The Pram

by Joe Hill

You’re smarter than the rest of us—you didn’t have kids, Halpenny. Hot-blooded little sacks of infection with innocent, smiling faces. I envy you.

an elderly hoe.

Willy should’ve been unnerved, but as he mounted the hill, closing in on the shed, he found himself grinning, his brow pricking with a sweat that he could not entirely put down to exertion. Some men were born to play football, fuck models, and be on TV; some men were born to attend Yale and run for Congress. Willy was born to push the pram . . . to walk out of his unhappy life and into the green wood of something better.

Fatal injuries were a powerful narcotic.