I thought maybe they’d leave if I waited for a while. I thought maybe they’d try to get their cigarettes somewhere else. And then I thought maybe their car wouldn’t crank. Maybe, I thought, they’re waiting for somebody to come along with some jumper cables and jump them off. But I didn’t have any jumper cables. I pushed open the door and went down the steps.

There was about three feet of space between my truck and their car. They were all watching me. I went up to the window of my truck and got my cigarettes off the dash. The woman driving turned all the way around in the seat. You couldn’t tell how old she was. She was one of those women that you can’t tell about. But probably somewhere between thirty and fifty. She didn’t have liver spots. I noticed that.

I couldn’t see all of the old woman from where I was standing. I could just see her old wrinkled knees, and this dirty slip she had sticking out from under the edge of her housecoat. And her daughter—I knew that was who she was—didn’t look much better. She had a couple of long black hairs growing out of this mole on her chin that was the size of a butter bean. Her hair kind of looked like a mophead after you’ve used it for a long time. One of the kids didn’t even have any pants on.

She said, “Have they got some cold beer in yonder?” She shaded her eyes with one hand while she looked up at me.

I said, “Well, yeah. They do. But they won’t sell cigarettes to a kid that little.”

“It just depends on where they know ye or not,” she said. “If they don’t know ye then most times they won’t sell em to you. Is that not right?”

I knew I was already into something. You can get into something like that before you know it. In a minute.

“I guess so,” I said.

“Have you got—why you got some, ain’t you? Can I git one of them off you?” She was pointing to the cigarettes in my hand. I opened the pack and gave her one. The kid leaned out and wanted to know if he could have one, too.

“Do you let him smoke?”

“Why, he just does like he wants to,” she said. “Have you not got a light?”