The well-dressed guy came back to the bar and ordered two more drinks and I looked over his shoulder at the awful woman who was looking in his direction as if she knew something that nobody else did. Her teeth were beyond funky. If she’d been my dog I’d have shot her. I couldn’t help wondering if she’d let her mouth get in that kind of shape what kind of shape she’d let her vagina get in. And here this guy was wanting to ream the depths of it. He tipped the bartender big, two dollars down the empty wine carafe that held his stash. He went back with the drinks and the horrible woman laughed at something he said. My drink came and I counted out my change and paid. The bartender looked at me as if I was a small, partially dissolved turd.

The television was playing but it was silent. I looked at Senta Berger’s magnificent breasts in Major Dundee while she and Charlton Heston were wallowing in a river. They were like mountains, like unchained melodies, like lewd sculptures from a deranged Michelangelo. I could hear the horrid woman laughing at everything the well-dressed man was saying. I glanced over and saw that they were holding hands. I considered starting a bar tab and then writing a bad check to cover it, but there was a large sign over the cash register that said no checks. I had ten dollars and change left to my name. I knew there was no whiskey at home, only a couple of cans of sardines and a few of cat food, and I wasn’t down to eating that yet, just almost. My refrigerator was as empty as Hitler’s heart. My daddy almost knew Hitler. He went to his house with his gun but the motherfucker wasn’t home.