Page 25 of Havoc

"Secretary can amend the book by his own hand, ratified at next chapel, it's in the front." Tyrant turns the pen around. "You want to read the front?"

"No, sir."

"Smart."

Blitz has got his head down on the bar, laughin' into his own arm, and Cricket's standin' there holdin' four rags like a man at a funeral.

"Hey." Blitz sits up. "Hey, what about boots? Does the book say anything about boots?"

Tyrant looks at him.

"'Cause I could wear a lot of boots."

"Write that down," Tyrant says to nobody, and writes it down.

Junie's got the bar and Gigi's up on the cooler with her legs swinging, going through a plastic bag of somethin' from the Dollar General.

"Okay, so," Gigi says. "Two ninety-nine."

"Two ninety-nine."

"Two ninety-nine, Junie. For a candle."

"It's a bad candle."

"It's a four-hour candle. It says four hours on the bottom." She holds it up. "It went ninety minutes."

"So take it back."

"I'm not takin' a candle back to the Dollar General."

"Why not?"

"Because then I'm a woman who takes candles back to the Dollar General." She puts it in the bag. "There's a version of my life where I do that and I don't want to meet her."

Junie's laughin' with her whole face and no sound comin' out, which is how she does it, and she has to put a hand flat on the bar.

Raider comes through from the lot with his keys still in his hand.

"Y'all got coffee?"

"You want a beer?"

"Got coffee?"

"There's some from this mornin'."

"That'll do." He drinks it standin' up. Six feet from the door the whole time, one shoulder turned toward it, the way he's stood in every room I've ever seen him in.

"You stayin'?" Gigi says.

"Nah."

"You just got here."

"Got here twice." He puts the cup down. "Storm's got me runnin' to Lafayette in the mornin', so."

And he's gone.