hey?” Pedro grinned and dug deep in his pants pockets. “Somethin’, huh?” He squinted across the river.

Down where it widened into the bay, two tugs, either side of an old Crawhole garbage scow, thrummed on wrinkled red water.

“My daddy say he gonna come down there and mess it up for us all the time. But before, shit, he always get too drunk and go after Maria upstairs in the house. Then he don’t want no more.… She don’t like him none. She ain’t gonna ask him for no money.” Pedro thrust his tongue tip between his lips. “But she like the way he fuck her pussy, man! He go at her like a fuckin’ dog, don’t he?” Without taking his fists from his pockets, he leaned his stomach against the rail. Long shreds of morning pulled from the bruised sky. A breeze whipped the dirt-gray collar back from his shoulder. “A fuckin’ dog …” Grinning, he still looked sad.

It was Saturday—no, Sunday morning.