The mugger put the wallet back in his pocket. He looked Corey up and down. Then he turned toward the curb. As he stepped off the curb he turned again, faced Corey and said, “You know what’s gonna happen to you? One of these days you’re gonna get all mashed up. They’ll hafta scrape it up and put it in a sack—”

Corey wasn’t listening. He was lighting a cigarette. The mugger crossed the street and joined the others and the three of them walked away. The boozehound remained sitting there on the pavement, mumbling incoherently. Corey walked over to him and lifted him to his feet. The boozehound leaned heavily against Corey and said, “I’ll tell you what the trouble is.”

“No, I’ll tell you,” Corey said. “You got mugged. They took your last penny.”

“Is that a fact?” the boozehound asked mildly. He gazed past Corey and said, “I guess it brings up a problem. It’s a good seven miles from here—”

“Where you live?”

The boozehound nodded. Then he grimaced and felt the back of his head. Corey took the six dollars from his pocket, peeled off three and handed the bills to the man. “For cab fare,” Corey said. He turned to move away.

“Hey, thanks,” the boozehound said.

Corey was walking away.

“Thanks,” the boozehound called to him. “No kidding, thanks a lot. You’re really all right.”

“Yeah,” Corey said aloud to himself. “I’m very nice. I’m the original Joe Wonderful.”

He walked a few more steps and then, thinking about the boozehound and making a bet with himself, he stopped and looked back. Sure enough, the deal was thirst instead of transportation. The boozehound was weaving slowly but purposefully toward the door of the juice joint. So the three beans go to the houselady instead of the cab driver, Corey thought, and allowed himself a philosophic smile. He was remembering the boozehound’s statement, “—trouble is, we just can’t get together.” And what that means, he told himself, is simply—we just can’t get together on what’s right and what’s wrong.

Now he was walking again, headed in the direction of a certain social center known as the Hangout. The back room of the Hangout was always active on Friday nights and the action was stud poker. Let’s get there fast, he urged himself, and his hand drifted to the trousers pocket where the three dollars mingled with some sixty-five cents in coins. It was all the money he had to his name.

***