“What grief?” Corey queried.

The big woman looked at him. Her hand came up. It seemed she was going to hit him in the face just because he happened to be there. But then her hand moved slowly and hesitantly, and finally her fingers came to rest on the dent in his forehead above his left eye. In the touch of her fingers there was something very tender.

And what’s all this? His liquor-drenched brain groped for an answer. Then through the alcoholic haze he saw the yearning in Nellie’s eyes.

So Carp was right, he said to himself, remembering last night when Carp had stated flatly, “She’s hot for the man.”

That’s why she threw the brick when we were only nine years old. That’s why in all these years the only words you got from her were cuss words and the only looks were mean looks. Last night when she broke your wagon down in front of all these Hangout people, her big hand tight on your arm, her thick fingers digging in to hurt you, to bruise you; it was just her way of saying, cantcha see, Corey? Cantcha see how it is? How it’s always been?

But now Nellie’s hand was away from his face, aiming at the shot glass on the bar. She lifted it, gulped the rye and said, “All right, I’ll tell you what the grief is. I been told he’s cheatin’ on me.”

“Who’s cheatin’?”

“Rafer.”

“You been going with Rafer?”

“You didn’t know?”

“Nobody tells me nothin’,” Corey said.

“How can they tell you? They never get close enough.”

“Look, I live in this neighborhood.”

“No you don’t, Bradford. You live all alone on a cliff somewhere. Or maybe at the edge of a cliff.”

“Well anyway, what’s this with Rafer?”

“I gotta have somebody, don’t I?”

“Let’s have another drink,” Corey said.

“This one I’ll buy.”

“No you won’t,” Corey said determinedly. Then he realized he was getting very drunk, evil drunk. Gotta have somebody, he gritted without sound. They all gotta have somebody. He turned and looked toward the far side of the taproom, focusing on the table near the door leading to the back room. There was no one at the table. Then he saw Lillian coming toward the table with a glass in one hand and a quart of beer in the other. He said to Nellie, “Order them drinks, I’ll be back in a minute.”

He made his way across the room, bumping into standing drinkers, shoving and getting shoved, finally arriving at the table where Lillian was pouring the beer. She looked up and saw him. Some beer spilled over the edge of the glass.

He said, “Look, I don’t have no goddam dimes. So here’s a quarter, and you owe me fifteen cents.”