Whether it's the best of times or the worst of times, it's the only time we've got. (Art Buchwald)

Vincent never made fun of Penny again from that moment on; not to his face, not behind his back. Later he would confide that he was jealous, not of Penny, she wasn’t his type, rather he was jealous of their happiness and future because he once knew love and he was convinced he would never know it again.

Penny did the dishes at their house. Tommy told her not to but she promised that she didn’t mind. She told him she wanted to help out. Despite their strict diet of takeout there were still dishes to be washed especially when Penny cooked, something she was doing there more and more.

One day Tommy was drying the dishes as she washed them and he noticed Tony tip her. The next day he hired a maid.

In the middle of the night one night in July the boys were sitting in the kitchen making plans. They didn’t make big plans anymore. Ten coffins of heroin had been their biggest plan and now that the war was over they depended on Vincent’s bullshit contact from the Vietnam embassy to smuggle half a suitcase over in his unchecked diplomatic bag when he went to Washington for business. That was what they were working with now: half a suitcase every few weeks. They mixed it and sold it small time on the streets of Philadelphia. This wasn’t an import-export business anymore.

“We’re buying half a suitcase of this once cut white gold and diluting it with powdered milk until its safe enough for Penny to dip her finger in and we’re still making 400 bones per brick, why do we need to expand our operations? We still have a pile of money and these suitcases are more than enough to live on. Why do we have to be greedy?” asked Rider.

“Shut it brotha,” said Tony, “you just don’t want to start pulling your weight?”

“Screw you! I’ve took a bullet for this family, who of you can say that?”

“Ricky,” Tommy mumbled.

No one spoke for a moment.