“My mother!” he sobbed, face smeared with grease and a streak of blood from a porcelain shard. “My mother told me! She said if I don’t give you a beating on the first day, you’d get out of control!

She said take your paycheck and make you serve me!”

“And what else?”

“She said to hit you until you learned!” he wailed, completely gone.

Keeping him pinned with my shin, I fished his phone out of his trouser pocket, unlocked it with his thumbprint, and opened his messages. Pinned at the top: a chat with Mom.

I played the most recent audio file.