Sez TonyO (PGM)

Grig fades in and out of sleep. The whisky, the gray throb lingering from taking that wrench in the head. Dream after dream. Back on the yard. Basketball under a chain-link ceiling. Curling cinderblocks. Lines of orange jumpsuits. Baloney sandwiches day after day after day. The night they wrenched the teeth out of that punk’s mouth one by one so he couldn’t bite. And through it all, TonyO keeps talking . . .

You better man up, is what I mean. If you’re no good at something, what’s the point of passing yourself off as being good? Sooner or later you get found out and then you’re twice as worse off, right? I know what I know, which is great but you know what makes me valuable? It’s that I know what I don’t know kid. I got the balls to admit that I’m no good and that I need help, I need the right people around me and that if I take care of them well then together we can all do real well. That’s why I like you Grig, you’re good at what you do and I recognize that talent. Recognize and appreciate (an empty pint falls off the coffee table, he’s putting his right foot up, sliding back into the chair, his left leg hanging over into the worn hollow on the left arm). Never understood those crap-asses who try to convince me how great they was at this or that. I’m so great. I’m so great. Mister, then why the fuck are you bending my ear inside out? Why aren’t you just getting down to business? Shit. Are you asleep kid? I might need more beer. I might shoot down to the corner for twelve. Right? Right?