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snapped back.
    As his eyes focused on the situation, Duane reached across to the nightstand and pulled out a pack of Marlboros from the drawer. He grinned at Shirley as he lit up.
    “Going home so soon, Shirl?” He wiped his droopy hair out of his face as he sucked contentedly on his cigarette.
    Facing to the rear as she was, Shirley glared at him, her fat cheeks a deep burgundy. “You’re a piece of crap.”
    Duane blew her an imaginary kiss. “I love you too, Shirl. Thanks for the visit. Made my morning.” He belly-laughed and slapped his thigh as he propped himself up on the pillow. Then LuAnn and Shirley disappeared through the doorway.
    After depositing Shirley next to a rusted-out Ford engine block in the front yard, LuAnn turned back to the trailer.
    Shirley stood up and shrieked, “You pulled half my hair out, you bitch.” LuAnn kept walking, not looking back. “I want my clothes. Give me my damned clothes, LuAnn.”
    LuAnn turned around. “You didn’t need ’em while you were here, so I can’t see no reason why you’d need ’em now.”
    “I can’t go home like this.”
    “Then don’t go home.” LuAnn went up the cinder block steps to the trailer and slammed the door behind her.
    Duane met her in the hallway, dressed in his boxers, an unlit Marlboro dangling from his mouth. “Does a man good to have two alleycats fighting over him. Got my blood going, LuAnn. How ’bout you stepping up to the plate? Come on, baby, give me a kiss.” He grinned at her and tried to slide an arm around her long neck. His next breath was a tortured one as her right fist smashed into his mouth, loosening a couple of his teeth. As painful as that blow was, it did not come close on the hurt scale to the knee that planted itself violently between his legs. Duane dropped heavily to the floor.
    LuAnn hovered over him. “If you pull that crap again, Duane Harvey, so help me God, I’ll rip it right off and flush it down the toilet.”
    “Crazy-ass woman,” he half-sputtered, half-whimpered, clutching at his groin; blood seeped through his lips.
    She reached down and clamped an iron grip across his cheeks. “No,
you’re
crazy if you think for one second I’m gonna put up with that shit.”
    “We ain’t married.”
    “That’s right, but we live together. We got a kid together. And this place is as much mine as it is yours.”
    “Shirl don’t mean nothing to me. What do you care?” He stared up at her, small tears gathering in the corners of his eyes as he continued to clutch his privates.
    “Because that little fat piece of bacon is gonna waddle on down to the IGA and the beauty parlor and the damned Squat and Gobble and tell everybody that will listen all about it and I’m gonna look like the biggest piece of trash in the world.”
    “You shouldn’t have left me this morning.” He struggled up off the floor. “See, this here’s all your fault. She came by to see you about something. What was I supposed to do?”
    “I don’t know, Duane, how about giving her a cup of coffee instead of your dick?”
    “I don’t feel so good, babe. I really don’t.” He leaned up against the wall.
    She roughly pushed past him on her way to check on Lisa. “Best news I’ve heard all day.”
    A minute later she marched past him again and entered the bedroom, where she proceeded to rip the sheets off the bed.
    Duane sulkily watched her from the doorway. “Go ahead and throw ’em away. I don’t give a crap, you bought ’em.”
    She didn’t look at him as she answered. “I’m taking ’em over to Wanda’s to wash. If you’re gonna sleep around with sluts, it ain’t gonna cost me nothing.”
    As she lifted the mattress, a flash of green caught her eye. She shoved the mattress off the bed frame and then looked over at Duane. “What the hell is this?” she demanded.
    Duane looked at her coldly. He sauntered into the room, scooped up the piles of cash, and stuffed them in a paper bag that had been sitting on the