“Are you crazy? You’re crazy. Don’t stand there bragging about how bad the guy treats you. I came here prepared to offer you a life.”

“Listen, Buster, I have a life. Might not look like much to you, but I’m doing the best I can so don’t you condescend to me.”

“Violet… don’t.” He tried to speak, but his throat closed and his voice cracked.

“Jesus, Chet. Be a big boy about this. It’s been great, but let’s face facts. It’s sex. Right now, it might be firecracker hot, but how long does that last? In two months it’s gone, so don’t make more of it than it is. You’re not going to run off with me. You’re full of shit.”

Chet took the last drag of his cigarette and flipped it out the window. He took one more pull from his flask and put that away. The tractor and flatbed, deck empty now, passed him again, heading back toward the 166. On the Tanner property, the bright yellow bulldozer sat with two others, looking as big as a tank. He hadn’t been on a bulldozer since he was eighteen years old, that ball-busting summer before his father had been killed. He’d worked construction, thinking he could set aside some cash for his freshman year of college. Nowadays the union trained guys to operate heavy equipment, but in those days, you got on a dozer, fired it up, and hoped you wouldn’t drive yourself into a ditch.

He turned the key in the ignition and released the T of the emergency brake. He made a U-turn across the two lanes of deserted road. What he’d been through with Violet was the equivalent of a three-year affair compressed into three days. Beginning, middle, and end. Over and out. He couldn’t help thinking she’d made a bigger fool of him than he knew. He’d been set up, duped. She wanted the car. It was obvious now, but she’d played him well and he half-admired her finesse. She’d crooked her little finger and he’d scampered after her, as frisky as a pup. He didn’t feel it yet, the shame, but he would very soon, once the liquor wore off. He knew his humiliation was commiserate with his joy, but the joy had been fleeting while the rage would burn at his core like the fire in the bowels of a coal mine, year after year. What wounded him was knowing she felt none of his pain. Now every time he saw the car, every time Foley made a payment, he’d cringe, feeling powerless and small. He’d go home to Livia and that would be that. His life had been barely tolerable before, but what would it be like now that he knew the difference?