Meldrick and Packard installed the second clutch cable on the Citroën in the correct fashion and a week after it was running, Window came into the school clutching a check for five thousand dollars. A car collector spotted the Citroën and had given Window a check on the spot. The head custodian called the buyer a fool while Ted Frank Page insisted that Window could have gotten three times that amount. Before Window could cash the check, Josie called his lawyer and then personally drove him to the bank and then to the law office where the blood test was paid for—in full, in advance.

Catherine came by the school and had a tantrum. She had court papers in her hand directing her to submit to blood tests. She screamed at Window and told him that the welfare lawyer told her Window wasn’t going to get to first base since the blood tests were a “cruel invasion” and that she had recently become a Jehovah’s Witness and would not, under any circumstances, spill a drop of her own blood.

“Is that how you act,” Ted Frank Page said, “when you get religion, cursing and having tantrums?” Catherine stalked out of the building with her friend Lutetia trailing after her.

“Yeah,” Window said, puffing up, “you should wash your mouth out with soap.”

The blood tests proved conclusively that Window’s brother, Roy, was the father of Catherine’s second child and Window’s lawyer got the double child-support payment lifted from Window’s check. Because of the rise in income, welfare immediately seized a larger payment for Window’s uncontested son.

The custodian who had Window written up for using his mop bucket sneered, “All that fucking rigmarole to save a hundred bucks a month. That’s what you get for listening to that asshole, Meldrick,” he said.

For his part, Meldrick consoled Window by telling him that life wasn’t fair.

Josie placed a call to Window’s attorney and asked if the brother would have to pay the child support retroactively. The attorney said Roy would have to make the retroactive payments but that Window would not receive any of the money. “So you mean welfare is collecting twice?”

“Yes, we could appeal, but I would advise against it. It’s going to cost a lot of dough.”

Window used the balance of his Citroën money to pay off his debts and buy new clothes. Ted Frank Page, always appalled by Window’s taste, found the new clothes especially bad. “Fucking special ed. Don’t fucking buy clothes, Window, unless you take me along. Where did you get that shit?”

“At D&R’s. What’s the matter with these clothes? My ma says they look snazzy.”

“Your mother came from the old country, Window. You look like you just hopped off the boat yourself. The Neon Boat.”

“Don’t talk to me like that,” Window said sharply.