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tear the place apart.”
    The man in the white polo shirt and shorts emerged from the room. He paused at the door and pointed his right forefinger back into the room. “All
right
,” he said, “all right. You made your fuckin’ point. Now I will make my point, again, and what you should do is listen. It’s a short season here, and it isn’t being that
good
a season, and when it’s over, it’s gonna be over. So, as a result of which, I’m gonna keep this place running, we all got to dig in,
and work.
You got me? Becauseif we don’t do that, you, or me, or anybody else, pretty soon I’m gonna have to
close
the fuckin’ place, and you’re gonna be up shit’s creek without a paddle, down the McDonald’s in Westerly, up to your hogans in grease. All right? And that means I oughta have most of these rooms,
all
these rooms, ready to rent by two. And the rest of them by three. Because that’s when people come around and start renting the rooms. Okay? Early afternoon. They get where they’re going, they wanna stop, rent a room, change their clothes and go the beach, bake their asses off. Not at four. Not at five. Two. Two in the afternoon. And I don’t care, you think of their morals, or what they do makes you sick. They pay me the money, they get the damned room. Maybe looks like a pigpen when they get out, but when they go in, it is clean. Okay?”
    Earl walked over to the office porch and sat down in the chair farthest from the can of beer. He clasped his hands over his belt buckle. The blocky man hit the cleaning cart with the heel of his right hand and stomped his way to the porch. He collapsed into the vacant chair and picked up the beer can in his left hand. He drank deeply and wiped his mouth with the back of his right hand. He put the beer can down. He clasped his hands at his waist. He stared at Earl. “Yeah,” he said, “the Vermont guy.”
    Earl extended his hand. “Earl Beale,” he said.
    The blocky man ignored the hand. “Yeah,” he said, “so you’re finally here. I finally get to meet you. I thought it was you when I saw you. You put on some weight, right? Since you quit playing ball? Put on a few pounds, you got out of the can? And also: you’re late.”
    “Saw me,” Earl said.
    “Saw you scoping Maria, the packie,” the man said. “Thinking: ‘Jeez, what a nice ass she’s got.’ ”
    “Oh,” Earl said. He put his hands on the arms of the chair and crossed his legs at the knees. “Yeah, that was me. And she does.”
    “Better’n that,” the man said with satisfaction. “That, my friend, is a
perfect
ass. When that broad come down the assembly line, God’s going through the parts bin there, and He fishes into it and comes up with it, and says: ‘Jeez, a perfect ass. Don’t see many of these things, these days. Well, easy come.’ And slapped it on her.”
    “Yeah,” Earl said.
    “So,” the man said, “I’m Battles. You’re Beale. And you’re late. You gonna give me, the courtesy an explanation? Or’re you like everybody else these days, I practically got to kiss their ass for them before they’ll get to work.”
    “I got hassled by a cop, the way down,” Earl said.
    “Son of a bitch,” Battles said. “ ‘Hassled by a cop.’ What was he, a basketball fan? Hadda a yard or two on Saint Stephen’s, some night you went inna tank?”
    Earl shifted in the chair. “You know,” he said, “this’s my afternoon off. Wednesday and Thursday nights, I’m gonna have to work late to make up. My brother maybe calls me up, tells me to get down here. But that don’t make up for the commissions that I might’ve got today, and if I don’t get commissions, boy, my draw goes down the sewer. Plus which, I drive about a hundred sixty miles, you know, see this guy that I don’t know, and my
brother
doesn’t know, because my brother called me? Because his friend asked him to? And for this I’m taking shit? Because you’re afriend in need, a guy I don’t even
know?
Who