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him?”
    â€œI don’t remember, but he was a shit stain. Pissed himself once on the bus, remember?”
    â€œThat was probably the one time I felt bad about that dude. We razed his ass more than once. And he was always making shit look so dramatic. I mean he probably brought it on himself anyway. But no one deserves this kind of shit,” Brock said.
    Brock leaned back in his chair and coughed in his hand.
    â€œI saw you fucked the front of your car up.”
    â€œJust a raccoon, sent me spinnin’ off the road a little,” Jamie said. “Might have knocked a tree or a shrub or something. No big deal.”
    â€œA raccoon?”
    â€œYeah, that’s what I’m also here about; I know you got all those meds, for the teeth, right? So I was wondering. I mean, my neck is killing me.”
    â€œSold ’em, boss,” Brock said.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI fucking sold ’em for pretty good money.”
    â€œWell, shit, you know where I can get any? I need something. I won’t be able to go to work otherwise.”
    â€œGo see a doctor like I did.”
    Jamie stood up and kicked a few more Happy Meal toys across the floor.
    â€œI’m the one who took you to the fucking doctor in the first place.”
    â€œYou wanna know who I took ’em to?”
    â€œWhy else do you think I’m here?” Jamie asked.
    â€œAll right, okay? Go down Olive until you see a one-way for Monroe, and then just cruise down there until you hit the old strip malls that pretty much just have like nothing going on. You know the ones I’m talking about. Well, one has a porno store, and the other might still have a sub sandwich place, but anyway, it’ll be an old hobby shop, with um, a sun roof?”
    â€œA sun roof?”
    â€œShit, um, that’s the best I can describe it,” Brock said.
    â€œSkylights?”
    â€œYeah, whatever. Just knock there, it says like Henry’s Holistic Hobbies on the door.”
    â€œYou can remember that name, but not the word skylight?” Jamie said.
    Brock smiled his pumpkin smile and pulled a two-liter bottle of Coke out from under the bed.
    â€œYou’ll recognize the guy ’cause he has a big-ass moustache. He’ll want you to call him Larry or some shit. I was pretty messed up when I went to go sell him the stuff so I don’t really remember. It won’t be his real name, I can tell you that. But he has some righteous stuff. Woulda put old Condom out of his misery, if he knew what was good for him. Now watch this.”
    Brock took a swig from the bottle and then fired two parallel streams from between his teeth across the floor. When he smiled, all Jamie could see were the holes.

6
    Moses didn’t mind working the morning shift. He liked the quiet. He liked the smell of sanitizer in the cutting rooms, the glow of the battered off-white cutting boards propped up against the floor. All the stuff in the back was stainless steel—the tables, the carts, the sinks. Sometimes he wandered into the refrigerator with his bike helmet still on, dodging the massive sides of beef that weighed more than he did. They dangled from the ceiling on long hooks that swayed in the breeze from the cooling fans.
    â€œAbraham’s son, my man, you gotta get your shit together. What is with the shaved head?”
    Texaco Joe took a pull from a cigarette and pushed his way into the refrigerator. He had a giant purple tuque pulled over his head. His lips were chapped and flaking.
    â€œIt keeps me cool.”
    â€œIt keeps you cool? It’s like thirty under out there right now. Under the zero.”
    Moses began setting up the cutting boards and pulling the knives out of the sink. The blades were still sharp from the night before. Sometimes Moses would test them on his fingernails when he was closing by himself. Shaving off tiny little slices to flush down the drain.
    â€œIf it was thirty below, you’d be bitching a