BRO: You are one wily little jit, ain’t ya?

CASS: How do you mean?

BRO: You flop there at the Starlight a fortnight or two, no worries, just long enough to get your lariat rolled up round, and then back in the saddle. What is it—a sliding fee scale?

CASS: What are you on?

BRO: What does it smell like I’m on?

CASS: Real real cheap wine.

BRO: That’s what I’m on.

CASS: You always start talking like a regular cowpoke when you get some shit in you.

BRO: Is it a sliding scale down there at the Starlight?

CASS: Yeah, podner.

BRO: They apply you for food stamps?

CASS: Sho nuf, cookie.

BRO: You end up paying, what—a hundred? Two hundred bucks for a month of three hots and a cot?

CASS: Down at the Rawhide Ranchero.

BRO: What a racket. “I’m Cass. I’m an alcoholic.”…You’ll drink again.

CASS: You got a cigarette?

BRO: Nope.

CASS: I should be allowed to smoke a smoke. I ain’t in jail.

BRO: I’m not forbidding you. I just don’t got one. “Hi, Cass!”…You’ll drink again.

CASS: Yes, I will. I plan to.

BRO: I said it first.

CASS: I intend to. The night before I go in there I intend to circumcise a giant jug of Cuervo and get piss-pants paralytic drunk.

BRO: Give you fifty bucks if you wanna make it tonight. It’s my party.

BRO takes off his shoe.

I got a fifty-dollar bill right here in the bank.

He goes one-shoed to the fridge and attaches the fifty to it with one of those magnets.

A little froggy with a chef’s hat on. Ain’t that cute?…Cuervo Gold and the requisite groceries. Merely say the word.

CASS plops down on the couch with a sigh.

Pause while he sighs and sighs.

CASS: Bro? Before I go to the Starlight place.

BRO: Uh. Yes sir…

CASS: I have a list of things I’d like to deal with. You know, the family—the things—the family—

BRO: Aaaaaah…Hey. Dad spends his life in bed because he’s depressed about losing his second wife. His second wife left him because he spent his life in bed all depressed over losing his first wife.

CASS: That’s not what he says.

BRO: What does he say?

CASS: He says he has a bad back.

BRO: So he lies in bed watching TV for weeks at a time never moving.

CASS: He says the television inspires him…No, I don’t buy it, course not, which is what I mean: we’re all full of it up past our hairlines and we better get honest.

BRO: Aaaaaaaah—

CASS yanks his pants off the floor and digs in a pocket. Meanwhile:

CASS: I have a list. I’ve had this list since—I made this list over a year ago. It’s part of a logically paced-out program of recovery. It’s all got to be dealt with. People don’t find the future till they wrestle it all out about the past. I put it all down in black and white. And then I got down to some serious procrastinating—I mean, it’s been a year or better—but it was always right there. Right here. Look here at this notebook. I’ve had it with me a solid year in my back pocket.