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here?” Frank asked again. The first request had been three-dollar-bill polite. This was an ultimatum.
    Mom would have left for work by ten after six. The dust probably hadn’t settled in the tracks of her Isuzu Rodeo.
    “Up here. Now.”
    Lon sighed and fumbled for his glasses. What a way to start a day. He looked around for some pants—
    Frank started down the stairs.
    Lon bolted to intercept him, meeting him midway. If he couldn’t avoid a fight, it might as well be upstairs where his collectibles weren’t within reach.
    “What?” he asked, mustering as much nonchalance as possible while quivering in his tightie-whities.
    “You get up here when I tell you to.”
    He followed Frank up to the kitchen, wondering which flavor of bullshit—
    “I wanted to have a conva’sation with you ‘bout them cards you play with,” Frank said, nodding in agreement with himself as he spoke. His face was a twisted collision of beady eyes, droopy ears, furry eyebrows and a snaggletooth that protruded from the right corner of his mouth. How could anyone have sex with such a man? “How much you spend on them things?”
    Lon sighed. They’d had this talk before and it always went back to this: “It’s my money, Frank. I earned it myself.”
    “Yeah, but it’s family money. Y’see, I earned the money for the food that goes into your mouth, but I don’t see none of that back, you unda’stand?”
    Lon kept his eyes on the floor. “Yes.”
    “Now I don’t care what your mom says, you’re gonna start givin’ back for all’s that you’s takin’ from this family, you unda’stand?”
    “I…” Lon sputtered. Agreeing would probably lock him into forking over most of his savings. But he couldn’t take a stand now, not without his mom’s protection.
    Frank threw one of his massive hands at Lon’s neck and slammed him against the refrigerator, which clanged in alarm.
    Lon couldn’t get any air. He clawed at Frank’s hand, but there was no competing with the strength of a lifelong farmer.
    “Do. You. Unda’stand?” His breath was putrid.
    Lon couldn’t respond, couldn’t nod, couldn’t even look Frank in the eye.
    “Little pissy fag. You like to fuck boys? Or maybe you think about fucking your mom, hmm? Wish I wasn’t in the picture?” Every word fueled his own anger. This was when he was the most dangerous, when he got himself going. Lon had often wondered if Frank might kill him some day. Maybe this was it. No warning. No reason. No pants.
    The world grew cloudy, the cold against his back faded, and Frank’s taunts warbled away as if they were leaving through a tunnel. He’d felt this sensation before; it meant he was about to pass out. All he could do was hope that he’d wake up, and that Frank wouldn’t break any of his things.
    Then he heard a new, unfamiliar noise: a rhythmic pounding, whirling in his chest. Maybe the washing machine had come on. Or maybe he was having a heart attack. Then it got bigger, enveloping the room. The rickety house began to shake and Frank gawked at the walls. So it wasn’t just his imagination.
    Finally, Frank dropped him.
    Lon crumpled, and his lungs raged with saliva-filled drags and honks. Each gasp was more humiliating than the last. He couldn’t help but cry, even though he knew Frank reveled in his suffering.
    That whirling was still pounding at the walls.
    WHUPWHUPWHUP.
    Two men in black suits knocked at the screen door. They’d just arrived by helicopter.
    “I didn’t touch him!” Frank wailed, shooting his guilty hands into the air.
    The men let themselves in. In perfect David Caruso fashion, they removed their sunglasses and assessed the scene for a long, silent moment.
    “I didn’t touch him,” Frank repeated with more conviction.
    The men were looking down on a purple-faced eighteen-year-old lying on his kitchen floor in soiled tightie-whities, and their faces bore no expression.
    “Are you Boris Toller?” one of them asked.
    Lon rasped, “I