Big Bob Whelan, saying it like it is. Again. Telling him that everything has a cost. There’s no free rides and life’s not fair and there’s always assholes wherever you go. Work, work, work and get by and take a break on weekends and crack a beer and watch a game and show your kids how to mow a lawn and drywall a house and shovel rocks and play hard and there’s no such thing as second place winner and be nice to your wife and she’ll be nice to you and don’t take anything for granted and clean your plate and as long as you live under my roof you live under my rules and there’s no such thing as a free ride and if it ain’t easy that just means you should work a little harder, doesn’t it?

The lesson of life: You get what you work for, if that.

George turns from the mirror and goes to the bathroom at the foot of the stairs. He gets in the shower and blasts it cold to stop the sweat. He should have brought his jeans down with him, his jeans and the Aerosmith Toys in the Attic T he plans on wearing today. Getting dressed up there, he’ll just start to sweat again. He thinks about the money from yesterday, wonders if there’s enough to buy an air conditioner for his room, a window unit. No. His dad would want to know where he got that much cash. But a fan, he could probably get away with a fan.

He thinks about the money, but that makes him think about the Arroyos’ house, and that makes him think about hitting the street and the El Camino just missing him and what it might have felt like to go under the wheels.

He could have died. But according to dad, that’s not the worst thing that happens to you. The worst thing is that you work for someone else and have to put up with assholes telling you what to do, that’s the worst thing.