In the truck, as we drove away, Hogg said: “Hey, cocksucker, you know why I spit in your mouth?” He pulled the wheel around, glanced at me, and grinned. On the side, I could see the stumps of his broken teeth like bark jammed into his gum, way behind the big yellow front ones. The wheel spun back. “That’s how my mom taught me to train a goddamn puppy dog. You see, when you want a puppy dog to learn who its master is, you spit in its mouth every once and awhile. And pretty soon it’d know it belonged to me forever and ever.” He looked at me like he was guessing how long forever was. Or maybe how far to spit. Anyway, he said, “Shit.…” again. And a little bit later: “You don’t worry, cocksucker. I’m gonna take care of you, all right.”

That’s how I got in with Hogg.

We stopped in a diner.

The cashier pushed the bridge of his glasses up his nose with his forefinger and said, “How you boys doing? You workin’ at the c-c-c-construction site over in …?” Then he looked down through the glass countertop and saw Hogg’s bare foot. He just frowned—at Hogg, at me, at Hogg again.

There were a few drivers there, but not many for five o’clock.

Hogg shouted his order to the waitress, and heaved into one side of a booth. I slipped into the other. A couple of minutes later when she came by with plates for the three drivers two booths away, Hogg reached out and pinched her ass. Hard. And twisted.

She cried out, and, with her free hand, beat at the buttocks of her blue smock, whirling—and spilled beans on our table.

“Shit, that’s all right, honey.” Hogg pushed the beans into his palm with his fingers and, grinning at her, began to eat out of his hand. (Two of the drivers laughed. “I’m sorry,” the waitress said to them. “I’m sorry. He made me spill …”) “You know?” Hogg said to me, and I felt his feet push down on my sneakers—workshoe and bare. “There’s some pussy you see walkin’ around that’s so nice and pretty, boy, you couldn’t see stickin’ a dirty old dick in it. All you can do is kneel down in front of it and give it a little stirrin’ with your tongue. Maybe chew on it a little to let it know you care.” He belched—it rumbled out for about eight whole seconds—then squinted around the diner. The waitress was coming back with our plates. “Too bad there ain’t none of that quality pussy walkin’ around here; I’d have some with my coffee.” She threw the plates on the table, and jerked away.

Hogg laughed. His bare foot left my sneaker—his knee thumped the underside of the table and the plates jounced—and settled on my seat, wedging into my crotch. I didn’t look down, but I put one hand over it. The skin felt rough and hot. He held my thumb with his toes. “This looks like some good eatin’—AND A GLASS OF MILK FOR THE LITTLE SHIT HERE AND A CUPPA COFFEE FOR ME!”