He had overslept he knew, because he could hear the birds chirping outside his window. He opened his eyes, resolving to make his way directly to the job site, knowing that the boss would have driven the mixer himself. He would work for free, stay and help the finishers; Luther would do anything to keep that good-paying job.

He should have never let that lady buy him a drink. He held his head and mumbled, “How did I even get home? Did they beat me bad? Do I have knots on my bald head?”

He rose to go to the bathroom and noticed that the window was open, noticed that bloody streaks and gouges marred the windowsill. As he rose to his feet from his mattress, which he kept on the floor on account of his bad back, he noticed that he had not gotten undressed. But there was something the matter. The remains of his shirt hung from his shoulders. His jeans were now shredded cutoffs, and his steel-toed work boots were burst open, the shell toe guard flopping like an open mouth, the laces shredded, the entire sole of the boot gone.

“Oh Gawd!”

He slammed the window down, quieting the birds, and rushed to the bathroom. He stood there in the mirror and looked at himself as a bloody mess, just covered with blood! And there was something hanging from his mouth! He tore it loose and held it up before his eyes. It was a mess of blood-matted, curly, blonde hair attached to a flap of skin.

He looked at the skinned bloody hair.

“Josh?”

He then looked in the mirror at the red-eyed black man, as black as old Smokin’ Joe Frazier himself. “Luther Watts, what the hell did you do all drunk with them white-boys?”

He was then overcome by a pang of guilt. It should have been a pang of hunger, him not having eaten for thirty odd hours. But his belly was swelled to bursting and he could not imagine even drinking some water. He panicked, stripped, and jumped in the shower, shampooing over and over again.

He was crying so much that the shower water on his face was salty as seawater. It took so long to wash away the guilt that the hot water and shampoo was all gone, and still he stood under the cold water. Eventually, feeling somewhat cleansed, he stepped out of the shower and regarded the pile of torn clothing and the shredded boots.

“Oh no, this won’t do!”

Luther picked up the shredded clothes and boots and took them in a rush to the spare closet that his roommate Allen had used before he disappeared. He pulled the door open to toss the remnants of yesterday’s work attire into the empty space beyond—and shredded boots by the dozen spilled out from behind the door, tangled in crusty matted clothes so torn as to be mere rags.

“No!”