On school nights, Stacy tried to get to bed before eleven. Most evenings he sat in the recliner, legs crossed beneath him, a math or English book open on his lap while he watched Lamar flip through channels on the tv. If he got at least half of his homework done, he thought it was a pretty good night—the rest would be hastily finished in the morning on the bus, or in whatever class he happened to have before the assignment was due. Homework became his catch-all excuse whenever Lamar clicked off the tv. “Let’s f**k” was Lamar’s idea of foreplay.
Shaking his head, Stacy bent over his open school book again and tried to look busy. “I’ve got homework to do.”
Sometimes Lamar threw the remote at Stacy, bouncing it off the recliner’s footrest just inches from his knees, as if to get his attenti
