The band took its break. Booker Dexter strolled over, drink in hand. Coralee jumped up and hugged him. He pulled up a chair, wedging himself between me and Terrence, and sat down. I could feel him looming over me in a way that had nothing to do with his height. He accepted everyone’s enthusiastic praise in a surly way. I saw Terrence and Coralee exchange a look of unease. “What do you see in her, Terrence?” asked Booker.

“Stay cool, daddy-o,” said Terrence.

Booker grabbed my jaw, turning my head sharply. He ran his hand roughly over my stained cheek. “Always wanted to do that. Feel it.” He picked up his drink, his cigarettes, and left us.

Terrence rose, kicked his chair back, and followed. I sat there stunned. Everyone was stunned. A great silence descended on all of us in the midst of the crowd and the smoke and the noise.

“Booker’s unpredictable,” said Coralee, putting her hand over mine in a way unexpectedly tender.

“He’s a drug addict,” said her husband. “It’s true, Cora, and you know it.”

At the bar, Booker and Terrence spoke angrily, their voices rising and then falling into a growl. When he returned to the table, Terrence took my arm and steered me from the smoky murk of the club into the warm summer night, where panhandlers beseeched us for money.

“It was nothing, Terrence,” I said as I stumbled behind him.

“It wasn’t nothing to me!”

“It’s all right.”

“It’s not all right!” We got into the Porsche. The engine roared and the dash lights played over his somber face as he gunned the motor and pulled out. “Booker didn’t used to be like that.”

“Then maybe he didn’t mean it.”

“Of course he meant it! And I just had to stand there and watch him. I hate standing by! I stood by while Daddy took after my mother, slapping her around when she got too uppity. Mama would say, ‘Oh, he doesn’t mean it.’ But he did! He meant it! I was just a boy, and wanted to jump him and fight him, but my sisters held me back, said there was nothing I could do, so I just witnessed, and I been witnessing ever since. Even for the Challenger, I’m nothing but a goddamned witness, just there to watch and report and never act. I hate being powerless, a powerless witness to what heroin has done to my brother, and now, here, I’m powerless when I see what he did to you.”

“He didn’t do anything to me,” I insisted. “My mother was forever taking my face in her hand and asking what is this, and how does it feel, and can we get rid of it. It’s happened before. It’ll happen again.”

“Not with my brother, it won’t. We’re not going back there.”