That Night I Left Work with a Pocketful of Cash on Fire and you went and fucked it up by taking a bullet through your hand. You never watched After School Specials, so never learned not to do stupid shit. None of us did. He’s in the ER, Juanita said, her voice so flat and put-out, as if describing how the dog had just pissed all over the rug again. You’d been playing around with it, .25 with the pearl grip and nickel finish, lifted by some kid from the projects from his grandma’s top drawer, the way we did, passing it back and forth in the lot by the tracks, killing time between fathers and griefs. You could still roll a damn fine joint with your good hand bandaged, its fingernails caked with dirt, the raw and ragged hole, the rotten smell of it like a body bloating in the sun, and after, with the bones of your metacarpus tenting upward, a miniature volcano pressing against the puckered flesh. It would never heal right, no feeling but the dulling of dead
Like the title says.