3.

3.

A few days later—and three hours late, but who’s counting—Bill’s crumpled soda-can of a jalopy (his personal car, mind you, not that government-funded monster) murmurs its way into the lone empty parking space of a coffee shop near his house, the engine cutting out with a loud fart, Bill emerging in full Sunday-morning glory. From his leather jacket, dry and cracked as the surface of Mars, he extracts a crumpled cigarette and torches up, exhaling a cloud of fragrant smoke. In that moment, taking a fresh jolt of poison into his bruised lungs, he seems almost human again: his spine straightens, his cheeks flush from bloodless pale to heart-attack red (an improvement, trust us), his cloudy gaze clears into the speculative laser-stare of Ye Olden Days, when Bill could still put on a good show of walking the earth larger than life.

Bill power-draws the cigarette in four long pulls, crushes the leftover bit beneath his scuffed heel before heading inside, where his nephew Trent—a hot mess, that one—jitters over his seventh cup of coffee and the last crumbs of a chocolate-chip muffin. The coffee shop is an old-school joint, all chipped Formica and torn vinyl benches, the radio playing Frank Sinatra instead of whatever electronica Trent no doubt prefers.  

Bill takes a seat, offering Trent a close-up view of his wreckage, the bloodshot eyes and flaking lips and graying hairs corkscrewing from his chin. Bill had a bad week: two Chinese restaurants refused to pay his little toll (the nerve) and his Friday jaunt with Janine ended with a bad case of whiskey-dick. When the waitress arrives, he orders a cup of coffee and a doughnut.

“Rough night?” Trent says.

Kid, if you had any idea of what we face on a daily basis. Every time Bill puffs down too many cigarettes, or pops a pill of questionable origin, or decides to drown his sorrows in a tide of flavored vodka, we feel it in the same way that a sailor, clinging to the railing of a freighter during a fierce storm, endures the next monster wave crashing over him. Once upon a time it was fun to take that ride, but those days are fading in our metaphorical rearview mirror. We would hurl, if our parasitic form came with a stomach. We would beg for mercy, if we could actually use Bill’s mouth.

Bill leans back, scanning Trent’s liberal use of eyeliner, the leopard-print jacket with the white fuzzy collar, the strands of fake pearls around the kid’s thin neck.

“What’s that I smell?” he rasps, after taking a loud sniff. “Perfume?”

“Cologne. Trying to be presentable, you know.”

“More like trying to get beat.” Bill makes a great show of shrugging. “Anyway, what you need, kid?”

“Your brother—”

“Your father, you mean. Show some respect.”

“He didn’t leave me any money.”

“That’s why you call me, at eight on a Sunday?”

Trent turns checking his watch into a piece of theater. The dramatics run deep in this family: every slight, every comeback elevated to the level of Shakespeare. “Yeah, and it’s almost ten when you show up.”

“I know what time it is,” Bill says. “You’re nearly seventeen, Trent. You can handle yourself, right? You can get along in the world.”

Trent opens his mouth to respond when the waitress comes around, bearing a fresh pot of coffee and Bill’s doughnut. She fills their coffee cups, and Bill reaches out, very delicately, to pinch her sleeve—holding her in place as he downs the cup in one swallow, places it back on the saucer, and cocks an eyebrow for a refill. The waitress raises the coffee pot, as if to dump it in his lap, but fulfills the request. Everybody pities stray dogs.

“Anyway,” Bill says, after draining his second cup. “I got work all day. Don’t you got a friend you can call? That cute girl you used to hang out with?”

“Nobody’s picking up.” Trent’s breath hitches a little, and we can hear the boy trying hard not to let his voice waver. “They’re all sick of me.”

“Nonsense, they’re probably still asleep.” Bill crams his breakfast down his throat, gifting us with a bright sugar rush. “You need cash? I got cash.”

“I got ten bucks, which should get me through today. No, I want you to take me with you.”

“Where?”

“To work. Show me what you do. How you earn.”

“You know what I do. Besides, it’s Sunday. We don’t usually do inspections on Sunday.”

“I’m not talking about inspections. I’m talking about . . . you know . . . the shakedown.”

“This conversation’s over.” Bill half-stands.

“Not if I tell someone at your office, it isn’t.”

Bill thumps down. “Come on, kid. Give me a break.”

“Trust me, I’ll find it fascinating. Seeing how the world really works.”

Bill rolls his eyes. “You don’t know anything.”

“Besides, I want to hang out with you. I never see you.” Trent picks up his chocolate-smeared knife and runs a thumb along the blade. “Show me. Or I’ll tell.”

“Okay.” He’s a pushover, our Bill. He likes to think he’s a tough guy. If you pour a couple drinks in him, he’ll even try to act the part. But Bill knows he’s a bottom-feeder, and all bottom-feeders like company. Trust us on that one.