Page 60 of The Corruption of Hollis Brown

The room was dead silent. Hollis was dead silent.

Walt rolled his shoulders, walked over to Jorge’s unconscious body, and turned him over. He rummaged in Jorge’s pocket and took out his cigarettes and lighter.

“Can I take this?” he asked Timothy.

Timothy took another step back.

“Do what you want, man.” He sounded scared.

Walt flicked Jorge’s lighter until he was sure it would light.

God, it’s been months. I’m gonna have to do this in private.

What the fuck . . .

“What the fuck?” James said out loud.

“He’ll be fine.” Walt replied. “How much are these now . . . five, ten bucks?”

He pulled out Hollis’s wallet and removed ten precious dollars and tossed them on top of Jorge’s body.

“Not a thief,” he muttered. “Anyway, see you guys later.”

Walt walked them toward the stairs, and the crowd parted immediately to let them through.

Philautia

Jesus fucking Christ, you couldn’t have let him whale on us for a few minutes? I’m not that good at fighting! Why did you do that?!

Not now, Hollis.

Walt was practically running for the front door. He pushed open the screen and stepped over to the side of the porch, Jorge’s lighter already out, flicking it madly.

Hollis winced at the acrid smell of cigarette smoke. But Walt jammed the thing in his mouth.

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

Walt groaned shamelessly into the night. He let Hollis’s head loll back on the house’s siding, rolled his eyes back, euphoric.

Hollis was horrified.

Come on, man. Can’t you be quieter?

No, I can’t. Just let me enjoy this.

In the privacy granted by Walt’s distraction, Hollis dug himself deep inside, into that dark place from when they first met and ran through the feeling of Walt punching Jorge. Over and over and over again.

The way Walt relaxed a bit before he did it, how he shook his hand off just once when it was done. The way he moved Hollis’s body with casual violence, a natural threat, like it was common for him. Reconciling this moment with the one they had earlier, crying in the rain, made Hollis want to push his face against a wall and gasp for breath. He had never been this horny in his entire goddamn life.

Hollis used everything in him to make sure Walt couldn’t feel what he was feeling right now. But he could still access the wave of joy Walt was getting from Jorge’s stupid cigarettes, and it was making the situation worse.

It was easier when he’d thought Walt was a demon, but he was a person, and he was spectacular. Hollis thought, deliriously, about what Walt would have looked like if Hollis saw him from the outside. What it would feel like to see the curve of his shoulders as he bent down to rifle through Jorge’s pockets.

Hollis muffled his emotions as best he could and then: he wondered if Walt’s knuckles had calluses.

The door banged open.

“Not a good idea, bro. He looks like he wants to be alone,” Timothy was saying.