“I’m not in the mood for challenges now.”

Mr. Heath dabbed eyes.

“That hurt, you know …”

“I understand that.”

“No you don’t. You won’t know what I’m talking about until you have children.”

“Fire, Fire.”

Over his father’s shoulder Fire saw two of Ian’s sisters approaching.

“Dada,” he said, taking their hands, “remember Pearl and Junie? You know them—”

“Oh … yes,” Mr. Heath replied, finding quick use for his hands—stroking his beard and holding his cigar. “How are you girls really doing?”

“So weh the children?” Fire asked brightly. He wanted to see them in their new Sunday outfits.

Junie, the older one, a fat-bottomed girl with droopy eyes, rubbed her hands down her green minidress and squirmed in her go-go boots, which were yellow like her back-length wig. Her sister, in a vinyl midriff to match her black battyrider, scratched her bouffant weave and giggled. She had a face like a truck—like a truck had hit it.

“So where are the little ones?” Mr. Heath asked.

“At home,” Junie said.

Fuck, Fire thought. So these are your church clothes.

“How many you have?” Mr. Heath asked.

“Junie has six and Pearl has four,” Fire said, speaking on their behalf. “They are really nice children and—”

“So why they didn’t bring them?” Mr. Heath insisted.

“We goin to a dance down Oracabessa later and we doan know when we a-go reach home,” Junie said.

Pearl slipped a hand around Fire’s waist and snuggled up against his chest. “Y’ave any money? We want fe take a taxi.”

“No!” Mr. Heath said, slapping Fire’s hand.

“Dada!” Fire said as Junie picked up the billfold.

“You’re just like your mother,” Mr. Heath exclaimed. The veins in his neck were thick like high-voltage wires. “You just give, give, give, give, give …”

“I can’t help you,” Fire said as the women walked away. “I really can’t help you right now.”

The music ended and the crowd began to separate slowly. Fire felt his limbs trembling. So what if the old man is right? he thought. He doesn’t have the right to treat me this way. And look at them … their brother is dead and they don’t even care.

“See what I mean,” Mr. Heath said, as he pulled on his cigar. “Coolie-dem just disgusting. I tried with Ian but—”

“What is wrong with you?” Fire shouted. “Who do you think you are?”

“Adrian!” Mr. Heath snapped.

“What?” Fire asked, shoving his fists in his pockets.

“Don’t forget yourself.”

“I didn’t mean to do that,” Fire said while looking at his pebble grain shoes. He wasn’t bowing to his father, he told himself. The shoes were really interesting.

“You don’t think sometimes,” Mr. Heath said, clasping his hands behind him, afraid that he might reach out and be denied. “That’s always been your problem.”

“Just leave me alone,” Fire said.

He plunged into the crowd, twisting and pushing against the mass. The rastamen had started to play again, and the crosscurrents of their polyglot rhythms echoed off the buildings and smashed against each other, creating a kind of sonic dust that hung over the murmuring conversations of the slow-moving crowd. Darkness was falling like a mist of rain, blowing like a purple haze.