“Squirrel,” Russell said, “when I was a little kid I used to take off on Cheracol. I didn’t have any trouble. When I was working for my Uncle, I used to have to go down in holes for him, you know? The carbon black on my face and go down in them holes with a forty-five in my hand and a knife in my fuckin’ teeth and I went into them tunnels. Every day I went in them tunnels. If there wasn’t anything in the tunnel, that was a good day. Not so good days, there’s probably only a big fuckin’ snake in there or something that wants to eat you. Kinda bad days, there’s some skinny dink in there with a gun, tryin’ to kill you. Bad days was when the dink did it, or there was a piece of wire in there and you didn’t happen, you weren’t paying attention or something and it’s rigged up to something that blows up pretty quick, or else there’s a punji stick in there with a whole lot of dink shit on it under your hand and you go into your basic blood poisoning extra quick.

“I didn’t have no bad days,” Russell said. “I was in them tunnels almost two years and I didn’t have no bad days. I wasn’t buying up Mustangs and teaching little dumb shits to drive, but I didn’t have no bad days, either.

“The thing of it is, Squirrel,” Russell said, “when I was having them days, I didn’t know for sure at the time that I wasn’t gonna have a bad one, you know? I started out, I thought it was all just a matter of balls. I don’t wanna hurt your feelings or anything, but I always had the balls, you know? And I thought, I felt pretty good, because I thought that’s all it was and I had them so I was all right. Then I see, I seen them cart out a couple guys that went in there and put them in the green bags, you know? And a couple of them, they didn’t have no balls when they come out, on account they didn’t have no luck, they went in that time, and no cocks either, and that carbon black, don’t do a thing for cuts and stuff. Fuckin’ booby traps go right through it, like it wasn’t even there.