Chapter 16It was all I could do to make it through my work down at Arizona Craftsmen, and that was only a half-shift. I didn’t dare pick up a knife for four days, and Mom sulked every one of them because I wouldn’t buy her a bottle of whiskey. She got the shakes so bad I wanted to take her down to the Public Health Hospital, but she went stubborn. She probably wanted me to see her suffer, hoping I’d relent and buy her booze—her ultimate treatment for the condition. But I hardened my heart.
Didn’t do much good. Wednesday afternoon, the old man came home and upset everyone’s routine. He seemed to have recovered from his bout of bronchitis, or whatever it was. He’d hit a minor jackpot somewhere because he had several bottles of hooch. Mom wheedled a pint of Jim Crow from him, which transform
