I watched him roll up his cord and put away his tools and get ready to leave. I wanted him to stay, but I didn’t ask him to. I could tell he had a lot on his mind. His hands had felt so good to me. I knew I was going to cry after he left. I knew I was going to cry and I knew I was going to drink some more. I wanted him right then more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life. I would have given him anything. But all he wanted was to leave. I wasn’t going to try to hold him. I wasn’t going to make a fool of myself again. But right up until the time he left, I would have made a fool of myself. Gladly. When he went out the door I knew I’d never see him again.

I rode around for a while. I didn’t want to go back home just yet. I wanted to run but I didn’t have any place to run to. Some people can just walk away, turn their backs and go on and forget about it. I couldn’t. But it didn’t stop me from thinking about it.

I went to a bar on Jackson Avenue and counted my money before I went inside. There was just enough left from what I’d borrowed from Leon to get a couple of pitchers of draft. There wasn’t anybody in there I knew. I sat at a table by myself, in a booth in a dark corner. I thought that if I sat quietly by myself in the dark and drank, I’d be able to figure out what to do with the rest of my life.

Florida was the best place to go. There was no cold weather to stop you from laying brick. There was plenty of building going on. Jobs were supposed to be easy to get.

But I couldn’t stop thinking about Myra down on the floor, crying. Or about how she felt when I was kissing her. I’d never had anybody want me that bad. I’d never had anybody so desperate reach out to me like that. And I’d turned her down. I regretted it.

I kept drinking. Betty didn’t know what it was like to have to work, to be strapped into a job like a mule in a harness. The company I worked for didn’t give a fuck if I broke my back. They’d just hire somebody else. There were people standing in lines all over the country wanting jobs. She didn’t understand that. She didn’t know what it was like to have to work when you were hurt. You either kept up or you didn’t. If you didn’t keep up they’d let you go.