Junior Trilbend's big red face came poking through the front door of Mr. D. H. Carp's Groceries & Sundries, followed by the rest of him like he was looking for a fight. Even on this cold wet day, Junior was wearing only a dirty white T-shirt over his Levi's. You could see the Marlboro Lite package rolled-up to the clavicle in his T-shirt sleeve. He squinted his eyes at Mr. Sackworth asleep on his barstool next to the cash register. He swiveled his jail-type black buzzcut all around and then looked right at me standing next to Mr. Sackworth. Junior snickered through his nose.

"Hey, it's little Joey Kuhl. You the little tyke supposed to guard the treasures around this place?" Everybody except his own dad knows that Junior Trilbend is a member of Delta City's Screw, a bunch of rough motorcycle guys, but which name sounds like crew, if you don't know any better. Junior Trilbend was a wrestler back at Big Baloney and now that he's out of jail has a part-time job as a chopper hopper operator at King Korndog. Junior Trilbend walked back to the hardware display and stuffed both his Levi's pockets with screws. The only guy around who could (and did) whip Junior on the mat is my friend and fellow CCCC student Sal Shaw, another very big guy. But Sal Shaw wasn't here to witness my predicament.

"You're supposed to put those things on the counter here so I can count `em and you can pay for `em." I pointed my thumb at his pockets, bulging with stolen loot.

"Pay for what, Joey Geek? Pay for what, huh?" Junior reached out and snatched my thumb, gave it a little twist.

"Ow!" I went. Still Mr. Sackworth didn't wake up.

Junior let go my thumb, poked me on my chest with his finger. He whispered a hoarse beer-breath voice at me: "You say anything and your house'll catch fire and burn to the ground, your big fat mom in it, and your car'll disappear into the delta, and your dog'll die foaming at the mouth. We'll be watching you." He squinted his eyes at me, snickered again, and slid out the door, just as my Cousin Nimitz MacArthur Chaud, first cousin, once-removed, came jingling in. Big as he is, Junior Trilbend still isn't anywhere near big or strong as Cousin Nim, but Cousin Nim wasn't paying any attention to my tragic facial expression at the time, I guess.

"Hello, you handsome guys," Cousin Nim greeted me and still napping Mr. Sackworth. "How's things?"

This is the decent greeting you give guys in Balona, the part about "how's things?"

I went, "Hi, Cousin Nim. How's things?" This is the decent response you give to guys here in Balona who ask you how things are. You don't actually have to be interested in how they are. It's just the way we say things around here.

Mr. Sackworth still didn't say anything, just kept on nodding and once in a while chewing on the salami he keeps parked in his cheek. Mr. Sackworth is my school colleague Patella's dad and a fairly decent guy when he's up and waddling around, so I guess he was not really awake after all. The part Cousin Nim greeted us with, about "handsome guys," probably referred more to me
rather than to Mr. Piggy Sackworth, since Mr. Sackworth looks a lot like his first name and is older than my dad, while I am almost six feet tall and a legal adult, even if I am sort of old fashioned in my ways of thinking, with straight light-blond hair and blue eyes and a slim physique like Brad Pitt, a Hollywood guy who a lot of girls I know admire.

"I guess it's about Christmas bonus time for you men," mentioned Cousin Nim. He's actually Pastor Nim, new minister at Tabernacle down on King Way at First Avenue. He's almost seven feet tall, looks like a kind-hearted Viking with wavy golden hair and a golden beard and mustache. He's got a plastic foot from when he was a United States Marine in Vietnam, but you don't notice it, except he limps a little. On Sundays he dresses up in a blue suit, but the rest of the time he dresses like practically every other normal young guy in Balona. We are friends, and I think of him as a young guy even though him and my ma and dad went to Big Baloney together in the olden days, which is what us old grads naturally call Balona High School.

Like Mr. Sackworth, Mr. Carp usually sleeps, but with his feet up on his desk. He kept on doing this this all through Junior Trilbend's larceny only 20 feet away, but when Cousin Nim said "Christmas bonus" Mr. Carp woke right up, clomped his feet to the floor, and unwound out of his office with a painful expression on his face. "What's this about bonus?"

"It's a custom of the Japanese," said Cousin Nim. He explained that Japanese guys get a big bonus at the end of the year so they can pay off all their debts and feel good about the boss during the new year, et cetera.

"Oh, yeh," went Mr. Carp, nodding his head and sucking his teeth. "I heard about that custom." He gave sort of a hard look at Cousin Nim. "I guess that means you're looking for a bonus for yourself." Mr. Carp is on the Tabernacle Board of Directors and is one of the guys decides how much Pastor Nim gets paid.