A friend’s father routinely beats his entire family “until he had punched them all enough to make them listen,” and Crews’s stepfather menaces his family with fists and a twelve-gauge until Crews’s mother finally takes the kids and flees. She tells a crying Crews, cold and tired from walking through the night, to quit wishing that he could go back to his father. “Wish in one hand and shit in the other,” she says. “See which one fills up first.”