Anger blooms in Mookie’s heart like fire in a stoked forge. Before he knows what’s happening, he’s got Lister by the throat and he’s stomping forward into the dead man’s house, thrashing him left and right, into shelves that contain strange cloudy jars and odd Byzantine brass boxes. Jars drop, pop, and shatter. Boxes clatter. A horseshoe clangs and rolls. A plastic box hits on its corner and vomits cat’s eye marbles everywhere. Artifacts from Lister’s old life – reels of film, a series of knob-toppers for a gear-shifter, a motorcycle helmet painted with lightning bolts – rattle but do not fall as Mookie jams the dead man hard against the wall of the house.

“You tore your family apart,” Mookie yells. “You were the one who got hooked on that shit. Go on, tell us – that day you were taking a little spin, were you going home? Or were you going to sell the drugs? Or did you have a couple stuntman buddies in Red Hook where you were going to hole up and shoot poison into your arms until you could see God? Wasn’t that your plan, asshole? You hadn’t been home in months. Months. Trust me, I know. You want to know why you’re still clinging to this world like a fucking flea on a dog’s back? You wanna do right by your family, but only because you did so wrong by them for so long.”

Burnsy’s eyes glisten. He wheezes, “You got a… funny way of asking… for a favor.”

Mookie roars, throws the dead man to the ground.

Skelly appears at his elbow. Pulls him aside. “Mook, he’s right. If you need him, maybe you want to go easy. He’s dead. You… did that to him.” She pauses. “Like you said, they got it hard enough.”

Mookie’s chest rises, then falls. The breathing earth. A cooling mountain. A volcano finally falling quiet.

Mookie sighs and offers a massive hand to Lister. The words that come next don’t come easy, like they’re trying to grab Mookie’s lips and crawl back down his throat before they fall out: “I’m… sorry about your family.”

Burnsy grumbles, “And I’m sorry about yours.”

Mookie retracts his hand. “What’d you say?”

“I’m sure you didn’t have a mug that said FATHER OF THE YEAR either.”

False alarm. Full eruption. Lava gushes. All Mookie can see – all he can feel – is ash and smoke and melting stone. With both hands he reaches for Burnsy, but the dead man is gone – scurrying through the archway formed by Mookie’s legs, crawling on all fours like a whipped terrier.

When he turns, there’s Burnsy. A tire iron in his hand.