Bill Mesce, Jr.

Passaic, New Jersey -- 1983

EVEN FOR NOVEMBER, IT’S COLDER THAN IT SHOULD BE, AND TINY TERRY FEELS LICKS OF ICE IN THE RAIN.  It hadn’t been raining when they’d left the bar, so none of them had thought to bring an umbrella or wear a raincoat, so now they’re wet and cold, the three of them:  Tiny Terry, Big Frank, and B.B.

They had been in the back room at B.B.’s place when going to the burial had come up.  B.B. has a go-go bar on Main in Passaic called “The Roma.”  B.B. calls the back room of the bar his “office” because he keeps a desk in there, but he almost never does any business in it, at least no bar business.  They were all in the office, B.B. at his desk, the other three sitting around the card table not doing much of anything the day after Smackey Jack got carved up across the river.

This was in the morning, so the bar was closed, and the building was big and dark and empty and cold.  They were sitting around the card table wearing their coats because the place is so big it never warms up in the cold weather in the morning, especially the back rooms.  In the cold months, B.B. keeps a space heater glowing in a corner of the office.  That helps, but not a hell of a lot.

They weren’t playing although they had the cards and chips out.  They were sitting around the table wanting to play, not wanting to play, still brooding about Smackey Jack getting cut up.

Cat Monano kept shuffling and rifling the cards, every so often cutting them just to see what card would pop up.  Big Frank was tapping out spastic rhythms on the green baize tabletop with his chips.  Tiny Terry was sipping on his Dunkin’ Donuts take-out coffee and making a face with each sip while he flipped through The Star-Ledger.  Cat Monano and Big Frank were talking about this and that, but B.B. sat quiet at his desk, chewing on the fringe of his porn star Fu Manchu.

Mouser jumped up on the table.  Mouser is a 15-pound gray cat with green eyes B.B. bought from the cat pound back in August when the dancers were screaming about mice in the lady’s room.  Now, it was too cold to play with the cockroaches in the icy lady’s room, so Mouser was inside the office with its space heater and Big Frank who liked to rub foreheads with the cat.

“He jus’ does ’at so you’ll give ’im sont’in’ to eat,” Cat Monano said.

“He likes me,” Big Frank said.

“Cats don’ like nobody,” Cat Monano said.

“He likes me,” Big Frank said, nuzzling his nose in one of Mouser’s ears.  Mouser started to purr.  “Hear that?  That means he does like me.”

“You need a girl, Frankie,” Cat Monano said.

“We should go to the service,” B.B. said.

“What service?” Cat Monano said.

“Smackey Jack.  We should go to the funeral.”

“The funeral or the wake?” Cat Monano asked.

“The what or the what?” B.B. said.

“The funeral or the wake?”

“Which is which?” Big Frank asked.

“Well, the funeral is where they bury you,” Cat Monano said.

“I thought that was the burial,” Big Frank said.  “Isn’t that why they call it the burial?  Because that’s when they bury you?”

“Well, yeah,” Cat Monano said.  “Same t’in’.  The funeral is a burial.  Si?  Ain’ ’at righ’, Ter?”

“Right what?”  Tiny Terry had kept his nose in his newspaper.

“The funeral ’n’ a burial is a same t’in’.”

“Same thing as what?”

Cat Monano gave up on Terry and turned to B.B.  “Is a same t’in’.”

“I think the funeral is the service and the burial is when they actually put you in the ground,” Tiny Terry said, still not looking up from his paper.  He took another sip of his coffee and set it down far from him.  “Don’t go in that place first thing in the morning,” he said.  “I think they give you the coffee left over from the day before.”

“It’s supposed to be fresh alla time,” Big Frank said.

“I know what it’s suppose’ to be, Frank.  Taste it.  You tell me.”

Big Frank took a taste and made a face.  “Well, I dunno...”

“Don’t know shit, that’s sucky coffee, Frank, c’mon.”

“Maybe it’s just a bad pot.”  Frank started rubbing Mouser roughly under his chin with one of his hard, thick fingers.  Mouser arched his back and closed his eyes.  “He likes this,” Frank said.  “See?  He’s smiling.”

“Tha’s jus’ how his mouth go,” Cat Monano said.

“Hey,” B.B.; said.  It was like a gavel coming down to call for order.  “Stunat’, we should go to this thing.”

Tiny Terry saw something in the paper and made a face.  “Fuckin’ wacko,” he said to no one and shook his head.  He put his paper down, finally.  “What thing?”

“Smackey Jack’s t’in’,” Cat Monano said.  “Oye!  Where you been?  Plug in!”

“Not the wake,” Tiny Terry said.  “I can’t see us goin’ to the wake.  Not us.  Not with all his family there ’n’ everything.  You nuts?  They’ll fuckin’ lynch us.”

“The funeral,” Cat Monano said.

“They probably think one of us did it,” Terry said.

“Whatever the fuck it’s called” B.B. said.  “Where they bury him.  The thing by the grave.”

“The funeral,” Cat Monano said.

“Whatever the fuck it’s called,” B.B. said, getting a little peeved.

“Do we even know where it is?” Terry asked.

“Yeah,” B.B. said.  “Whatchamacallit, that one by the Parkway.”

“Over by the brewery?” Cat Monano asked.

“Christ,” Terry said.  “They got any room in that place?  They gotta use a crowbar to get you in.  Looks like they practically got ’em stacked on top each other in there.”

“The smell from ’at place makes me sick.”

“Enough, huh?” B.B. said.  “I’m sayin’ we should go to this thing, I don’t give a shit what it’s called, I don’t give a shit it sits next to a fuckin’ toilet, ok?”

“Well,” Tiny Terry said, looking unenthused at the prospect, “I’m biased ’cause I thought the guy was a scumbag, but, well, he was a scumbag.”

“Meanin’ what?” B.B. asked.  “You don’t wanna go?”

“Ya know, Beeb,” Cat Monano said, “I was a friend a his.  At least much a friend as ’at asshole ever had.  ’N’ I don’t say he was a scumbag, but I wouldn’t leave my sister alone wit’ ’im.”

“Or your mother, for that matter,” Terry said.

“Or your dog!” Cat Monano said and laughed.

“I’m still sayin’ we should go to this thing,” B.B. said.  He was getting a little impatient.  “Like outta respect or somethin’.”

“Respect?”  Tiny Terry shook his head.  “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’d say the board of directors here is unanimous in thinkin’ ol’ Smackey was a total scumbag.  Or did I hear different from a member a the board?”  Terry looked at Big Frank and Cat Monano.

Big Frank nodded no and he moved Mouser’s head with his big, beefy hand to make the cat nod no, and Cat Monano raised a hand and said, “I vote ‘Total Scumbag.’  There; is anonymous.”

“Unanimous,” Terry said.  “Don’t tell me you vote different,” he said to B.B.

B.B. shook his head and ran his fingers through his thick, black hair.  B.B. always has his hair cut at some $25 a pop place so it’ll come out in a way that all he ever has to do is shake his head to make it fall into place.

“We should go to this thing,” B.B. said.  He was saying it in a settled way, sitting back in his chair, saying it flatly.  The others were just waiting for him to come up with a reason why anybody else should go with him.  “Yeah, he was a scumbag, but he was one a ours.”

“When we talkin’?” Cat Monano asked.  “Tomorrow?  I got this prelim down county court.  I gotta go to that.”

“We should get all dressed up nice ’n’ go,” B.B. said.  “Respect.  I mean for the mother if nothin’ else.”

“Oh, yeah,” Tiny Terry said dryly.  “I’m sure she’d appreciate us bein’ there.”

“Hey, whaddaya t’in’ she gonna do wit’ Smack’s wheels?” Cat Monano asked.  “’At fuckin’ Trans Am a his is nice!  I mean, hell’s she gonna do wit’ it?  I don’ even t’in’ a ol’ lady has a license.”

“First of all,” Tiny Terry said, “the car’s a piece a shit.  All it’s good for is makin’ noise.  Second, what’re you gonna do?  Stand over the guy’s grave with his mother ’n’ put in a bid for his fuckin’ car?”

“No, no, not right there!  But I’m sayin’, wha’ she gonna do wit’ it?  I could make her a nice offer.  I’m sure she could use a bucks.  Maybe I can get outta this prelim.”

“Jesus, Cat,” Tiny Terry said.

“Oye, I’m tellin’ you she don’ even got no license!  Don’ tell me you t’in’ she got a license?  She don’ even speak no English, how she gonna have a license?”

“Hey, Jeez,” Frank said, “You think anybody’s takin’ care a his fish?”

“Fish?” Tiny Terry said.

“Oh, shit, yeah!” Cat Monano said.  “Smack’s fish!  Fuck, they must all be dead by now.  I can’ see the ol’ lady wantin’ ’em.  I figger if they wa’n’ dead, she musta flushed ’em by now jus’ to get rid a them.”

“Fish,” Big Frank said.  “That’s a funny pet.  I mean, what can you do with a fish?  You can’t even pet a fish.”  He turned to Mouser and rubbed foreheads with the cat.  “Am I right, Mouse-Mouse?”

“I never unnerstood ’at whole fish t’in’ myself,” Cat Monano said.  “I mean, Jesus...fish!  Whaddaya do wit’ fish?  Wha’, ya just stare at ’em?  What a fuck is ’at?”

“That’s what I’m sayin’,” Big Frank said.

“Maybe we could go over there, get wha’s left a the fish ’n’ feed ’em to the fleabag here,” Cat Monano said, nodding at Mouser.  “Put ’em to good use.”

“We should go, all decked out nice,” B.B. said, “’n’ give her an envelope.  He was a scumbag, but he was our scumbag.”

“That’s your idea a respect?” Tiny Terry asked.

B.B. shrugged.

So, they went.

Except for Cat Monano who said he couldn’t get out of his prelim so it was just Tiny Terry, Big Frank, and B.B. standing wet and shivering in the freezing rain by Smackey Jack’s grave.

We should’ve let this fucking scumbag bury himself, Tiny Terry thinks, and he also thinks Cat Monano was right about the brewery.  The brewery sits right by the cemetery, you can see the water tower shaped and painted like a bottle of Budweiser on top of the main building, and the place is pumping out big, yeasty clouds, and not the cold or the wind or the rain with ice in it is cutting the smell much.  Terry considers the brewery and wonders, How could anything tasting so good going down stink so bad when it’s being made?

The smell is mixing with the acid churning in Tiny Terry’s stomach from his two Egg McMuffins and he’s not feeling well at all.  They had stopped at a McD’s on the way to the cemetery not because they were that hungry, but because they thought it would be fun to go through the drive-through in a limo.

The limo has been sitting in Terry’s shop for a couple days.  Some car service guy had dropped it off to have some work done, and it’s due the next day, and Terry knows he should’ve left it at the shop instead of taking it out so the shop crew could work on it, but it seemed like a good idea to use it for the cemetery run.  A fun idea, anyway.  “It’ll make a good impression,” B.B. said.

By the time they got to the cemetery, the burial service was already underway, and the rain was coming down pretty hard.  They pulled the limo up and sat there for a minute with the engine idling.  They all looked at each other, and out at the freezing rain, and you could tell everybody was wondering the same thing:  should we just bag this?  Then B.B. looked down at his camel hair coat with the same kind of face people around the grave were wearing, and he said, “Well, shit,” and climbed out.  Tiny Terry and Big Frank sighed and followed.

As he walked around the car, Tiny Terry saw the limo’s owner had slapped an “I’d rather be dancing” sticker on the bumper.  He felt stupid; he didn’t think that was appropriate for the cemetery.  He was glad everybody was already standing at the graveside so they couldn’t see it.  As he crunched across the ice building up on the withered grass, he thought probably everybody in the place – above and below ground – would rather be dancing.  He knew he would.

So now Tiny Terry is standing there listening to the rain with the ice in it slap down on his leather jacket, and he feels the chill water crawl inside his upturned collar.  He feels the water starting to seep through the tops of his Florsheims and he know they’re a write-off.

At the head of the grave is a Catholic priest, and he’s going on and on, and Terry wonders what the hell is he doing here?  How much of a donation did somebody have to make to the church to get this guy out in the rain?  He wonders this because he doubts Smackey Jack had ever even seen the inside of a church since his baptism.  Terry thinks if there is a Catholic God, or any other kind of God, he should be so pissed about Smackey Jack getting buried by a priest that a bolt of lightning should come down and turn them all into pillars of salt like what’s-her-face in the Bible; what’s-his-name’s wife.

There’s Smack’s mom and she’s crying a blue streak.  Well, he thinks, she’s the mother.  Mothers cry, he tells himself, no matter what kind of scumbag their kid was.  He thinks Hitler’s mom would’ve cried if she’d been alive when he died.

But then there’s all these other people hanging behind the mother he assumes are friends of hers and relatives, and they’re all crying like they’re at the foot of Christ’s cross.  This pisses Terry off.  Who do they think they’re fooling? he thinks.  It’s not respect for the old lady, he tells himself.  You can be respectful without the bullshit.  And Tiny Terry thinks all this boo-hoo-hooing over Smackey Jack is total bullshit.

Like with his cousin Louis.

If anybody were to ask, Tiny Terry would tell them his cousin Louis had been a prize prick.  When Terry was a kid, his family lived in a tenement on Seventh Avenue down in Newark’s North Ward.  A lot of his cousins lived in the same building. 

When Louis died, he was living in the same tenement as his mother, in an apartment right above her she was paying for.  He’d been living with some Filipino girl fresh off the boat, practically a kid.  He’d been living with her a couple years, and they had two kids and were living off her paycheck as a cashier at an A & P and his welfare check.  Louis had been going through a half-carton of Camels and a six-pack of Bud a day, and any day he hadn’t had enough nicotine and Bud to mildly narcotize himself, he’d decide he was unhappy with his life and give the Filipino girl and the kids all kinds of shit.  Somewhere in his cholesterol-choked heart was a part that didn’t want his kids to turn into the same fuck-up he’d become, so he’d beat them to make sure they grew up into good kids, and whenever the Filipino girl tried to stop him, he’d beat her.  Finally, the Filipino girl couldn’t take it anymore and split with the kids one day while Louis was out buying cigarettes and beer.

Five months after the Filipino girl cut out, Terry got a call from Louis’s mom because she could tell the lights and the TV were always on in Louis’s apartment, all day and all night, and now there was this funny smell and Louis wasn’t answering his phone.  Terry slipped the window lock with a jimmy and found Louis face down and dead on the kitchen floor.  He was thirty-eight, dead of a heart attack from all those damn cigarettes and all that damn beer, from sitting on his ass all day every day, from forty-five extra pounds he shouldn’t’ve been carrying, and from being pissed at himself and everybody else for his fucked-up life.

At Pizzaro’s Funeral Home, Louis’s mom cried and cried and cried like mothers do, but everybody else was crying, too, and talking about what a loss, and how unfair Louis should die so young.  Later, at the bar with B.B., Terry was telling him about all the bullshit at the funeral home.  “I’m tellin’ ya, Beeb,” Terry said, shaking his head, “You’d think they were buryin’ a fuckin’ Kennedy.”

The priest is done now, and the family is filing off, back to their cars that are all old, dented, rusting.  Terry is happy it’s over.  He’s so wet and cold he’s shaking like he’s got palsy.

He watches B.B. go up to Smackey Jack’s mother and offer her an envelope.  It’s thick.  Terry doesn’t know how much is in it, but he knows B.B. likes to make a good show, so even if it’s not much, B.B. would’ve used small bills to give the envelope a nice heft.

Only Smack’s mom doesn’t take it.  She says something to B.B. that Terry can’t quite hear across the open grave, besides it’s Spanish, but it doesn’t come off like any kind of “Thank you.”

Smackey Jack’s mother walks past B.B., ignoring the envelope in his hand wilting in the rain.  B.B. offers it to the priest.  The priest shrugs and says something else Terry can’t hear, but he doesn’t take the envelope either.  B.B. turns to some of the friends and family group moving off after Smack’s mom.  He turns to one that when he talks about it later, he’ll call The Sister.  He automatically thinks it’s Smack’s mom’s sister because she’s short and round just like Smack’s mom.  She hisses more Spanish at B.B., and Terry understands just enough to know B.B. is getting a blue streak cursed at him.  She waddles off after her sister, dragging her husband behind her.  One of the men spits as he passes B.B.  Another little old round lady kicks him in the ankle.

Then everybody else is gone and B.B. is standing at the graveside with his wet envelope and Terry and Frank are standing on the other side of the hole shivering.  The gravediggers move up and they’re waiting for B.B., Terry, and Frank to leave so they can fill in the grave.

B.B. looks down in the open hole at Smackey Jack’s casket.  “Well...fuck...” he says finally, and heads back for the limo.

Terry falls into step beside him.  “Tell me again ’bout respect,” he says. 

B.B. invites Tiny Terry and Big Frank to hang out at The Roma.  Terry says he’s got to get the limo back to the shop, and, besides, he wants to get some dry clothes on.

Terry drives home to a small apartment he has about fifteen minutes away from his shop, over in Lyndhurst, that he shares with an iguana measuring thirty-four inches from its blunt, green nose to the tapered tip of its tail.

First thing in the apartment, Terry shucks his sodden jacket and cranks up the heat, strips off the rest of his cold, wet clothes as he stands over the heated aquarium where he keeps the iguana.  “How we doin’ today, Bub?” he says through the screen over the top of the tank.  “Miss me, Bub?”  He calls the iguana “Bub” for Big Ugly Bastard.

Once he’s naked, Terry towels himself off in the bathroom, pulls on a faded kimono ragged around the edges, a souvenir from Vietnam.  Like his nightmares.

Terry takes a shot of Jack Daniels from the bottle he keeps in his kitchen.  The J.D. is to chase away the chill and the aches he feels in his joints.  The cold and the damp always make him ache.

“I’m gettin’ old, Bub,” he tells the iguana as he downs a shot.  Then he gets a beer out of the fridge; Dos Equis.  He developed a taste for Mexican beer when he’d been stationed in San Diego.

He turns on the stereo, one of the FM channels that plays a lot of old AOR rock, then, as cold as it is, and as cold as he is, he cracks his living room window.  Even with him being three floors up and with the bad weather, he can smell the bakery up the block.  He likes that smell.

They bake mostly for restaurants and hotels, so they’ve got the ovens going all night.  Terry leaves his bedroom window open, at least a crack, even in the winter, so he can smell the bread baking.  That safe smell chases the nightmares away.

Terry sits on the windowsill smelling the bakery and watching the rain wash down the street until his beer is gone, then he opens a second Dos Equis and rolls himself a bone.  He takes Bub out of his aquarium and Bub immediately goes to a perch on Terry’s shoulder.  Terry slumps down on his sofa and Bub curls up against his side, away from the open window, tight against Terry’s ribs where it’s warm.  Terry takes a few tokes on his bone and snuffs it out, then nurses his Dos Equis.  Terry finishes his beer, and with the smell of the bakery, he can’t keep his eyes open, and he falls asleep.

The good sleep.

When he wakes up, he doesn’t know what time it is, but he doesn’t really care.  All he knows is it’s dark and it’s stopped raining.  He puts Bub back in his tank, throws on some clothes and drives down to The Roma.

It’s a weeknight so business is slow, maybe a half-dozen customers scattered around the oval bar, and just two girls switching off on stage. 

Terry sees Big Frank at the bar playing with Mouser.  Frank has Mouser sitting on the bar and he’s waving a finger in the cat’s face.  The cat is up on his haunches, batting at Frank’s finger.  Every once in a while, Frank lets Mouser catch his finger and gnaw on it.

Terry plants himself on the stool next to Frank.  “Where’s B.B.?”

Frank nods at the door to the office.  “Doin’ a books, I think.”

The bartender sets a shot of J.D. on the bar along with a bottle of Dos Equis in front of Terry without being asked.  He never forgets a regular.  B.B. doesn’t stock Dos Equis for the bar but keeps a case on hand for Terry. 

“Lookit this,” Frank says and nods at Mouser.  “I’m teachin’ ’im to box.  Not bad, huh?”

“Maybe he should be teachin’ you.”

“Hear that, Mouse-Mouse?  You think you got somethin’ on me?  Huh?”  Frank lets Mouser grab his finger and wrestle it to the bar.  “You might be right, Terry.  I got me a contender here I think.”

“You hungry?” Terry asks and Frank nods.

They order Chinese because neither of them can stand the microwave crap B.B. serves in the bar.  They sit at the bar eating out of the cartons.  Frank shares his shrimp lo mein with Mouser who doesn’t like the lo mein but likes the shrimp.  Terry eats with chopsticks.

“That hurts my hands just watchin’ you,” Big Frank says.

“Hide your eyes.”

“It’s a good thing Cat didn’t come today, huh?” Frank says.  “Imagine him there hittin’ onna mom ’bout the car the way they were today.”

“I think Cat woulda wound up keepin’ Smack company in that hole he tried that.  I think the ol’ lady woulda laid him out.”

“I didn’t think they’d be like that.  Not there inna cemetery.  That wasn’t nice.  They didn’t have to like us or nothin’, I get that, but be nice, ya know?  Right there by the casket?”

“Hey,” Terry says, “you woulda thought they were buryin’ a fuckin’ Kennedy.”  Terry tells Frank about his cousin Louis the prize prick.

“It’s always like that,” Frank says.  “I wonder why people do that?”

“I wonder why people do anything,” Terry says.

Terry looks up at the girl who has the stage right then.  The pair B.B. has dancing that night are typical off-night dancers.  One’s ok-looking, actually, she’s a nice kind of pretty, Spanish-looking, great long legs, but she thinks guys can be impressed by how well she moves her feet instead of her hips.  The other one is pushing an age where Terry hopes she has another skill to fall back on.

The pretty one is dancing to Hall and Oates’ “Kiss On My List.”  Terry reaches a fin out to her, and she tucks the bill in her G-string, blows him a kiss, does some fancy moves with her stiletto-heeled feet.  Terry pretends to look impressed.  She scrunches up her face in a cute smile at him before she moves to try and impress somebody else into a fiver.

After Terry and Frank finish eating and down a couple more drinks, Frank asks Terry to give him a lift.

“You don’t have your car?” Terry asks.

“I just need somebody to drive.”

“Oh-oh.”

“No, it’s ok, I’m not doin’ nothin’.  I just need somebody to drive.”

They finish their drinks, climb into Terry’s Riviera, and Big Frank directs him to Smackey Jack’s apartment.

“Gimme a hand,” Frank says.

Terry climbs out of the car, and he gives Frank a boost where he can snag the bottom rung of the fire escape ladder.  The ladder rolls down with a clang.  Frank tells Terry to wait there and hold the ladder down for him.  Frank disappears up the front of the building into the dark.

Terry’s standing there holding the bottom of the ladder on the shadowy street and wishes he had a fungo bat or something with him.  He doesn’t like being in Smackey Jack’s neighborhood at night without something for self-defense.

A few minutes later, Frank’s coming back down struggling with Smackey Jack’s fish tank.  It’s not easy, and water keeps sloshing out, but somehow Frank gets the tank down the ladder, along with a bag of fish stuff that had been sitting on the aquarium stand, then they’re in Terry’s car heading for Frank’s place.

“This is why I needed somebody to drive,” Frank says.  “I gotta keep this on my lap so nobody falls out.  I thought they’d all be dead by now.”

Terry flashes a glance over at the tank.  The fish seem to be hovering near the surface of the water for a look at Frank.

“Didn’t there used to be more fish in there?” Terry asks.  “I ’member there used to be more of ’em.  You didn’t see nobody floatin’ at the top?”

“They look fine,” Frank says.

“I’ll bet there were more of ‘em.”

“Where’d they go?  You think they’re hidin’ in there somewhere?”

“Well, nobody’s been feedin’ ‘em since Smack got hit.  They musta been eatin’ somethin’.”

Frank makes a face as he looks into the tank.  “Oh, man...”

“You want to keep those fish, you better feed ’em somethin’ ’sides each other, Frank.”

Frank fumbles through the fish stuff and finds the can of fish food.  He sprinkles it into the tank.

“Not too much,” Terry says.  “You’re not supposed to overfeed them,” although Terry doesn’t have a clue how much is overfeeding.

They take the tank to Frank’s place which isn’t far.  Terry helps him set the tank up on his kitchen counter, and once they’re sure the filter and heater are going fine and the fish are fed, they drive back to The Roma.  They nosh on the leftover Chinese food which is cold by now, and the bartender sets them up with fresh drinks.

B.B. comes out of his office for a minute.  He’s wearing his specs.  He has wire-rimmed half-moons he uses when he’s going over the books.

“You oughta wear those alla time,” Terry says.  Between the J.D., the Dos Equis, and that bone back at his place, he’s got a nice buzz on, and he’s smiling a lot.  “It makes you look teacherly.”

B.B. blinks.  “Teacherly?”

“Yeah, like a teacher.”

“I’m just wonderin’ if that’s a word.”

“It is now,” Frank says, and he and Terry cement the creation of the word by clinking their beer bottles together.

“Come in ’round eleven tomorrow,” B.B. says.

“I should go to the shop,” Terry says.

“Go to the shop first.  I gotta iron out all this shit Smack left for me.  We’ll be makin’ rounds.”

B.B. goes back to the books, so Terry and Frank have a few more beers and then go their own ways home.

Back in his apartment, Terry opens a Dos Equis and turns the TV on but there’s nothing to watch.  He finishes his Dos Equis and takes Bub out of his tank and into the bedroom.  Bub crawls under the blankets to snuggle close to Terry.  Terry leaves the bedroom window open a crack so he can smell the bakery.

And with the smell of the bakery, he can’t keep his eyes open, and he falls asleep.

The good sleep.