He could barely work out who he was himself, or Gloria, but there were worlds of bad faith standing between himself and this boy. Hang on tight, he told himself. He had decided it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to sit up on the porch like a strawboss while Thumb slaved away at the lawn so Jack Liffey got out the old edger to keep his hand in. He was hacking away along the walk and the driveway but only managed to gum up the dull blade with damp grass so that it was virtually useless. Thumb was doing a conscientious job, his shirt off to expose the tattoos on his brown torso, mostly blue and blurry and unreadable in Olde Englishe letters, the usual prison or juvie tats. He mowed an up-and-down pattern rather than the shrinking spiral box that Jack Liffey favored, and when he emptied the last bag of cuttings into the rose bed, Gloria brought them both lemonades and the boy, forearming sweat off his brow, took his gratefully. “¡Ay, que padre!” he exulted after a long swallow. Since his English was perfectly good, Jack Liffey figured Thumb was getting his own back by excluding him from the conversation.
