I started walking up the path.

“Hey, cocksucker,” Pedro called, “where you goin’ …?”

I put my hands in my pockets and kept walking.

“Shit …” Pedro said. Then, with the next thing he said I could hear him grinning again behind me: “Okay, cocksucker, I see you around—hey? So long.”

Screaming, she ran down the alley.

He ran after her, caught her arm, spun her around.

Her scream bit off. She backed into the wall, her mouth open and her henna hair coming forward. “Come on, mister …!” She was trying to smile, to reason; it came out pleading. “Come on, now. You don’t have to hurt me none. I’ll give it to you! I swear, I’ll give it to you! Any way you want it, honey. You don’t have to fight me for it!” Her eyes darted around the alley. There wasn’t any way out except the way they’d come in. “Don’t hurt me, sweetheart. Don’t … We can have ourselves a good time!”

He took a loud breath, raised his other hand, and punched her in the stomach.

She slammed back onto brick. Her head rocked forward.

Grunting, he hit her in the face, hard, with the back of his hand.

All over her head, hair shook. It was black at the roots.

“Oh, come—” She gagged, held her forearms across her belly, sliding them up. “Come on, I got two kids. I got to go to work! You mess me up for a couple of days where I have to lay up and I’m gonna lose my—”

I didn’t see where he hit her this time because he was right on top of her; but she jerked over to the side.

“Oh, come on, I told you I’ll—”

I guess she meant it.

With one hand up under her skirt, he yanked three times, and the panties came, torn and pink, from under the dingy print. He threw them down, hard, while she tried to twist from the wall. With both hands he slammed her back. She knocked into a garbage can. It crashed over, spilling stuff. One of her heels was broken and so was the plastic strap. She had on grayish stockings that just made her legs look dirty—except for an oval tear, from her ankle halfway up her calf, where her skin was white and puffy, like a real redhead’s.

He hit her again, and she sagged forward, holding her jaw. He got his hand inside his green canvas pants.

I heard her skirt rip.

When he got it in her—she was backed up against the brick, now—she screamed again. His construction shoes rasped the pavement, the muddy heels lifting. One of her arms hung over his shoulder, down the back of his green workshirt. The scream constricted in a gasp. When he hunched into her, she made a fist that quivered. But she wasn’t fighting anymore. He almost hid her on the wall.

When he finally backed away, breathing hard, she just went down, on her knees, gulping, and into a heap, making a funny crying thing with no sound. He turned half around, wiping his mouth with his wrist. The late sun caught on gold stubble all over his jaw. And he frowned.