He doesn’t tell them that reaching to pull his cup out of his athletic supporter, being told to put his hand down his shorts like that, made him think of his father.

– I’m gonna kill that fucking faggot.

George is sitting on the ground, turning his bike’s front wheel in his lap, tucking the innertube back up inside the tire.

– Where’d you see him?

Hector is picking up tools.

– Over by their house.

– Was he fucking around or headed home?

– He was headed toward Fernando’s pad.

George is using a screwdriver to flip the edge of the tire back inside the wheel rim. He stops.

– Fernando’s?

– Yeah.

George goes back to work.

– Shit.

Paul is on his bike. He’s already ridden it to the corner and back twice, Andy trailing him on foot both ways, saying nothing.

– So fucking what, he’s going to his brother’s; I’m still gonna kill him.

Hector shakes his head.

– Fine, man, go pedal over there and kill him. Not like Fernando won’t be home. Not like Ramon didn’t get out of Santa Rita last month. You see him since he got out?

– Fuck him.

– Looks like all he did in there was eat and pump iron.

Paul limps his wrist.

– And take it in the ass.

Hector turns away.

– I’m just saying, you know, you don’t want to mess with Fernando and Ramon.

George has slipped the wheel back onto his bike’s front forks. With a crescent wrench he gradually tightens the nuts on either side of the wheel, giving it a spin after each turn of the wrench to be certain that it stays true.

– When’d Timo move out of his folks’?

Hector has pulled out a nearly full pack of Marlboro Reds. He takes one for himself and hands the pack around.