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himself dressed in a suit and tie, his face superimposed on the political circular. But the daydream quickly slipped away from him. In his mind the handbill yellowed into an Old West wanted poster. “Wanted for Councilman Eighth District—Winston Foshay. Start the violence!” Winston released the flyer into the slipstream.
I’d be a good-ass politician, though
. The sheet of paper boomeranged in the wind and reattached itself to his hip like a house cat afraid of the backyard wilderness. Winston folded the flyer and stuffed it into his back pocket.
    “Tuff, it was dead bodies, the whole nine.”
    “Yup.”
    “We still alive.”
    “Yup.”
    “Culture cipher, my brother. The fundamental black man manifest as the elemental hierarchy of the earth-sun dichotomy—”
    “Don’t start.”
    “Yacub—”
    “I’m serious, don’t start.”
    Fariq gave up trying to enlighten Winston to the ways of the knowledgeably holy five percent, and ran through possible acronyms for I-N-R-I to occupy his hyperactive mind. If Needed, Resurrect Immediately. Idolatrous Necrophilia, Religious Intercourse. Inspected—Natural Redwood Immobilizer. Is Nothing Really Important?
    “Tuff, I bet you that I-N-R-I is Latin for some shit.”
    Tuffy’s head was buried in the market’s night box, trying to talk to the proprietor through three inches of Plexiglas; if he heard Fariq he didn’t answer.
    I Negro—Remedy Intoxication.

3 - T UFFY AND Y OLANDA
    W inston didn’t realize how drunk he was until he arrived at his apartment and couldn’t insert his key into the lock. After a few misses he resorted to the method he picked up from watching his next-door neighbor return home after a payday binge. Bending down and closing one eye, Winston placed his left index finger on the keyhole. With his right hand he pressed the tip of the key into his left shoulder. Using his left arm as a guide, he slid the key into the lock with his right hand. Winston opened the door as quietly as possible, rehearsing his excuse to Yolanda for why he didn’t call. “I was at Keith’s crib and that nigger’s phone is off, so I sent Taurus to tell Jamilla to tell Yusef to tell Laura to call you. But I didn’t know Yusef got a restraining order against Jamilla after she set him on fire for fucking Wanda. Turn out that fool under house arrest anyway, and couldn’t tell Laura or nobody else nothing, nohow.” He was slowly making his way down the dark hallway when a block of light from the bedroom illuminated him like an escaped convict.
    “Don’t worry about trying to creep, the baby woke.”
    “All right.”
    Walking past the bedroom, he hurriedly made his way to the bathroom.
    “You not going to come see your son?”
    “What, he got a mustache? I know what he look like.”
    Winston took a no-handed piss. He held up the sandwich bag. The goldfish was swimming in water murkier than Winston’s alcohol-laden urine. Wedged in one corner, the fish opened his mouth every two seconds, as if he had something to say but couldn’t remember what it was. Flushing the toilet, Winston dangled the bag over the whirlpool, contemplating ridding himself of one more responsibility. “Seat,” Yolanda called out.
    “Down,” he grumbled, a long, whispered “Fuck” lingering behind him as he headed for the kitchen. Taking a deep casserole dish from the cupboard, he filled it with tap water and spilled the goldfish into it. The fish swam an appreciative lap in its new home. Winston flicked the glassware, calling the fish to attention. “Is it safe?” Yolanda was giving him time to fix a quick meal before she went into her de rigueur Impertinent Black Mama act. Winston went to the refrigerator and removed a stick of margarine and two large flour tortillas. With a match he lit the gas burners and flipped the tortillas over the open flames. When the tortillas showed the first signs of charcoal burns, he whipped the hot disks onto the counter and ran the margarine stick over