23. PAPI
“Hey, Papi!”
Papi didn’t look up. He was leaning perhaps too heavily on a set of crutches that were not really a lot more than two pieces of driftwood of about the right length. Mo had wrapped the tops of the driftwood crutches in a bit of cloth, but after a few hours of digging into Papi’s armpits; they hurt just as bad as if there had been no cushion at all.
His eyes were locked unswervingly on the thatch of switchgrass before him, as they had been all day. He took another swig from his skin of rum, carefully not raising his eyes to look at Broz or Enver.
Broz wasn’t making it easy. He was standing in front of him, waiting. Papi swished some rum around in his mouth and spit it out on the ground, nicely mingled with sputum and blood. Finally, in a hoarse whisper, Papi
