Finally he come in and before he could even sit down at the kitchen table and open him a beer, she started in on him with how he should go on and beat the hell out of us . . . ’cause we’d been bad, raisin’ cane, fightin’, and be sure and belt us all good. “Get dis one St. John” “beat dis one” “belt all des brats” brats . . . des brats . . . brats that she was stuck with every night he went out to come back smellin’, weavin’, wobblin’, carryin’ a brown paper sack and drop himself onto a chrome and vinyl chair and slur his words but finally growl . . . clear enough for her to understand . . . “stick out yer tongue you bitch I want to put out my cigarette.”