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By Root 784 0

out of the rear hall. Her sloppy breasts were huge, swaying as though the top’s cups were hammocks, and no doubt most of their distention could be attributed to the fact that their scroungy owner had to be eight-plus-months pregnant. The tanned, veiny belly stretched tight as an overblown balloon around a popped-out navel like someone’s pinkie toe. That’s not a bun in the oven, Hudson thought. It’s the whole bakery. But he saw women such as this all too frequently. A prostitute even lower on the social rungs than the women he’d nearly solicited last night. These drug-addict urchins were the flotsam of the local streets.

“Is, uh, Randal around?”

She frowned back, neglecting to answer. She kept her lips tightly closed, and began looking around the store. Hudson immediately got the impression that she had a mouthful of something and was desperate to find a place to expectorate.

When she found no convenient wastebasket—

splap . . .

—she bowed her head by a carousel of potato chips and spat on the floor.

Then she winced at Hudson in his neat black attire. “What are you, a priest or somethin’?”

“I’m a . . . seminarist-to-be,” Hudson replied.

She kept wincing.

“Is Randal around?”

“I don’t know the asshole’s name, buddy,” she snapped. She yanked off several bags of chips, attacked a Mrs. Freshley’s snack cake rack, paused, then darted behind the service counter and grabbed a carton of Marlboros. “The tightwad poo-putt motherfucker’s in back.” Then the cowbell clanged and she flip-flopped briskly out, milk-sodden breasts tossing as if they sought to rock their way out of the top.

The sidewall was hung with black velvet paintings of either Elvis, Jeff Gordon, or Christ. The Jesus paintings were cheapest. Randal appeared next, looking displeased. “Oh, hey, man.”

“Hi, Randal. An . . . acquaintance of yours just made a speedy exit. Probably not on her way back to Yale.”

“The dumb ho. Pain in the ass. Gives the worst bj’s in town but at least I talked her down to fifteen.” Randal shook his head—a shaggy head and an atrocious Talibanlike beard. “Guess I get what I pay for.”

“You may have gotten a little more than you paid for.” Hudson pointed to the floor where the woman had spat.

Randal’s nostrils flared, like those of an indignant bull. “That bitch! She spat my load on the floor?”

“And then promptly relieved you of some chips, snack cakes, and one carton of Marlboros.”

“That bitch! That thieving pregnant bitch!”

“ ‘The wages of sin are death,’ ” Hudson recited. “It’s God’s way of saying ‘what goes around, comes around.’ Think about it.”

“Oh, listen to Mr. Almost-A-Priest over here. Mr. Celibacy. I’ve seen you eyeball chicks before.” Randal grinned wickedly. “Didn’t Jesus say that if you look at a chick and think, ‘Wow, I’d love to plug her slot,’ that’s the same as really doing her?”

“Well, not in language quite so refined,” Hudson laughed, “but, yes, he did.” He was going to further point out his lifelong celibacy but then declined. Don’t be a hypocrite. Crude as he may be, Randal’s right. Last night I came very close to being a whoremonger.

“So what is it, next month you’re going to this seminary?”

“Next week,” Hudson corrected.

“Fuck, man. Change your mind. You can still do good deeds and shit without becoming a priest.”

“Well said, Randal, but, no, I’m not changing my mind. It’s something I’ve been thinking about my whole life pretty much. You’re my best friend, you should want me to pursue my dreams.”

“If never getting laid is your dream? You’re fucked up.”

“Thanks.”

“Besides, look what you’re doing to me. You’ll be leaving me stuck in this criminal armpit town of ours. I’ll be all alone with junkies, bums, whores, psychos. How can you do that to me?”

“You’ll manage. And since I won’t be seeing you again for a while, why don’t you go to church with me this Sunday? It’ll be like old times, when we were kids.”

Randal hesitated. “Naw, not my style. I haven’t been to church in so long, I’d probably get repelled by the cross, like a fuckin’ force field.”

“Have some faith, Randal. You used to.”

“Yeah, before