He reached down and took hold of the child’s upturned clawed hand.

“I’ll stay right here,” said Ronnie.

The eight-ball quivered in its socket: …please…

The child’s hand closed on Ronnie’s.

And Ronnie Knew.

Oh, it took a few seconds before the Knowledge started to filter into him; there was such a thick, sour, thrumming, heavy miasma of cold wet pain that Ronnie almost lost consciousness, but he hung in there for Jimmy’s sake—for that was his name, this blood-lacquered broken mass of meat and bone, Jimmy Stiles, and today had been his seventh birthday but Daddy had come home drunk this morning without any presents or the cake Mommy had ordered from the bakery, and when Mommy started yelling at Daddy (“What? You spend all night buying drinks for your buddies or did you lose it hustling pool games again?”) he’d hit her jaw with the back of his hand (“I don’t need this shit from you, you fat-ass, miserable, ball-breaking, castrating, son-of-a-cunt BITCH!”) and she’d hit back, and then Jimmy, he’d started crying because he hated it when they yelled and hit each other, that’s why he didn’t have any friends, nobody ever wanted to come over to his house because of his parents, and most of the time that was okay, it really was, because he had his drawing pad and his charcoal pencils and his watercolors and comic books and his records and record player, so he’d draw friends and set their pictures all around and then they’d listen to music together and later everyone would ask him to read from the comics, and they all said he was a good reader, that he ought to be an actor on TV or in the movies, and that made Jimmy feel good, so he’d drawn a whole bunch of friends for today’s birthday party, even drew goofy hats for all of them, so he was real disappointed when Daddy didn’t come in with the cake or a present—all he’d wanted were some new comic books to read to everyone after they’d had cake—but he couldn’t say anything, especially now that Mommy and Daddy were really screaming and hitting each other—fists, now, and there was a little blood at the corner of Mommy’s mouth—but he couldn’t help himself, Jimmy couldn’t, and he started crying because he’d been looking forward to a nice birthday and now he was gonna have to hide up in his room with his head buried under the pillow trying to make the yelling and screaming and thumping and sounds of breaking glass and all of it go away—he’d gotten real good at doing this, even though it scared him because he never knew what he was going to find after it was all over and everything was quiet for a while and he chanced to sneak downstairs to see what had gotten broke or snapped in pieces or see if maybe Mommy needed him to help her patch up her face or if there was blood on the rugs that he was gonna have to help wash out…for a little while he could make most of that go away with the pillow over his head and pressed against his ears while he hummed “Hello, Goodbye,” his favorite Beatles’ song ever—but right now he wasn’t scared, or even angry, he just felt bad, felt awful, like this was all his fault, and so he ran into the room and shouted, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Please don’t yell, I don’t need a cake or anything, we can just have mac & cheese, that’ll be a good birthday, it will!” and both Mommy and Daddy stopped and looked at him and Jimmy saw it in their eyes, saw that all of this was his fault, all of it, every fight, every scream, every slap and punch and broken dish and the crying and the bruises, it was all because of him, and it scared him so much he couldn’t move, couldn’t turn to run upstairs to his room and lock the doors and make it all go away with the pillow, and the next thing he knew Daddy had let go of Mommy’s throat and Mommy just sort of dropped to the floor, her eyes staring at her son, not blinking, and Daddy reached under the sink and pulled out the big pipe wrench he kept down there to fix the plumbing when it started to leak ‘cause it always leaked under the sink, Jimmy had helped Mommy clean up water from the kitchen more times than he could count, and Daddy walked over to him and smiled and said, “A birthday boy gets birthday smacks before cake and presents, remember?” and he lifted up the wrench with both hands like a baseball player with a bat at home plate and then Daddy swung down and then—