Nobody pushes us around, we don't do any bumping either. Now you come over and you say pay now."

"It's a house rule," said the proprietor, staring out the window. "Everybody pays now." Stern, the brocade tightening around his stomach and wanting to do something, put down two dollars and the proprietor took it. The Greek boy said, "You think you got such a hot place here. This place stinks." He spit on the floor and the proprietor went back to the bar.

"That's what I was telling you," the blond boy said to Stern with a pleading compassion in his voice. "Nobody gives you freedom. You come into a place nice, you know, and you just want a few brews, and look what happens."

"He thinks just because he's got a fancy place he can give you shit," said the Greek boy. "I spit on his ass."

The blond boy's mood suddenly changed and he took hold of one of the girl's breasts again. "Good set, huh, Mr. Stern?" And Stern nodded sweetly in agreement, looking apologetically at the girl, as though he was only going along with this line of conversation to be polite and really never thought of such things.

"What about the dancin'?" the girl asked, looking over at the jukebox. "Does my love feel a tango within him?"

"Dancing, shit," said the blond boy. He looked over at the proprietor, who was rinsing glasses, and said, "He comes over here again, we get him. You can be nice up to a certain point."

"He thinks he has a fancy place," said the boy in the wheelchair. "I'll cut his balls."

Stern, his stomach pumping, wanted to say, "Wait. No[Pg 148] fighting. You have other things, but I have an ulcer, the kind of thing you shouldn't get excited with. What if I get hit in it and get another new one?" When the proprietor came over to the table, the blond boy arranged his fingers like two donkey's ears and stuck them swiftly in the man's eyes. The proprietor said, "I can't see now," holding his eyes, and the Greek boy grabbed his hair and yanked the man's head down on his lap, saying, "I ought to cut your balls." Then he held the man by the hair in a bent-over position and the tall, blond boy began to kick at the man's upper legs, the kicks making sharp, fresh cracking sounds, like new baseballs off a bat. Stern, who had stood by doing nothing, wanted to say, "Stop, you're going too far. The hair stuff wasn't so bad, but now you can do spinal injury." But a current began snapping through him and he 

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