Hey you got no manners you don’t open the door. Hey it go
worse for you if you don’t open the door. Hey you want we
break it down. Hey you want we come in from next door.
Hey you want we use the back door girl. Banging. Banging.
Silence. Hey girl. Just wanna talk girl you ain’t gonna do no
better than that. You got thirty seconds girl then we come
through the front window girl: it break like a bone girl: you
ever see a bone break girl I gonna show you how you arm
break girl: and I got my boys in the back too you know that
girl. I go to the phone: police, even though they won’t come:
the line is cut: the phone is dead. The back is a jungle.
I open the door. The head of the pack is there. Behind him
there are seven or eight men, slouching, spitting, smoking. They
are several feet behind him. He is smaller than most of them,
dark, curly hair, not shaved, heavy moustache, earring in one
ear, gold, big dark eyes. Now girl this is the way it is, I keep
my word, you open the door we talk. Now you make a choice
girl. See these boys do what I say and now you let me in and
you take care of me real nice girl right now and we have a
good time or you close the door girl and we come in all together
and we get you good girl: you see girl you decide. He pulls out
67
a knife: gold, ornate, the size of a dagger. He fingers it. What
do you want, I say. He says, hey girl I just wanna come in,
have a little smoke, make a little love girl what you think, but
these boys here they ain’t so nice as me they a little rough girl
sometimes they ain’t so nice but you take my word girl you let
me in and I tell them to go home and they go home. I don’t
know what he will do but I know what they will do. I take my
chances with him. I say, you have to leave the knife outside.
He says, no girl hey that knife she my friend she go with me
where 1 go girl. I say, I won’t let you in with the knife. OK,
girl, I put the knife right here, right on this here window girl,
and if anything happen to me girl my boys put this knife right
in your back you understand girl. I nod. He turns to them, says
something in Spanish. They linger. He talks again. They leave.
Ah you see girl you so sweet it hard for them to go but you a
friend of Joe now.
He saunters in, looks around. Oh yeah girl they was nice
records you had, nice. He saunters into the middle room, sits
on the mattress, takes off his shirt. A gold cross glimmers in
his hairy chest. Hey girl now you make me something to eat, I
got to have something to eat girl so I can screw you good. We
got time girl. We got all night. We don’t have much food, I
say. Oh yeah girl that right, well, what you got. I say, there are
hot dogs. You make me hot dogs girl. I want you to make me
hot dogs girl. I am counting the minutes, thinking that maybe
if I can keep him eating or talking or distracted N will come
