“Hurt your arm?” Ken said. “Whereabouts?”

“I’m not positive,” I said. “It could be either the radius or the ulna.”

Buck gave me a sudden sharp look out from under his hatbrim. Sort of like I’d just walked into the room and he was seeing me for the first time. But of course Ken didn’t notice anything. Ken had so much on his mind, I reckon, helping poor stupid fellas like me, that he maybe didn’t notice a lot of things.

“Now, I guess you learned your lesson, right, Nick?” he said. “You see the futility of not givin’ back no more hurt than what you get?”

“Well, I sure learned some kind of lesson,” I said. “So if that’s the one you was teaching me, I guess that was it.”

“Y’see, maybe the other fella can kick harder’n you can. Or maybe he’s got a tougher ass an’ it don’t hurt him as much as it does you. Or say you got a situation like me an’ Buck just demonstrated. Two fellas start kicking you in the ass, so’s you get two kicks for every one you give. You get a situation like that, which is just about what you got figuratively speakin’, why you could get the ass kicked clean off of you a-fore you had time to tip your hat.”

“But these pimps ain’t kicked me,” I said. “They just been sassin’ me, and shovin’ me around a little.”

“Same principle. Same principle, pre-zackly. Right, Buck?”

“Right! Y’see, Nick, when a fella starts doin’ somethin’ bad to you, the proper way to pay him back is t’do somethin’ twice as bad to him. Otherwise, the best you got is maybe a stand-off, and you don’t never get nothing settled.”

“Kee-reck!” Ken said. “So I’ll tell you what to do about them pimps. The next time they even look like they’re goin’ to sass you, you just kick ‘em in the balls as hard as you can.”

“Huh?” I said. “But—but don’t it hurt awful bad?”

“Pshaw, ‘course it don’t hurt. Not if you’re wearin’ a good pair o’ boots without no holes in ‘em.”

“That’s right,” Buck said. “You just be sure you ain’t got any toes stickin’ out and it won’t hurt you a-tall.”

“I mean, wouldn’t it hurt the pimps?” I said. “Me, I don’t think I could stand even an easy kick in the balls.”

“Why, shorely, shorely it would hurt ‘em,” Ken nodded. “How else you goin’ to make ‘em behave if you don’t hurt ‘em bad?”

“You’re actually lettin’ ‘em off pretty easy, Nick,” Buck said. “I know I’d sure hate to be in the same room if any pimp sassed old Ken here. Ken wouldn’t stop with just kickin’ ‘em. Why, a-fore they knew what was happening, he’d just yank out his pissoliver and shoot ‘em right in their sassy mouths.”

“Pre-zackly!” Ken said. “I’d send them sassy skunks to hell without no fooling around about it.”

“So you’re really being too easy on ‘em, Nick. A god-danged sight easier than a proud, intelligent upstandin’ officer like ol’ Ken. Ken would shoot ‘em deader’n doornails, if he was in your place, and you heard him say so yourself.”