Bill looked at the lit cigarette in his hand, mesmerized by the glowing ember. How would this feel against his own flesh? He pressed it against his arm and jolted back in pain. Still a coward. Still not a man.
His apartment was filled with empty bottles of bourbon, beer and vodka. He'd taken to drinking after Thel kicked him out. His eyes were assaulted by the miasma of bitter drunkenness and they wheeled wildly in his head. His mouth filled with vomit, but he choked it back down. Above all, he needed a blowjob.
From under a stack of papers—bills, eviction notices, an envelope containing the last check he'd gotten before being fired for coming to work drunk—he lifted a thick yellow book, its pages mottled with stain.
He thumbed through the grimy tome, its pages stuck together; he desperately tore them apart, and found the number he was looking for. He picked up the receiver and dialed the number—thank God they hadn't taken away his phone yet!—and he let out a low, hoarse laugh.
Thel had brought home another strange man. Billy, Jeffy and Dolly sat in the living room eating their microwaved dinners as the man entertained their mother in her chamber. Creaking could be heard from beyond the closed door. Creaking, moaning, laughing; the wet blandishment of kisses. She didn't care they could hear.
Billy looked out the window at the darkling sky. He was happy once. Once he could run all day and night throughout the neighbors' yards as his father watched on. When he got home he would quiz his father on where he'd gone, and Bill always told him his route in exactitude, as though he'd plotted it out on a dotted line. Friendly faces fade as you grow. No longer did the Andersons appreciate his antics. No longer did Auntie June—so they called the old lady at the end of the street—give him candies for coming to visit. Now he saw only distrust and, my god could it be? fear in their eyes when they saw him coming.
Not that he blamed them. He had grown sullen, interior. He carried his hell with him and was himself surprised that flowers did not wilt in his presence. Oh, what a fine thing, youth!
"Do you think Mom's playing pretend with her new friend?" Jeffy chirped cheerfully.
"Don't you know anything?" came Dolly's imperious reply, "They're playing House! I heard Mom and the man talking about getting a condo!"
"That's condom, Dolly." Billy said, annoyed. "And you don't want to know what they're doing in there." And he rose to find PJ and give him his supper.
Mindy opened the door to the apartment and drew back instinctively from the stench. Even a whore has standards. She spied the shine of a thousand bottles lying on the ground. A man was standing amidst them, shirtless. "You must be Mindy." he said. She entered, closing the door behind her softly.