Painkillers

Billy looked up, blood leaking from the cut at the corner of his mouth, and smiled at the big man.

"What'er you smiling at now, ya freak?"

Chants of "Get 'em Tony" and "Kick his ass" and "Kill 'em" rose from the grim-faced chorus.

A steel-toed riding boot caught Billy's chin and rattled his molars together. His hands slipped on sweat and blood and urine, and his bare chest collided with the roadhouse floor. It was more pain that he imagined, really, even after the bottle of Vicodin he swallowed fif