Issue No. 24

Right away she’s the talkative sort. Tells me it’s her birthday even before she’s in the car. I don’t get out and open the door count of my bum leg.

“Happy Birthday,” I say, trying to sound upbeat as I watch her settle into the back seat. She places her oversized black and gold bag beside her and pats it in place like it’s a toddler. I keep my face forward but see her looking into my eyes in my rearview.

“I’m thirty-two,” she says, grinning like she’s ten. “Hard to believe. Time flies, right?”

I can believe it, but I don’t mess with gals’ age trap questions. So, I just say, “Congrats to you,” and leave it at that. I mean thirty ain’t twenty, nothing you can do about it. She’s pretty, if that’s what she’s worried about. Nothing fancy, brown girl, might have some black or Mexican in her, not sure. Hard to tell these days. So, after she confirms her destination to the snooty side of the city, she tells me her mother gave her a birthday check for five big ones.

“Mom says not to mention the dollar amount to my father because it’s vulgar, but I think she didn’t tell him. I’m just to say thank you for your generous gift Pa and leave it at that.”

I hear her rustling around in the back, then crinkling bag noises. “I bought myself a beignet in celebration.” I look in my rearview and see powder falling from her fingers and turn away before she bites into it. “Too many calories in these things, but a girl needs to live it up on her birthday,” she says, and she’s chewing as she talks.

Birthday girl doesn’t know what her boyfriend is gonna give her tonight and she doesn’t want to jinx anything by saying what she’s hoping for. Bet I can guess.

“No need to tell me,” I say, “None of my business.”

So, she changes the subject and says she was just at an audition for the part of Beth in some musical I never heard of. I could’ve guessed that since I picked her up from the Anthony Bean. Lots of her type ’round here, You know, rich, wannabe actors.

She told the theatre people it was her birthday too. They said, good, because there’s a scene in your birthday suit and, did she mind taking off her top? It’s in the script, they said, and would she be able to stand there frozen for the whole scene without a stitch on top? Some kinda dream sequence where she’s the naked alter ego. And she tells them, no problem. I look in my rearview and catch her eye. She notices me looking and starts up talking again.

“But really, I won’t take the role even if I get it because I only have one real boob.”

And I don’t say a word. She keeps talking, just a lot quieter like she’s telling me a secret. She leans forward, “Well, I mean, the plastic surgeon was fine, but my tattoo guy was great. Definitely a boob guy. He etched a nipple on me that is so 3-D you can’t believe it’s not real until you touch it.”

I’m getting a little weirded out with all this. Thinking she might just lift up her top. So, I just say, “Uh huh.” And she keeps on talking like an ounce of silence is gonna strangle her to death.

“But the scar the surgeon left is still raised and red. Looks like a licorice whip. I don’t even let my boyfriend see me with the lights on. And I don’t like him to touch that boob and he knows it.” Then she says, “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this.”

Mind you, I’m still not saying nothing, just nodding my head and driving to her apartment so she can get ready for her birthday date. And I say, “It’s okay miss, lots of people just spill their selves when they get in my car.” Then she asks me the question that makes my blood boil like crawfish on Fat Tuesday.

She asks me, “What do you do, besides this?”

“What do you mean?” I say, even though I know what she’s asking, and I want to eject her from her seat.

“Besides drive an Uber? What’s your line of work? I mean, do you have a real job too?”

Now I’m pissed. I used to answer these dumb questions all smart-ass-like, but I just tell her. “This is my real job. I’m a driver.”

I don’t tell her that driver is all I ever wanted to be. Since I was a kid. Truck driver, delivery driver for like FedEx or UPS, limo driver, racecar driver, taxi driver, Schwan’s driver, and tank driver. I done all those. That last one, tank driver was back in Ramadi. Iraq. 2004.

So, I squeeze my hand into a fist that she can’t see.

People think it’s gotta be a side gig. Never got asked that when I was a cabbie. With Uber, you gotta be working some other angle, and your rides all gotta know what it is. Nobody asks a cook or a dentist what they do for real because they just might poison your food or pull a tooth nothing’s wrong with.

But I don’t give this gal my spiel because when I go off on people, I don’t get tips and sure as fuck don’t get 5-star ratings. I don’t tell her I can’t walk good or stand long because what’s left of my left thigh is chuck full of shrapnel. Atrophied is what the doc calls it. And I don’t tell her what I like about the road neither. The getting to where you’re aiming to go. The speed, figuring your way out of a jam. I’m in control⁠—unless of course I get stuck in a traffic jam or behind some nosepicker.

When I get some asshole ride in a goddamn hurry, I can take the long way or the short way. Can’t you go any faster buddy? Nope, sorry, can’t break the law. Driving is about finding new ways when the old ways are blocked or fuckin’ blown up. Navigating the turns and being ready for anything. I seen a lot on the road, cars breaking away from trailers, things flying that shouldn’t be. Dead carcasses, drunks coming at me, bricks falling, and sometimes things that ain’t really there. You gotta react fast or you’re a goner. I got quick-ass reflexes. Hell, it’s better than a video game because it’s real. Kids today don’t get that. They like them video games where they can get blown up a thousand times and still be fine-n-dandy as candy.

Course, none of that’s what my customers wanna hear about. So, I just tell the one-boob lady that I drive full-time, and I like it because I get to meet all kinds of interesting people.

"Like you for instance," I say. And I see her smile in my rearview.

Two minutes after her drop-off in the Garden District, trotting up to her white elephant home, I get a twenty percent tip notice on my phone. I send her my canned thank you ma’am text, personalized with her name, Daniella.

So, when the next guy gets in my car and asks me a short ways into the ride, “So, buddy, you got another job besides this one?”

I tell him, “Yeah, I’m an actor. I just finished this show called Beth’s Wet Dream that got great reviews. “

“Really?” he says. I can see he’s interested, so I tell him, “I had to stand in front of the audience naked in the last scene, but I never told the director I only have one ball cuz of my testicle cancer. After that first show, the director puts me front and center on the stage. I was a real showstopper once word got around. Even saw some folks with opera glasses.”

“Wow, impressive,” he says, “sorry about the cancer.”

“I’m okay now. Maybe that’s why God gives us two balls, case we lose one.”

“Hah,” says he, “good one. I’m glad you’re okay. Life really sucks sometimes.”

So, I got this turned around on him and I says, “What do you do?” And he tells me he’s an investment manager, which I guess means he figures out where to put other people’s money and takes some big-ass cut for himself. Course, he doesn’t try to con me because he figures I got nothing because I’m working as a driver and actor on the side with cancer in remission and probably tons of medical bills.

When he gets out of my car in the financial district, he hands me his card. Says he knows big companies are always ripping off their employees. He’s sure they are swindling me. Tells me to come and see him if I want to get out of the rat race⁠—like he ain’t on a hamster wheel.

There’s times between rides when I’m just cruisin’ and pull over. Nobody can find me or tell me what to do, or where to go. Not a boss, lieutenant colonel, ex-wife, or my grown-ass kid looking for another handout. Sometimes, I just sit in my car with the windows down and listen to the sounds of vehicles pushing against the wind or humming along with it. Those sounds are different, but most people couldn’t care less. That pushing wind sounds like the shamals in Iraq where you gotta cover your face and try not to breathe in the sand, but that’s impossible. Wind’s blowing at like 30 miles an hour. You’re always tasting sand, too, crunching it in your food cuz it’s stuck in your teeth. Nobody talks about shamals here.

I get a few fares who don’t want to talk. With men, I can tell when they want a quiet ride because when I ask, “Hi, how are you this fantastical day?” they say “fine” or “good” and tell me where they’re going even though I already got their destination mapped. When I say something about the weather, they say “Yup” which means please just shut up and drive. And I know not to speak to them again. With the ladies, they say “fine” or “good” too, but if I try anything friendly, they give me “uh-huh.” I don’t mind a bit, you just gotta read people right. Course, some cheapos ain’t gonna give you a tip no matter. Them’s the ones that always know a faster way than me and Google Maps. Can you turn down this road? Turn up the AC? Turn down the music? Sure thing, no problem.

So, when my next fare asks me what I freakin’ do for a living, because driving can’t be my real job, I tell him I invest money for other people.

“Investment manager,” I say. “I got a real knack for that sort of thing and everyone I invested has made a shitload of money.”

“Really,” he says, “why’re you driving then?”

I’ve always been quick to come up with an answer. I don’t even need to think a lie before it sails out. Like when a lady friend says, “Do you ever think about getting married again?” And I tell her “Yeah, to the right person, but I still gotta get over stuff.” Part of that might be true, but I sure as shit, as hellfire, rather be back in Iraq than married again. Nope, not gonna happen. Anyway, I tell this ride my investment thing is off the books and this driving gig is my cover. Then I mention Crypto and Amazon and Tesla as great investments. Everyone knows that, but he’s impressed. I can see him nodding in my rearview and I throw in my middle name as a gag.

“Don’t you wish you knew me before Joseph Industries skyrocketed last year?” He laughs and says, “Sure do.” I laugh too. When he asks for my business card, I tell him I just gave the last one out. He wants my phone number, so I give it to him. Then I tell him I don’t do small investments and have a minimum of five grand.

“No problem,” he says.

I don’t find out what his real job is, but he tells me he has a nest egg, inherited money from his mom who died by jumping out the window of her condo. He’s been seeing a therapist who tells him the inherited money is some kind of burden that’s causing him guilt.

“Internal angst. It’s because I’m happy she left the money, but guilty because I didn’t spend enough time with her to deserve it. Maybe I could have stopped her from jumping.”

Oh yeah?” I say.

“My therapist thinks I should donate my money to charity.”

So I ask him, “What do you think about giving away what your mama wanted you to have?”

“Well I haven’t told my therapist, but my mom would hate the idea of a donation. She was a thrifty person, stingy even, if you ask me. She wouldn’t give a dollar to a poor man on the street. Never even donated her old clothes. She would rather throw them out. She was hardcore. People need to earn their own way, she would say. Dignity demands work. That last part I put on her headstone.”

He tells me he’ll call this weekend if it’s okay with me. “Sure,” I say. If the guy wants to give me his money, who am I to say he’s a nitwit-asshole to give money to some stranger he met driving a cab?

So, when the crying teenager gets in my Uber, all sad because her girlfriend doesn’t like her anymore, I tell her I’m a therapist who drives on the side so I can help people without having to charge them my hourly rate.

“Counseling is my calling,” I say. “When people really need help, they don’t have time to wait six months for an appointment.”

She says she doesn’t want to live anymore, and I tell her about the rabbit hole and all the people who fall down it⁠—all the way to the bottom. She hasn’t heard about the rabbit hole, and I tell her that the only ways out are to tunnel a new path upwards or crawl right back up the same hole.

About now, I’m not sure what the hell I’m saying, but she’s nodding like I understand her, and she knows exactly what I mean, and says, “If I go up the same hole then I come up in the same place?”

I nod.

“Maybe I need to start digging,” she says.

“And living,” I add because it feels like what a good therapist would say even though I wouldn’t step a foot inside a therapist’s office again. Shit no. Like two hours’ worth of tests to tell me I got PTSD with psychosis, when all I wanted was some Oxies for the pain and some damn sleeping pills.

“It’s up there,” the teenager says, pointing, “on the left.”

I look at her young face in the rearview. She is wiping under her eyes with her fingers, the way women do when they don’t want to smudge their eye makeup. When I reach her destination, corner of Constance and Josephine, it’s St. Mary’s of Assumption Church. I hope she ain’t planning on jumping from the tower. But there’s lots of parked cars and people milling around so I don’t think so. Ain’t my business so I don’t ask.

“It’s my sister’s wedding rehearsal,” she says and opens the door. “Thanks for the chat,” she says, and hands me a hundred-dollar bill.

When I say, you already paid on the app she says, “Keep it.” Tells me her father is a wealthy prick and she wishes she had another hundred on her. So I nod and tuck it in my shirt pocket.

Next customer looks tired, no makeup, her hair is a mess, like she forgot to brush it. She has a kid with her whose nose is running nonstop yellow gook, and she keeps wiping it with the bottom of his shirt.

I don’t wait for her to ask why I’m an Uber driver. I tell her right off that I’m a rich bastard and just do this driving gig to entertain myself. “And because being wealthy can make you a prick.”

She just says “uh huh.” So, I know she’s a non-talker.

So, when I drop her off in shitty old Gert Town, I give her the hundred from the sad, rich girl. I tell her the ride is on me and she smiles with her crooked teeth and looks like a beauty queen. Swear to God. Next ride, I’ll be a divorced parent with a snotty kid. Then, I remember, I already am.

I end the night as usual, driving down Bourbon Street to see if Stomper is walking the streets again and it don’t take long to spot him in his camo ACU. Same thing he always wears which is way less looney tunes than a lot of the done-up night folks here. I pull over and roll down my window to ask him if he wants a ride tonight. He opens the back door and hops in. I turn my rearview away cuz I don’t want to see his blowed up face. He doesn’t say nothin’, but I know where he wants to go, Chalmette. This ain’t no bar but we done plenty of drinking there.

Takes me 19 minutes and I tell him about the boob lady and the beauty queen and the guy who wants to give me money and the sad teenager. I can feel him smiling. The place is closed when we get there but I park near the brick pile. I grab two beers from the trunk and tuck ’em in my pockets. Then I climb up the bricks and hoist myself over the fence, which is something I can still do⁠—go vertical, cuz climbing up is more arms than legs. Just have to land mostly on the good one. Stomper always beats me to the other side. We find a good sitting spot by some whitewashed crypt, and I crack open my beer and offer him the other one which he never takes so I always end up drinking that one, too.

I looked it up and forty-six percent of Americans believe in ghosts, but we can’t say nothing about it. Something like twenty percent seen or felt the presence of a ghost. When I asked that VA doc if seeing ghosts makes you crazy, he said trauma makes you see things that aren’t there. I know Stomper’s body is in Section 60. Arlington. But he’s here. Here every night, and sometimes Blue Boy joins us, and sometimes Alex A.

Little Lloyd Watkins cranked his truck air conditioning up to high and glanced at the dashboard clock.

Still morning, he thought, and already a scorcher. Annoyed, he scanned the desolate landscape that lined the 12-mile trek between his ranch and town.

“Why do I keep trying to scratch a living out of this godforsaken place? It’s hotter than hell,” he said to himself. “Everything either bites you, stings you, or sticks you. Rattlesnakes. Scorpions. Cactus. It’s all burned up by the end of May. Hell, we’re in the middle of nowhere. Why’s Escondido Springs even here?”

He often fantasized about escaping the dusty south Texas border town. I could leave Brenda. Leave the ranch. Leave Escondido Springs. Hell, the whole place is built on a lie.

Indeed, a lie was the foundation of the town’s history. In the late 1800s, a bunch of unscrupulous land developers conjured up the place hoping to attract white folks who didn’t know what escondido meant nor exactly how well hidden the springs were. There weren’t any. Their scheme fell apart quickly but a small seedling took hold and, with ranching to prop it up, a town of 2,013 souls pushed itself up like a weed through caliche.

Now, more than a hundred years later, Escondido Springs supported a café adjacent to a forlorn little bus station, a funeral parlor, a grocery store with a dusty pharmacy in the back, a school, and a taco stand over in Mexican Town. A few kids hung around after high school, but most left for bigger cities and better opportunities. Not much ever changed in Escondido so, when the twenty-first century rolled in, no one seemed to notice.

Shortly before noon, Little Lloyd stepped into the Bluebonnet Café, removed his banged-up straw Stetson, and transferred a fair amount of sweat and dirt from his forehead to his sleeve.

The double glass doors were oddly dwarfed by his oversized body⁠—almost as wide as it was tall. Ceiling fans whirled above red plastic tablecloths. He spied Ben and some guy he didn’t know seated in the back corner of the almost-empty dining room.

Ben waved him over to the table. “What are you doing in town in the middle of the day?”

Little Lloyd strode across the room. “Had to come in for salt blocks.” He looked over his shoulder at a wrinkled woman perched behind the cash register. “Miss Margie, what’s the special?”

Somehow, the long string of ash never fell as her cigarette bobbed up and down. “Chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes, and corn. Flour or corn tortillas and a jalapeño on the side.”

“Give me that and a sweet tea,” he said as he pulled out a chair.

“Corn or flour?”

“Surprise me,” he said.

“Little Lloyd Watkins, I want you to meet Howard Frazier.” Ben gestured toward the slender young man. “Howard’s doing a little internship with us at the funeral home. Just started this morning.”

Little Lloyd set his hat in the vacant chair and extended his hand. “Nice to meet you, Howard. You’ll have a good experience with Ben. I’ve known him his whole life. He’ll take good care of you.”

Howard peered up through coke-bottle glasses. “Little Lloyd? You don’t look very little to me,” he paused and swallowed, “Sir.” The fire whistle blew. “Uh oh.”

Ben looked at Little Lloyd. “City kid.” Then turned to Howard. “They blow the fire whistle at noon every day, so folks know it’s time to close up for lunch. We just beat the lunch rush. Later on, this afternoon, we’ll have the five o’clock rush minute. You just can’t get entertainment like that up in Dallas now, can you?”

Margie placed three plates on the table as several townspeople plodded in. A few waved from across the room but most stopped by the table to say hello, discuss the heat, and find out who Howard was. A covey of brown-skinned people wandered through a side door. Howard looked at Ben and frowned.

“The bus station’s next door,” Ben explained.

Howard grimaced. “People actually come here?”

“Nope. They’re on their way to someplace else,” Ben said.

Little Lloyd cut into his chicken fried steak. “You managed to find us, Howard. How did that happen?”

Ben answered before Howard had a chance to speak. “Howard’s Cathy’s nephew. Hey, do you know how to tell when a family of pink flamingos moves into the neighborhood?” He paused. “By the little plastic Meskins they put out in the front yard.” Ben slapped his hand on the table and laughed at his own joke.

“Very funny,” Little Lloyd said. “Don’t give up your day job.”

Ben reached for the salt. “Drove by the high school this morning. Coach had the boys out there for two-a-days. Do you think we’re going to have a team this year?”

Little Lloyd nearly spit mashed potatoes on Howard. “Are you kidding? Ben, you might make a comedian yet. What have you been smoking?”

“Well, it’s been a while since we had a winning team. Don’t you think we’re due?”

“Due? I don’t think that’s how it works, Ben.”

Ben turned to Howard. “Little Lloyd here played on the best football team Escondido’s ever had.” He looked at Little Lloyd. “Remember when Charley Ortiz made that 85-yard run in the bi-district game? When was that? 1973?”

Little Lloyd didn’t look up from his plate. “72.”

“Almost 30 years ago. Seems like yesterday. Boy, that was a good game! Almost won it too. Man, if you would’ve made that touchdown⁠—”

“Howard, I believe you’ll find that Ben likes to stroll down memory lane.”

Margie appeared out of nowhere. “More tea? Buttermilk pie?”

“No thanks, Miss Margie, but you can have these tortillas. These damn things give you brain damage.” Ben placed a five-dollar bill on the table and looked around the room. “Howard, you’re skinny. You might want to have a piece of that pie while Little Lloyd and I step outside for a minute.”

They stood on the sidewalk in front of the white stucco café. Main Street would have been completely empty if not for Little Lloyd’s truck. They watched heat dance above the asphalt and gazed at what used to be the Ford dealership across the street. A sign that read “Going Out of Business Sale” sat in the window of the furniture store next door.

“My God. That kid’s driving me nuts.” Ben grimaced. “He’s about two hours into this internship thing and he’s been up my ass all day. I went to pee this morning and he banged on the door wanting to know what I was doing. Then, we’re planning Mrs. Askew’s funeral, so we met with the Baptist preacher. Howard asks how old she was. Well, you know she was old as dirt. I said, ’97,’ and he said, ‘Good Lord!’ Jesus. I didn’t know whether to bow my head or hit him.”

“How long’s he going to be around?” Little Lloyd asked.

“Three. Long. Weeks. Cathy’s the only reason I took him on. Happy wife, happy life, and all that but damn⁠ ⁠…”

“Ain’t that the honest truth.” Little Lloyd looked at the sidewalk. “Keeping Brenda happy’s⁠ ⁠… well⁠ ⁠…” His voice trailed off.

“Hey, listen, Eliseo Sanchez called me early this morning.”

Little Lloyd looked down the street. “Yeah?”

Ben’s voice softened. “Sofía died late last night.” The two men stood in awkward silence for a good minute or two. “Anyway, they’re bringing her back here for burial. She was way the hell up in Chicago.” Silence. “I mean, I know it was a long time ago but⁠ ⁠… I thought you’d want to know.”

Little Lloyd stared at the lifeless buildings across the street. “I heard she had cancer.” The quiet weighed heavy between them.

“Do you want me to let you know when the service is?” Ben asked.

“Nope. Best not,” he said as he opened the door to his truck.

He sat alone in his pickup and stared. She always called him Lloyd. Not Little Lloyd. Just

Lloyd. He thought about her deep black eyes that shined like onyx. What Ben didn’t mention was that, after Charley’s big run, Little Lloyd fumbled the ball on the next play and cost them the game. Sofía was the only one in town who wasn’t pissed off at him. “It’s just a game,” she had said.

He closed his eyes and allowed himself to drift. Her quick, contagious laughter. The miles they drove along the back roads, unseen, listening to his Eagles cassette.

Desperado. Right.

The night he drove her out to that old pumpjack, and they danced in the dark. Her thick black hair. The curve of her back. The feel of her skin.

His eyes darted around the sidewalk then the street. His mouth went dry, and his heart pounded the same way it had that night in April of ’73. He had stood outside the ranch house window and heard his parents convulse over the news his mother had learned at the United Methodist Women’s Prayer Circle.

“Lloyd Watkins, do you want a brown grandbaby? Do you? Because I sure don’t,” his mother’s voice shook. “I simply will not have it, Lloyd. I won’t.” She continued, more sternly. “It’s a sin for the races to mix. You know that. And it’s a sin to have sex outside marriage. Oh Lord. What will people think, Lloyd? We have to think about his reputation. You have to take care of this right now.”

“I’ll have a talk with Eliseo,” his dad said.

“Talk to Eliseo?” Her voice rose. “You’d better do more than just talk, Lloyd Watkins. I said take care of it.”

“Ima Jean, I said I’ll fix it!”

Ben had told him to see her on the sly, but Little Lloyd couldn’t bring himself to defy his mother. A couple of months later, the class of 1973 graduated and scattered like a dandelion seed head so that was that.

He shook his head and started his truck. Another lifetime, he thought.

Little Lloyd bounced through the pasture then stopped at a rare shady spot next to a broken windmill and honked his horn. A string of hungry cattle appeared over the knoll. He released the tailgate, cut open a few sacks of cottonseed cake, and dropped a couple of salt blocks on the ground.

His eyes surveyed the barren countryside. Bits of frilly green lace hung from Mesquite branches, but the Johnson grass was dead and brown, and the water tank was completely dry. The bluebonnets and Indian paintbrush that had sprinkled the countryside several months ago were long forgotten. A little green mocked the cattle from behind cactus needles and he made a mental note to return and burn the pear. He removed his hat, ran his sleeve across his brow, and checked his watch. 3:25.

Damn, it’s gotta be over 100, he thought, and humid.

He started to turn toward the Igloo water jug in the bed of the truck, but a flash of red caught his eye. Then something white just behind it. He grabbed binoculars from the cab and saw two women stagger out of the brush.

“My God,” he whispered. He waved his arm, and they ran toward him.

“¡Señor! ¡Señor!” A woman in a torn red shirt waved and cried. “¡Ayuda! ¡Por favor!” The woman in a dirty white dress stumbled, fell, then struggled to get up. He darted the 50-or-so yards to them and helped the woman to her feet. That’s when he got a close look at her, terribly sun burned and filthy, and thought, my god, she’s just a girl.

He turned to the other woman and pointed toward the truck. “Agua allí.”

She ran ahead to the pickup, then returned and offered her friend water. “Ay, gracias, señor. Gracias.”

They rested on the tailgate and sipped water.

“¿Amigas o hermanas?” he asked but already knew by their faces. Sisters, he thought. The young woman in red said, “Blanca,” and her eyes filled up.

“Blanca,” the girl in white said.

“Blanca? You can’t both be named Blanca.”

“No, señor. Nuestra amiga.” Her voice shook. “Blanca⁠ ⁠… esta muerta.”

Dead. He rubbed the heel of his palm into his closed eye. “¿Dónde?” he said.

They pointed west. “Una milla, más o menos.”

He squinted into the sun and sighed.

They stared, wide-eyed and quiet until the one in the red blouse spoke up. “¿Nos va a entregar?”

“Turn you in?” He paused. “I don’t know. No lo sé.”

The threesome suspiciously studied each other for several minutes then the dam broke.

Graciella and Maria were sisters, 16 and 17 years old, traveling with their friend, Blanca. They had paid a coyote for safe passage from their village in central Mexico, but he abandoned them at the border. They wandered, lost, for miles through the heat and thick brush without water. When Blanca collapsed and stopped breathing, they stayed with her as long as they could but, to save themselves, they had to move on.

“Nos salvo.” Graciella said. “Muchísimas gracias.”

Maria nodded. A tear chased a line of dirt down her cheek.

“¿Adónde vas?” He said.

“Houston,” Graciella said.

He tilted his head.

“Tenemos familia allí.”

He eyed the shaky cups of water in their dirty hands. Considered the impenetrable brush.

Felt the unforgiving heat. “Get in,” he said.

They wound their way through thick scrub brush and finally stopped at the unkempt ranch house where his wife refused to live. Little Lloyd took his lunch there occasionally, but ghosts from his childhood were all that were left there now.

A porch swing dangled on the front porch. The screen door squeaked open then banged shut. He led the two teenage girls into the house, flipped on lights, and turned on the window units.

The living room was empty except for a sheet-covered couch and Ima Jean’s old Singer sewing machine. To the right, a dinette table and two cracked vinyl chairs filled the center of the kitchen. A couple of hotplates sat next to a microwave and an empty alcove gaped where an oven once stood. Faded flower wallpaper peeled behind the white icebox.

“I’ll be back,” he said and turned to leave, then stopped. “Regresó pronto.”

Little Lloyd drove by the funeral home, saw the Sanchez family gathering outside, then parked around the corner and tapped on the back door as he opened it.

Ben looked up from his desk and raised his eyebrows. “I thought you didn’t want to know about the service.”

“I don’t. I need to tell you something. Ben, there’s a dead body in Seth Ward’s front pasture.” He paused. “If I was a betting man, I’d guess she’s a teenage girl but that’s all I can tell you. Don’t ask me any questions.”

Ben rubbed his forehead and sighed. “That’s the third one in the last week. For the life of me, I’ll never understand why these people try to cross this time of year.” He paused. “I’ll go get her.” He looked up at Little Lloyd. “The Sanchez family’s out there. You know that, right?

They’re here to make Sofía’s arrangements.” He paused again. “I assume you’re not going to go strutting out the front door.”

“Nope,” he said as he exited out the back.

He stopped at the grocery store and Abuelita’s Tacos then headed back south.

The ranch house was cool and, except for the hum of the air conditioners, quiet. He peered through the half-open master bedroom door. The girls’ legs were draped across his parents’ double bed, their breathing, deep and slow. He placed three sacks on the kitchen counter and gazed out the window. A timeworn windmill stood before a brilliant sky, now in shades of orange, pink, and purple.

He’s stood guard over this place as far back as I can remember, Little Lloyd thought. The day’s weight bore down on his shoulders. Sofía’s dead. Sofía. Is. Dead. It doesn’t seem real. I wonder what her life was like in Chicago. I heard her kids have done well. I hope she was happy. He sighed. And those two Mexican girls asleep in there⁠ ⁠… Why didn’t I go straight to the Border Patrol Office instead of the funeral home?

A sudden gust of wind kicked up and the worn-out old sentry rocked, shuddered, and complained. His tail pivoted. Blades churned and groaned. He shouted at Mother Nature as if yearning to break free.

Little Lloyd turned and looked toward the bedroom. I’ll turn them in tomorrow.

After the Sofía Sanchez debacle, Ima Jean Watkins had taken a more assertive role in her son’s love life and Brenda Butler checked all the right boxes. She was white, and pretty, and ostensibly mousy. With Brenda, Little Lloyd would have a “suitable” wife and Mrs. Ima Jean would still be in charge. So, in 1975, a week after she graduated high school, Miss Brenda Butler became Mrs. Little Lloyd Watkins and immediately began fortifying her newfound status. She moved her membership from the First Baptist Church, which she rarely attended, across the street to First Methodist. She accompanied her mother-in-law to the United Methodist Women’s Prayer Circle every Tuesday and joined the choir. She got her hair done at the beauty parlor every Friday like all the Important Ladies in town. And within a year, Brenda calved the ultimate marriage insurance⁠—a little Watkins’ heifer. But try as she might, all these years later everyone still remembered it was the oil field that brought Brenda Butler to town and, well, she wasn’t really “from here.”

Little Lloyd came through the back door, saw Brenda on the phone in the kitchen, and turned to the bootjack next to the washing machine.

“How are you doing? Are you doing okay?⁠ ⁠…” Brenda barely paused. “Do you have a cold? You sound like you have a cold⁠ ⁠… Well, good. So, you’re doing alright then. They had to put Mrs. Thomas in a nursing home⁠ ⁠… You don’t remember her? Oh now of course you do. You know. Robin and what’s the other one’s name? Little fat boy. I forget⁠ ⁠… You don’t? Well, I guess they’re both older than you are. Anyway, they’re both up in San Antonio so they took her up there to be closer to them. Do you get Wheel of Fortune out there in California? I watch that just about every evening⁠ ⁠… When are you going to come see us?⁠ ⁠… Yes, yes. I’m sure you’re really busy with your research and your dissertation and all.” Brenda stared at the wall and blinked. “Well, your daddy just walked in so I’m going to go. Come see us sometime. I’ll talk to you later. Bye-bye.” She turned to Little Lloyd. “That was Ellie.”

“I figured.”

She glanced out the window at the dark. “Why are you coming in so late?”

“Had to come into town then go back out. Ran me late.”

“I heard Sofía Sanchez died.” Her eyes followed him as he moved through the kitchen. “I heard they’re bringing her back here for burial. I guess they’ll be camped out up there at the funeral home for days. You know how they are.”

He turned and faced her. “How are they, Brenda?”

“Well, they sit up there and cry and carry on. Rattle those beads like that’s going to make some kind of difference.” She rolled her eyes. “They eat up there and everything. And when it’s all over, the place looks like well,” she whispered, “the opposite of heaven.”

“I’m going to take a shower,” he said.

“I also heard your truck was seen parked at the funeral home.”

His socked feet padded softly down the hallway.

She put her hand on her hip. “Little Lloyd Watkins, you’d better not embarrass me.”

He closed the bathroom door.

Early the next morning, Little Lloyd set another bag of Abuelita’s Tacos in the ranch house kitchen. The sound of running water came from the bathroom. Graciella stood in the doorway and combed through pitch-black wet hair.

He retrieved a foil mound from the paper bag. “¿Comida?”

She reached for the taco, and he noticed a tidy seam of stitching along her previously ripped sleeve. Water in the bathroom stopped.

She faced him and swallowed hard. “¿Nos va a entregar?”

“Turn you in?” He muttered to himself, “You girls have one life to live. Best not waste it.” He pulled two Greyhound bus tickets from his shirt pocket. “Vámonos,” he said. “The sooner, the better.”

A couple of days later, Lloyd Watkins sat in his truck trying to muster his mettle and softly sang “Peaceful Easy Feeling” along with the Eagles.

He sighed a deep, tired sigh then opened the truck door and mumbled, “I haven’t had a peaceful easy feeling since 1973.”

His new Stetson trembled in his hand as he opened the heavy wooden door. Sunlight streamed through stained glass windows and bathed the sanctuary in rich shades of red and blue and green. He stood paralyzed at the end of the center aisle, swallowed hard, then fixed his eyes on the front of the half-empty church.

An anguished Jesus hung on a cross. The altar. Her casket, closed and covered with flowers. Mourners stared first at him, then at each other. Ben stood off to the side, poker-faced. Lloyd took a seat in the last pew and knelt on the kneeler.

The life we could have had if I had just⁠ ⁠…

He closed his eyes and drew a deep breath. He saw her face, that 17-year-old girl who, decades ago, stole his heart. A light breeze moved her hair. She smiled at him, gently waved, then turned and walked away.

He hung his head and wept.

“I wonder how long it will take for them to realize I’m missing.”

Arun is startled by the sound of his own voice. He had not meant to say it out loud.

Nervously, he checks to see if anyone has heard him, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. The family of five sharing the train compartment with Arun pays him little attention. The father is preoccupied, trying to fit the family’s luggage, directing the porter this way and that, pushing, pulling bags into a space that seems far too small for the number of bags they’ve stockpiled. The frazzled mother tries in vain to corral the two boys who look to be around six and eight, but they ricochet in, out, and around the compartment like whirling dervishes trapped in a house of mirrors. No one is paying attention to Arun except for the little girl, who has been staring at him since the family made their noisy entry into the carriage.

The little girl sits silently, holding a doll, completely impervious to the ruckus around her as if such hullabaloo was beneath the dignity of her superior stature. She and the doll are dressed in identical outfits, short, red dresses embroidered with pink and yellow flowers. The duo’s unwavering, unblinking gaze unnerves Arun. He turns his attention to the platform instead, where the train’s impending departure has whipped up quite a tempest. Tardy passengers scramble to find their carriages. Porters rush by, loaded with bags, chased by the bag owners desperately trying to keep up. Hawkers hawk their wares noisily, hoping to close a quick deal before the train leaves. “Chai garam, chai garam!” they announce, holding out steaming clay pots of fragrant, milky tea to entice the sleepy passengers. The smell of ginger and cardamom makes Arun nostalgic for Ma’s tea, but he checks himself. He is determined not to let emotions derail his plans today.

The clock on the platform reads 5:34. The train is scheduled to leave in six minutes. Ma’s alarm clock will go off in twenty-six minutes. She will take a bath, and put on her pooja uniform⁠–⁠a crisp, white, cotton sari with a red and gold border. Arun has witnessed this scene so many times he can hear the crackling sounds her heavily starched sari makes as she bends over to prostrate herself before the collection of gods and goddesses in her little temple. He can hear the jingle-jangle of her bangles, the brassy peal of the bell she always rings at the end of the puja. From the nostalgia-lined recesses of his brain, he conjures up the smell of ghee burning in the diya, and the almost lurid scent of the nag champa flowers Ma prefers for the altar.

After the pooja, she will head to the kitchen to supervise the servants as they prepare breakfast. Papa will show up at the dining table at seven sharp. He will enjoy his tea silently, ignoring Ma while he reads today’s Gujarat Samachar and Times of India, always in that order. At 7:30, Ma will send one of the servants to wake up Varun, Priya, and Arun, having indulged them with an extra thirty minutes of sleep. The servant will return to Ma, puzzled, possibly alarmed when he finds Arun’s bed empty. By that time, Arun will be out of their reach, far away from Surat.

The train announces its departure with a shrill whistle, interrupting Arun’s rendering of predictable morning rituals at the family home. Arun clutches his satchel with one hand, feeling inside the satchel with the other to confirm yet again that he’s brought the bottle with him. He feels something cool, damp, and soft clinging to the plastic bottle he’s looking for. He pulls out the mystery object, a marigold flower. It must have dropped from one of the dozens of garlands of marigold and jasmine flowers Papa had festooned around the home to celebrate Arun’s engagement. He thinks about tossing the flower out of the window, but he returns it to his satchel instead, a little ashamed of himself for the nonchalance with which he was about to litter.

The train accelerates slowly, weaving past compact bungalows with tidy gardens. Past sprawling shantytowns stirring awake with the arrival of the morning sun. Arun tries taking in these familiar sights one last time, mostly to avoid, with limited success, drifting off into an interior world filled with emotional turbulence. He thinks about the engagement party last night, how enthusiastic his family was, and Reema’s family too. He contrasts it with the cold dread that paralyzed him. Reema’s tentative smile, shy, scared, and hopeful all at once⁠–⁠the memory sends him spiraling into despair. So, he shifts his focus back to the scenes unfolding outside the train. Clotheslines pinned with drying clothes seem to drape the apartment buildings in ungainly rainbows. Makeshift playgrounds host boisterous cricket games. The train slows down at a railway crossing where a mob of multicolored vehicles waits on either side, impatient for the train to move out of the way. Arun thinks about how Papa pressured him to get engaged to Reema. Papa also insisted on a grand party to mark the occasion. Reema’s purple sari, how it shimmered under the party lights. Arun remembers the family photos and the forced smiles. The thought of marriage reignites the dread he felt last night. Despair and dread churn his insides and when they threaten to overwhelm him, he looks out of the window, seeing, not seeing the city fly by.

Once the train is safely past the industrial outskirts of Surat, Arun gets up from his seat, swaying and staggering to the rhythm of the fast-moving train as he makes his way to the washroom at the end of the carriage. He locks himself in there, carefully avoiding the puddle on the floor. He looks around. The walls are clad in cheap-looking panels that are supposed to imitate marble. The yellowed edges where the paneling is coming apart reveal a rusted layer of metal underneath. Arun tries to ignore the strong stench of urine as he looks for a place to brace himself against the rocking motion of the train. In the spotted mirror, he is startled to see his face. He looks pale and gaunt, cheeks like deep saucers, with dark circles ringing his eyes. He examines his face as if it were someone else’s. The face in the mirror betrays none of the emotions roiling his insides.

For months Ma and the rest of the family hounded him. Get married. You have to get married. Must get married. Beta, it’s high time you find a wife.They harangued him. Pleaded with him. Threatened him. Constant pressure, slow torture, what he thinks waterboarding might feel like, until one day he broke down. Agreed to an arranged marriage. He even started to believe he could go through with it, but this was a fantasy built on a flimsy foundation of wishes and prayers. The idea of marrying Reema gave him panic attacks. He had never been with a woman. The very idea of a physical relationship with a woman filled him with fear, horror, and revulsion. He tried to get out of it, the day before the engagement, but his pleas fell on deaf ears. He was upbraided for being fickle, for threatening to bring shame and dishonor on the family, for not respecting his parents and their wishes, for not being a good son, and on and on until he relented once again. He could run away, and he’s thought about it, but exile and excommunication from his family and loved ones seem like a fate worse than death. Realistically, he sees only one way out. He just has to make sure he executes this exit plan. Today.

Arun takes a deep breath and looks away from the mirror. He opens the bottle of pills he had stashed in the satchel, sleeping pills that he has procured from multiple chemists to avoid suspicion. He pours out pink pills into his clammy hand, five at a time, forcing them down the throat with the water from a Bisleri bottle. The water is warm and tastes like plastic, but he doesn’t hesitate as he takes each set of five pills, waiting just long enough to allow the previous batch to make its way down. The last three pills he flushes away because he doesn’t want to disrupt the beautiful symmetry of the pattern of fives that is to be his last conscious act. When he returns to his seat by the window, the little girl and her doll resume their silent vigil, but now Arun finds himself strangely comforted by this unlikely pair of guardian angels.

The train’s clackety-clack, clack-clack sound stands in for a lullaby as the pills start to kick in. Arun feels drowsy. Sleep arrives in dizzying waves, each wave getting progressively stronger, as if the tide is rising. He can barely keep his eyes open, so he gives in to the temptation to rest his weary eyes. Just for a second. Maybe two. His head rolls one way and then the other, snapping back with decreasing urgency as if it were held up by slack springs. Left. Right. Bob. Bob. Left. Right. Left. He no longer has the strength to open his eyes.

Behind the leaden eyelids now shut tight, Arun finds that the little girl and her doll have followed him. They’ve made themselves at home in the flesh-colored, flickering world. “What’s your name, little girl?” Arun asks, but he receives no response. Instead, the girl and her doppelganger beckon him, holding his hands as they leave this ruddy, quivering, winking world to march lockstep through a valley of fog. Fog here. Fog there. Clouds. Mist. Gray. Wisps. White. Blue. Blue-gray. Fog here. Fog there. The ground under his feet feels soft and springy to the touch. Squish. Squish. Soft. The trio prances and skips through the fog with childlike glee and freedom.

When the fog lifts⁠—the wispy whites disappearing suddenly as if in the old black-and-white movies Ma and Papa prefer⁠—Arun sees that he is walking barefoot on a carpet of flowers. Marigolds as far as the eye can see, a sea of gold and orange, punctuated every so often by clusters of sweet-smelling jasmine flowers. The ground feels softer by the minute until Arun finds himself sinking into this fuzzily fragrant, floral quicksand. The flowers swallow him gradually, first up to the ankles, then the calves. Now he’s waist-deep and then up to his shoulders. He tries to resist, panicking, clawing at the edges of orange and gold, but he is no match for the ravenous flowers and their insatiable appetite. He keeps sinking until he’s finally submerged, completely.

Arun’s lungs fill up with scented oils, and he exhales luminescent bubbles filled with golden-orange vapors. Somewhere along the way, he’s lost the little girl and her doll. As he sinks further, the orange and gold turn to crimson, then maroon and brown. In this maroon-brown murkiness, he sees a vision of the four-armed Kali Mata, the goddess of death and destruction. In popular depictions, her skin is the color of a blue-black night sky, but up close Arun sees that her skin is the color of almonds and honey. Regardless of the avatar, she is a frightening presence with wild tresses and eyes brimming with fire. She thunders and roars, sending bolts of lightning down Arun’s spine. He looks in awe at the garland of human skulls she wears around her neck, the garland rattling violently as it swings, mimicking her frenetic dance. She is close enough that Arun can smell the burning coals on her breath, feel the static current rising from her tiger-skin robe, and taste her acrid rage. She picks him up effortlessly and throws him from one hand to the second, then to the third and fourth, and back and forth like a flimsy rag-doll, generating swells and surges of nausea and bile. Up. Down. Up again. Sideways. Just when he’s about to give up, overwhelmed by the loss of equilibrium and control, she tosses him off to the side leaving him convulsing, dizzy and dazed.

Another pair of hands appears now. These hands are soft and gentle. They pull him from the maroon-brown murkiness to a blue-gray world where dolphins splish and splash in groups of five. Five splishes to the left, then five splashes to the right. Five dolphins here and five there. The dolphins sing to him, sweet melancholy ballads of love and loss. Arun, guided by the pair of gentle hands, swims in the warm water, racing towards the dull orb of silvery light that must be the moon. He doesn’t know whose hands he follows but he feels safe in their care. The dolphins splish and splash excitedly, bringing their song to its mournful crescendo.

“Are you okay?” asks Ravi’s voice, filled with so much love and tenderness it brings tears to Arun’s eyes. Arun didn’t think he’d ever hear from Ravi again, not after the abrupt manner in which Arun broke up with him, but it is surely Ravi’s voice. Arun cries orange and gold tears of relief as he swims toward the moon, accompanied by five groups of splish-splashing dolphins. The gentle hands are Ravi’s hands, Arun realizes, and instantly he feels lighter, and more at ease.

“Arun, beta, can you hear me?”

Ma holds Arun’s hand, willing him to open his eyes, tears streaming down her face when too many collect for her eyes to store. She watches him, alert for the slightest movement or change, rejecting any offers from her husband or the others to take over the watch so that she can rest. The lonely vigil is part of her penance. She doesn’t know what would cause her son to take such a drastic step but is convinced that it must be a result of some fundamental flaw in her mothering. She is generous with the blame, heaping it on herself indiscriminately as she waits for her baby boy to open his eyes.

Arun swims vigorously, eager to rise to the surface and escape this watery prison. His lungs ache for air, his chest filled tightly with fragrant oils. Ripples of silver and blinding white, concentric circles of glowing lights spread around Arun as he rises towards the moon. The dolphins cheer him on. Ravi too, as he swims beside Arun, shimmering in his gloriously brown skin. Arun turns his head so that he can watch Ravi, beautiful Ravi who swims like a gazelle that was born to the seas. Ravi’s muscles are taut, the torso tapered, a gleaming David forged out of copper and bronze, floating through this blue-gray world with intolerable grace. Arun watches, mesmerized. He wants to pause for a moment, just long enough to kiss Ravi and his gloriously brown skin, but Ravi slips away, covering himself in a short, red dress embroidered with pink and yellow flowers. The moon comes closer and closer still, alarming Arun with the intensity of its burning light. So bright is the light, it burns his eyes, sending searing, shooting spasms of pain straight to his brain. His head hurts from the cranial tectonic torture and he feels like he’s swallowed a fire-breathing magician and his sword. Arun longs to go back to the blue-gray world where dolphins splish-splash in groups of five and Ravi swims like a sea gazelle in his gloriously brown skin.

Ma ruminates on the nature of need. When the boys were young, both of them, but mostly Arun, would use nightmares, real and feigned, as an excuse to insist she sleep in their room. She would hold their hands or stroke their foreheads until sleep took over. If she had to describe heaven, this was it. The boys were her sun and her moon, they were her universe, and all the love she had, she spent it on them. As they got older, they needed her less and less. They were content to lock themselves in their now-separate rooms, begging to be left alone with video games or friends. Lately, she had mostly begun to feel like a nuisance, nagging them to eat, drink, wake up, and whatnot. It felt good to be needed again.

Ma banishes this thought as quickly as it enters her mind, knowing that she would never trade the safety of her children to feel needed once again. Oh, what she wouldn’t give up to ensure their happiness and well-being. She offers the gods alms in addition to her prayers. She pleads with them for mercy, pledging to make seven holy pilgrimages every year if they save Arun’s life. She vows she will never eat sweets again. She promises to fast on Tuesdays. She offers her own life in return for Arun’s recovery. She doesn’t care about the personal costs of her promised sacrifices. All she wants is for her children to be happy. She doesn’t have cause to worry about Varun. He is doing well with the family business. He seems happy in his marriage. Priya is a good wife and daughter-in-law. Arun, on the other hand, has always been different: more sensitive, more fragile, and yet so full of love. Arun’s engagement and eventual marriage to Reema is a step in the right direction, Ma is convinced. It is time for Arun to settle down now.

There is a singularity and selflessness to her goals that allows Ma to feel confident in her motives and methods. She has been around longer than her children, she knows what it takes to be successful in this world. Yet, underneath this certainty lies a niggling doubt that she rarely allows to surface. About a year ago, she came across a bundle of letters while straightening Arun’s room. The letters⁠—handwritten, florid⁠—contained passionate declarations of love and longing. They were all from Ravi. She recoiled as she read a couple of them, her disgust growing with every word. There was nothing in her frame of reference to provide context for such abominable and unnatural thoughts, feelings, and relations. Her world turned upside down in an instant. Arun had found her distraught and in disbelief; weeping, beating her chest, livid. He lied at first, denying it all. Then he confessed, sobbing inconsolably and pleading with her not to disown him. In the end, he promised he’d break it off with Ravi. He vowed never to see him again, never think these dirty thoughts again, never, never, never. Arun’s suicide attempt has dislodged the repressed memory of the incident and it rattles, rumbles, and resurfaces without warning now. Ma pushes it away with steely determination, refusing to believe there is any connection between the events. She remains committed to the idea that the ill-fated affair was a mistake, an acting out, a temporary phase that could have never resulted in a meaningful life.

The night nurse breaks her train of thought when she comes in to check on Arun. On her way out she offers to switch off the fluorescent, overhead lights so Ma can get some rest. Ma asks her to leave them on. She doesn’t want to miss anything, recording every twitch and tremor in her diary to report to Doctor Uncle when he comes by for his rounds in the morning.

Arun yearns to hear the song of the dolphins one more time. Just one more time. He feels a desperate need to hold Ravi’s soft and gentle hands again. Please, Ravi. Please. Just one more time. He reaches out, stretching, squirming, swimming to reach Ravi, but Ravi recedes further away, the pink and yellow flowers on his too-small dress disappearing in the distance. He watches helplessly as Ravi swims away, fast as only a sea gazelle chased by a tiger-skin-wearing goddess can. Far away from Arun and his outstretched arms.

Arun feels tired, too tired to open his eyes. His eyelids are so heavy, and the light feels too bright, hurting his eyes when he cracks them open for a split-second, a split-second too long. He feels caught between a polychromatic world populated by dolphins and goddesses and a bright moonlit one where someone is calling his name. That someone takes his hand in theirs, calling him by his name again. They are not Ravi’s hands. It isn’t Ravi’s voice; he knows this much. He feels the loss to his core, wanting to return to the multi-hued world where Ravi swam with him, beautiful Ravi, whom he loved so much.

Papa comes and goes, too impatient to stay in the room, unlike his silent, sentinel wife. He is angry and disappointed, completely at a loss to explain why Arun would do something so selfish and thoughtless. He searches for clues in their conversations and their interactions, unable to find anything noteworthy. He doesn’t think to blame himself, unlike his wife. He watches his son with impotent rage, willing him to open his eyes.

“Ma, where am I?” Arun whispers. His throat is hoarse and his mouth so dry, as if lined with broken glass, sawdust, and sand.

“You are safe, beta. Don’t worry, just rest for now.”

Varun and Priya show up dutifully twice a day. She brings a tiffin for Ma, even though Ma barely touches the food. The couple comes into the room to check on Arun, fidgeting nervously, but mostly they leave Ma alone with her sentry duties since she’s made it clear she won’t share them with others. They sit outside the room on the hard, plastic chairs drinking bland hospital tea from Styrofoam cups. In the evening, Varun fills in Papa on the day’s developments at the office. Priya reads a magazine to kill time.

On the third morning, Varun asks Ma if they should tell Reema or her family.

“Have you lost your bloody mind?” Ma asks, her face turning red, eyes threatening to jump out of their sockets, each word bristling with so much anger that Varun wishes he hadn’t asked. Priya shrinks into the chair, burying her face in the magazine.

“Now listen to me. I’m going to say this only once. I don’t know why your brother tried to do what he did, but I am not going to let him ruin his life because of this one mistake. Not a single word to anyone about this situation. I’ve already talked to Doctor Uncle, and he’ll make sure all of this stays under wraps. Once Arun is up, we are going to take him home. No one will bring this up ever again, not with him, or with Reema and her family. The wedding will happen as scheduled in one month. Do you understand me? No one will ever bring this up again. Ever.”

Ma returns to Arun’s bedside, determined to resume her vigil. Arun is still not awake but his face is contorted as if battling demons in his dreams. Many years ago, Ma remembers Arun’s face contorted in the very same way. The image comes back to her, fresh as if it was yesterday. She had confiscated Arun’s favorite doll, Radha. Arun must have been five or six then. “Boys don’t play with dolls, beta.” she had said to him. “You are old enough to know this now. I don’t want people making fun of you.” Arun had given up the doll without protest but something in his face told her she had robbed him of both his favorite toy and his childhood in that moment. Yet, she persisted because she knew that the world wasn’t kind to boys who played with dolls. That night, she watched as Arun thrashed and turned in his sleep, seeking out his beloved Radha, but she didn’t give the doll back to him.

Arun is doing it again, his face twisted with pain, body writhing restlessly despite her attempts to calm him. She is about to run out to get a doctor or a nurse when he whispers something. She leans closer to hear him. Then he does it again.

“Ravi.”

“Ravi,” he repeats softly.

“Ravi,” he pleads plaintively, even as he struggles to open his eyes.

Something gives away inside her, unleashing a tidal wave of doubt, guilt, and grief that corrodes the very core of her convictions. She doesn’t know what she believes anymore. The only thing she is sure of is that she wants Arun to recover. She holds on to this one certainty even as her world crumbles.

I’m old and I’ve seen things that shouldn’t ever be seen and learned more than I wanted to know. People not yet old say that elders forget, but that’s not the true half of it. Having too many things you can’t not remember makes you old. I’ve outlived any use I ever figured for myself, but, no credit to me, my eyes still open each morning. My wife, Grace, is gone now seven years⁠–⁠she was my grace, God love her and I miss her⁠–⁠but, my boys, well, I think young folks have a harder time remembering than parents, and I don’t see them much. Not to complain.

Most mornings I ease out of bed and then take care of whatever needs tending that day. I clean breakfast dishes and then putter about the yard. All those chores, like clipping grass and dusting roses and painting window sills peeling on the sunny side of the house, seem irksome to a young man but are about all that’s left of living now. Plus keeping an eye on the neighborhood. I work a while and then set a while. I notice what and who’s going up and down the block. Generally, I don’t stick my nose in. As a young man I wanted to set some things right, but Grace said that God won’t hold me account for others’ mistakes while they did the best they knew to do. She’d cup my chin in her palm to calm me. She was smart that way. Well.

A neighborhood has a face you come to know, but never recollect how you first met. Last August we were short one family after Mitch Wilkins moved his psychiatrist practice to the city. Apparently, my neighbors don’t accumulate enough of his particular type of mental issues or maybe too many to tackle alone. Anyway, that family moved closer in to town. That house sat empty two, maybe three months. I sneaked up every other week to trim the grass, which kept the lawn tidy, but I felt the lack of a family in that house like a tooth missing in my own jaw. Not a hurt exactly, but your tongue always finds the hole. Now I wish that house had stayed empty.

Like I said, I’m in my yard pretty regular, so I saw the new family arrive. A typical house move: van drove up, backed into the drive, and two guys, muscly but with guts hanging over belts, unloaded boxes and furniture down the ramp. I saw children’s bikes and a bunk bed. After the van left, I saw two adults and two children roving the yard. Across fences they seemed a fine young family. The lady dressed well, with clothes that seemed fancy for unpacking boxes, but still. They owned two cars, both newish, so I figured them hard working in some line or another and felt glad of it. After dinner I clipped some roses which were blooming beautiful, dusted off a bottle of wine, and ambled up the street. I introduced myself and wasn’t surprised to find the man of the house introduce himself as a lawyer and she, she stayed home with the children.

“Peter Mueller,” he said, still standing at the door. “Thank you for the wine. And the flowers.” He half stepped outside but kept hold of the door frame with one hand.

“You’re welcome,” I said.

“Sorry about the mess, but this isn’t our best day.”

“No problem. Moving day never is.”

“Jill⁠ ⁠… will be sorry she missed you.” He waved vaguely towards the stairs. “But she’s upstairs.”

“No problem. I’m Jim Grant, two doors down. It’s a real nice neighborhood. I look forward to meeting you all when the dust settles.”

“Yes,” Peter said as he shut the door and clicked the lock.

Like I’ve said before, if you live long enough you know things and don’t know how you learned. I never did meet the Muellers properly. I’d see them come and go. He left for work early, before I got up most days, and returned after dark. She - Jill - brought the children to school in the morning, and they took the bus home afternoons. Something got me curious, though. Two somethings, the Mueller children. Some might call it nosiness, but I’m a friendly neighbor, always have been. I know most kids on the block. You’ve got to be careful now, but I wave and say hello. I know names and where they go to school and which boys toss their lunch bags into garbage cans down the block on their way home. I don’t know what those fellows eat at school, but it’s not what their mothers pack. I don’t tell parents, of course, but the boys smile at me sometimes as they pass, and the younger ones hang on the gate and talk while I weed along the fence.

The Mueller children — a boy and a girl — never passed my house on school days. I saw them Sundays when the family paraded past on their way to church. Weren’t they a postcard. The parents seemed stylish with those kids shined clean and ironed smooth. If God cared to look, he must have been impressed. The boy wore a bow tie cinched to his neck and his top shirt button fastened. I do not know to this day how that was possible. Most boys his age, I guessed eight or ten, have trouble just getting shirts tucked and shoes tied. Since Grace died, I haven’t felt the need for church. If I find myself edging into dementia or with cancer, I might go back, but after a lot of amiable years, God and I simply tired of each other. I got nothing more to ask of him, and he’s lost interest toying with me. But I’d wave on Sunday, and the Mueller parents would usually wave back or say hello.

Fact is, I did not get to know that family, but I still had the rest of the neighborhood and my garden. One Saturday in the spring, months after the Muellers moved in, I shuffled around my front yard working. In springtime you’ve got to unburlap the shrubs, shovel thawed dog crap from heaps all over the front lawn, and rake soggy leaves, so I had plenty to do. Some of the boys were playing ball at the house across the street. I saw the Kellys, of course; Jacob Klein, Jeet Sandhu, and a couple of other young fellows I did not recognize, perhaps from around the corner. Miriam Kelly played which surprised me, though I suspected the boys needed a body to even the sides. Anyway, I wasn’t paying attention, just listening to the noise and background yells as I went about my business. As I raked along the porch, I saw the Mueller boy in a striped t-shirt sidling along with his back to my fence. He stared across the street.

I do not think — in fact, I am sure — he did not see me. He had the pasty winter skin we all do that time of year. His close-cropped brown hair sported a cowlick at his forehead. I stopped raking. That cowlick gave a comical look, almost as if at the boy’s birth, God reached back as an afterthought and said, “Wait just a minute there, son,” and twisted a thumb at the infant’s hairline to mark him. The boy hung over my fence with both arms looped behind him and gaped at the ballplayers. I could not see his eyes from my angle, but he had some of the longest eyelashes I’ve ever remarked on a boy. Camels don’t grow longer lashes than that boy, I swear.

When he stopped outside my gate, I said, “Those are the Kellys. They’re good kids.”

He whipped around as though I had electrified the fence. I saw that his eyes were big. And with those big eyes, he looked at me standing there holding my rake.

“Pardon me.” It should have been a question, but he said it like a fact.

“No need to pardon yourself. I said those Kelly boys and the others are nice. They usually make a spot for someone new to play ball. Do you play?”

“No,” he said quickly. “Well, yes, I can. I know how. But I can’t.”

“You could ask. Or I’ll ask for you.”

“No.” His eyes looked into my face as though for a clue. I only hunted one time, but I remember seeing a doe’s eyes like that, wide open as though waiting for the bullet. I never fired a gun any second time. Still facing me, the boy began to slip in the opposite direction back towards his house. I noticed that he wore camping pants, impossibly clean and certainly never used for camping, snapped at his hipless waist.

I shifted the rake and stuck out my hand. “I’m Jim Grant. You’re a Mueller, I think. I’ve seen you walk by and your mother drive you to school.”

He shook hands gravely. “Joey. I’m Joey Mueller. I moved into the brick house, Mr. Grant.”

I looked up our block at the row of almost identical brick houses. “Yes, I know. And Joey Mueller, you can call me Jim. Most kids do and get a kick out of it. And I was wondering maybe, if you’re not doing anything and if you’re not going to play ball, if you’d like to help plant some garden flowers. It’s time for my crocuses and daffodils. I don’t know if these old bones are up to it today.”

“I couldn’t,” Joey said. “Call you by your first name. We have to say Mister to adults. But I could help you plant the garden. For now.”

I winked at him. “Call me whatever you like if you help me get bulbs planted.”

“My mom is getting her hair done,” he added inexplicably. “She gets her hair done on Saturday. I like flowers.”

He came in and we worked. I’d call that boy smart and industrious as an ant. A lot of people call beavers busy, but ants are the hardest workers God ever created out of Earth’s dirt. They never stop. Indefatigable is the word, I think. Once Joey came in the gate, I couldn’t hardly keep pace. I explained my yard layout one time, and he started planting bulbs and raking the ground over them smooth as a grave. He laid out flowers as fast as I pointed him to a fresh plot. He dug holes with my trowel, dropped in a bulb, and patted the earth with his hands. He chuckled as he named the color of the flower he tamped into the ground. Once he even slipped and called me Jim. “Sorry,” he said.

After about an hour, the boy grew restless. “That’s enough for today,” I said. I aim to be friendly, but I’m no jailer. He seemed to enjoy himself though, and I felt sorry for the little fellow. He set the trowel down with what seemed real regret. “It’s just that my mom is getting her hair done,” he said.

“Yes?”

“It takes about an hour and a half,” he said. I waited.

“Yes, well. Joey Mueller, can I pay your wages in chocolate chips? You should get to know Mrs. Kelly. She lives across the street, and she bakes mean cookies. I mean good ones.”

“Yes, please.” He smiled. I realized I had not before seen him smile. His whole face lit up except the eyes. “I could maybe eat one.”

“Well, let’s find that one then.” I smiled and headed towards the door. “Even if we have to eat the whole batch to find it.”

He walked behind me to the porch. When I held open the door and gestured, he stopped and said, “Mr. Grant, I can’t.”

I laughed at his politeness. “I have more than I can eat. Not to worry.” I motioned him in.

“No, I can’t go in.”

“You don’t have to worry about dirty feet in my house.”

“My parents say I’m not allowed to go inside.”

My smile faded. I’ve lived on this street and in this house thirty-two years, and now this particular day and at my age in this neighborhood which I know like the face of my wife, and someone’s suspicious of me? Just inside my front door I keep a friendship plant⁠—least that’s what Grace called it⁠—some kind of fern that folds its leaves when touched, like it’s whispering a prayer. Children like it, and when Grace set that pot out the morning of our fortieth anniversary, she said it was a prod to pray for whoever outside our door needs help. I tap a frond as a reminder every time I leave the house, and it’s been there thirteen years while no one ever said they feared to enter my home.

“Wait here,” I said and let the screen slam shut. That irked me, I swear. It pissed me off royal. Sometimes I wish I remembered only old days. I carried out a plate of cookies and two glasses of cola. I do not like cola.

Joey accepted his glass gravely. “Thank you,” he said. “Mr. Grant, I’m sorry I can’t go inside. It’s a rule.”

“That’s OK, Joey. Rules are important. It’s just been a long time since I had a parent make me a rule. And I wish we lived in a world where you didn’t worry to sit at an old man’s table and eat a neighbor’s cookies.”

“It’s not that. I don’t worry. I like you.”

“What is it?”

“I cannot go in anyone’s house.”

“Anyone’s?”

“No.”

“How about a friend’s house?” Joey shook his head. We both ate a cookie. “Why?” I asked.

“It’s a rule. Mom says,” Joey said as if that explained it all. And perhaps it did. We sat on the front porch, but I could see that Joey felt uncomfortable. He said funny things, and God knows he seemed an odd child, but it chafed me to think a boy would feel uncomfortable on my porch. But I noticed that he kept looking up the street at his own driveway.

I think right then I understood something I had no way of knowing. Except to the extent that I thought we should be able to drink a coke and eat a cookie in peace. Whether tired of me or not, God owed me that much. “You know, it’s sunny on my old eyes out here,” I said. “What say we go around back where there’s more shade?”

Around back Joey’s appetite improved. I refilled the plate twice until I feared he might upchuck into my flowerbox. I pointed out my favorite bushes and a gray squirrel who ate sunflower seeds from the bird feeder. Joey laughed at the jay who fluttered down to peck up cookie crumbs, and he chattered about school and his dad the lawyer and his sister Jean. She was too shy to come out, but maybe he would bring her over some time. He loved to pound nails, but he was not very good with hammers. He could help me build a bird house out in the garage if I needed some help. He did not know how to prune roses, but could learn if I showed him. Definitely he⁠—

“Joey. Jo‑o‑o‑ey.” We heard the call.

“Got to go,” he whispered. “Mom’s home from her hair.” He scampered for the gate. He stopped. “Thank you,” he said.

“I’m out in the yard most days,” I said, but I doubt he heard me.

That started it. Like I said, every neighborhood has a face, and I didn’t, for a long time, peer into ours close enough. Every Saturday morning about 11 o’clock I’d happen to be out fiddling in my front yard. That’s the time Jill Mueller, looking perfectly groomed on her way to the hairdresser, would drive off in her sedan. For the life of me I could not tell the difference in her hair when she returned at 12:30. Peter Mueller worked half day on Saturday, and I saw him drive back home at about three in the afternoon. I guess that equals half a lawyer’s day. At any rate, just after eleven, Joey would slip down the block and wait outside my gate. Every Saturday he waited, never once entering uninvited. After I swung open the gate, he’d grin and skip in, and we’d do whatever needed doing around the yard. I never again suggested that he come in for a soda; we had our snack out back with the jay and the squirrels. He swung his thin boy legs as he sat on my patio bench.

He was a good little worker and a good little boy. I’m sorry I started to notice. Things. I noticed things. You live in a neighborhood thirty-two years and you notice things. You live seventy-three years and you think you’ve seen all there is to see. And then you start seeing other things that ought not be there. Things you don’t want to know at a time after you think God has stopped messing with you. Like how does a little boy get welts on the back of his legs? When he bends down to pat the earth around a crocus, his camping pants hitch up and there they are. Three lines across both legs and maybe more, higher where you can’t see. I bite my lip, and when I bend over, I can’t see the ground for the tears I refuse to let Joey see. I give him cookies; I will give him as many cokes as he can drink. How many would make one welt go away? So, you notice. And you say nothing.

Summer time and he shows up in a turtleneck sweater. “Joey, isn’t it hot under there, son? It’s time for a T-shirt.”

“Yes, sometimes it is hot. Mom found it for me to wear.” Inexplicably. But soon you suspect every non sequitur. That’s a good word, because it is no non sequitur when he scratches his chin and you see pinch marks on his neck. There is blood on the wool of the sweater. You see it. You wonder if God marked that cowlick there as some kind of joke. You want to pick Joey up, old as you are, and hug him to your chest. But you don’t. This is a nice neighborhood; I know it used to be. I’ve lived here 32 years and never before thought to find sin hid here. You notice and you want to ask, you want to say that it’s not fair it’s not life it won’t always be that way. But you don’t know that, and you want to ask Grace if this is a mistake by that other woman doing the best she knows to do. At 11 the car drives by and 11:10 Joey slides down and waits for me to invite him in. I start to send him home with extra cookies for him and his sister. I go behind my garage and chop firewood until my heart wants to explode. Sometimes I wish it would. Except for Saturday.

We plant flowers. I dig out old bushes during the week so we have more planting on Saturday. We watch the flowers we’ve planted sprout and bloom. We cut flowers which he leaves by my back porch when he leaves. It’s a rule, he says. Then he stops and reaches down to pick out one pink crocus. “For Jean,” he says and smiles.

One Saturday we grafted a scion onto my cherry tree. He watched gravely as I slit the bark and cut into the green pulp of wood beneath. I slid the stem of the scion deep into the wound. “You cut into the tree, into the xylem and phloem, to make a scar so the branches heal together and grow strong. You see?”

“Seeum and fleeum,” he said and chortled at his joke. He helped me wrap the branch with a waxed cloth. The next week he unzipped the pocket on his camping shorts and pulled out a band-aid and taped it carefully over the graft. He had drawn a smiley face on the bandage. Every Saturday he watered the cherry tree and watched the grafted branch. The week the first buds appeared, he turned to me with a question in his eyes.

“The xylem and phloem. I swear,” I said.

“Not just xylem and filum,” Joey declared. “A happy branch.” In midsummer Joey wears a blue T-shirt, and his little boy arms stick out skinny as pipestems. Skinny, yes, but when they reach for my hammer, most arms do not show the bruise on his back and the crimson line that looks like the curl of an extension cord. I am an old man, and l love a little boy. I cannot not speak.

“Joey. Joey, what happened to your shoulder?” I say casually as I lift the sleeve of his shirt. I cannot see the end of the whip track on his back.

Joey looks at me. I see deer eyes for a moment and then a curtain. And I know it falls for me, not for himself. “I fell down, Jim. Against the edge. On the stairs.” Damn me if you will, but I did not ask more. “It’s all right, Jim,” he says. He says that to me. So, I’m not scared to death.

Like I said at the start, I’ve seen things I never wanted to see. And I had two sons of my own who played on every playground in this city and ran into every corner of my house and yard. I know that they never got pinched in the neck by a swing or fell off a bike that scratched welts across their legs and never fell on their shoulders. Not like that. Not against the edge. Not on the stairs. We ate our cookies, and the squirrel had such a funny look on his face that Joey laughed.

As old as I am and still a fool. We sat there side by side on the bench, perhaps over long, certainly too late. With the toe of my boot, I tapped the ground to spook the squirrel. Joey, his mouth full of cookie, looked up and caught my eye and smiled. Then I saw him look over my shoulder, and his jaw stopped moving. His smile ended; it did not fade, it died. He set his glass down, put the rest of his cookie back on the plate and stood up from the bench.

I turned around stiffly as I do. She stood there at the corner of my house. The sun’s reflection off a window shone behind her coiffed hair.

“Mrs. Mueller⁠–⁠Jill, nice to s‑s‑see you,” I stammered. I haven’t stammered in fifty - sixty - years. She, that woman, looked at me for a second, no more, then turned to Joey.

“Home,” she said.

One word. I once sat on the front porch during a summer storm when lightning struck an elm across the street, and that single sucker punch word, mouthed more than spoken, felt the same: more a concussion than a sound and afterward the air splintered and acrid. Joey hitched up his camping shorts and immediately walked towards the gate.

“You’ve got quite a boy, Jill,” I heard myself say. “Planting’s not easy for me, bending and kneeling. He’s a treasure. Your boy.”

She looked at me again and smiled. “Thank you,” she said. Then a finger pointed Joey up the block, and she turned and left. Joey glanced sideways, not at my face but at the toes of my boots, as he walked past. He rubbed one hand along the edge of my brick wall before he turned the corner. Three words. She said three words. And I felt frozen huddled beneath blankets in bed that night.

The next Saturday, Jill Mueller did not drive by and return with curled hair. Joey did not slip down the block to wait outside the gate for me to invite him in. And I worked in my yard and I raked and raked until the fingers of my bamboo rake broke in the clots of dirt. I looked up and down the block, for what else is there for a man old or young to do? Every neighborhood has a personality; you learn it. I walked part way up the block past the Mueller house and mailed a letter back to myself. I sat out back and crumbled cookies for the jay.

The next morning, I sat on my porch with the paper, but I could not have told you the headlines. The Muellers headed off to church, and like I say, they make a pretty picture postcard. Joey had his bow tie under his chin. When they were in front, I waved and said, “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” Peter and Jill Mueller reply, his voice an echo of hers. The girl stares straight ahead, she never speaks. Joey says nothing, but he turns to look at me. I cannot say anything, but my hand holding the paper starts to shake as they walk down the block.

I don’t know how to explain what happened next. I must have stepped off the porch, because, the next I remember, I am lurching about the yard touching all the flowers we planted. Then I knelt on the ground, and, without even looking at what I’m doing, I’m pulling out plants with my bare hands, no shovel or trowel, just plunging my fingers into the earth, trying to pull them out by the roots but, if not, breaking them off at the stem. I pat the ground flat with my hands thinking Joey can come back, he’ll have to come back, please let him come back to help me. Then - forgive me, Grace - I went into the house and carried our fern out to the driveway. I grabbed the stem of that plant growing there for thirteen years and pulled it out like a plug, roots and all. I threw that fern up against the garage and then - I hope my wife understands, since I cannot - I stamped the prayers out of those branches and crushed them into green pulp and an empty hairnet of roots.

When the Muellers return from church, I am out at the fence. Like I say, I’m an old man, but as long as I wake each morning, I am not dead. I wait until they are nearly at my gate before I look up. “Why, Joey,” I say. “What happened to your eye?”

“He got himself quite a shiner,” Peter Mueller says. “I remember I got one myself playing ball at his age.”

“Boys,” Jill Mueller said. Inexplicably. And the family moved on up the street. Then, while the others walked on, Jill turned back to my gate. She touched the point of one slat with a perfectly manicured finger. “Joseph won’t be a bother to you anymore. He never should have,” she said quietly and clearly. She looked up full into my face and sliced through me with her eyes. “You⁠—,” she stopped. I waited for the blow, but she just turned away to join the others.

Again, I cannot understand or forgive myself, since I did not speak. I’d like to believe that I said, “I asked about Joey! He’s no bother,” and that I plucked him off that sidewalk and carried him into my yard. But I did not. Joey looked back over his shoulder and tried to wink at me. A hideous wink of a swollen eye. Grace, my ever love, I know what you said and forgive me, but for that day I’ll be held account. And He will, too. Three months later, the Mueller family moved away, and I never knew where.

God and I tired of each other years ago, yes, but as long as He wakes each morning, He must hear me. He must.

Son of a bitch, God.

I pray for Joey.

My whole life, I tried to keep off the ground. I know that sounds impossible⁠—presumptuous, even, for a human. There are some creatures that really do live their whole lives up in the forest canopy, or that spend years in the air or on the water. Not so for people, especially not my family. But I have to say I did a pretty good job of staying aloft for quite a good portion of my life.

Everyone has expected me to die every day of my life since I was born. I always knew I’d survive childhood, but no one believed me. At first, I was just too stubborn. Later, I knew I’d keep living because there were just too many trees to climb. That’s what trees did for me. They gave me a place for myself off the ground⁠—and out of it. Human or not. Until very recently, in fact. Just moments ago.

I blame the groundie. He’s my least favorite sort of person, this particular groundie. The kind that isn’t sure he’s good at his job and so isn’t. Who relies on rules to do a good job instead of confidence. I’ve always wished I could work by myself. If I could have been left alone, I would still be up there.

I’m still thinking about climbing, though. While I still can. Thinking about the best trees to climb (because some are better than others), or at least my favorites. As a child, it was a tree of heaven, specifically the one in my back yard. I know that’s a controversial statement for any arborist to make, but how was a child to know? It was an easy starter tree with its low branching trunk, and I was small and lithe and could get up them without breaking the slender branches.

It scared my parents, of course. They didn’t even think I should ride a bike. They were under the impression I was fragile. I can’t blame them entirely, considering the trouble they’d received from me started in utero: infections, preeclampsia, all those sorts of things. And then when I was born they diagnosed me with cystic fibrosis. My parents and doctors told me, more times than I needed to hear, that I had a genetic mutation that made my tubes and organs produce a very thick sticky mucus instead of something that should have been watery. That mucus causes trouble, because it traps bacteria, especially in the lungs, and makes it hard to breathe, and just gets in the way of bodily functions in general. I never cared for the word mucus. I had a much simpler explanation for myself: I was full of sap.

My parents named me Eli. Not short for Elijah. Eli is Hebrew for “exalted one.” And that’s how my parents treated me from day one: with fear and reverence. Not that I asked for either one. Out of five children, I was the only one not born annoyingly healthy⁠—able to eat and drink and do as they please, and complain endlessly of their small trials. When I was born, the doctors told my patients that I would live, at best, into my thirties, and they never forgot that I could die much earlier than that. Yes, I haven’t done too poorly for myself, considering my parents thought I’d be in the ground a long time ago, in the family plot.

I always hated that plot. Not only did I have to visit it for the funerals of several grandparents and aunts and uncles, but my parents always dragged us there on obligatory trips to visit them and, I don’t know, talk to them through the dirt. Some ancestor had chosen the oldest, ugliest part of the cemetery, with patchy grass and not a tree in sight. My parents have always been very devout people, and I’m convinced it’s because heaven is their escape from that graveyard plot in the same way that trees became mine.

Religion never did it for me like it did for my parents, and some of my siblings too. Even as a child, I imagined the afterlife to be a darker, dirtier version of my childhood: crowded and suffocating. All the talk of heaven⁠—especially in the context of me getting there, and soon⁠—wouldn’t bother me so much if I could just be cremated. Maybe even buried in an empty hole or thrown into the ocean. If I could be laid to rest in a way that would do some good for the living things around me. But we Jews don’t generally condone that. Instead I get to rot in a useless, hermetic box. And even though I’m the youngest, it’s guaranteed that someone in my family will be around to bury me in it when I die.

My parents raised five children and three dachshunds, and played frequent hosts to an endless rotation of extended family. One would expect such a family to own one of those nice two-story houses you see all over Delaware. But instead, my parents bought two adjoining plots in Minquadale Village with mobile homes on them, commissioned some idiot to connect them with a hallway, and called that home. H like house, my siblings used to say about the shape it made⁠—like home. H like hell I used to think. H like help.

One October when I was a child, around the High Holidays, the family went to the cemetery to pay its respects. Or rather, my mother and father paid their respects, and we children tried to play games or wander off. It was October, and unseasonably hot and humid, and out in the open like that it was smothering. While my family recited, “With His wing He will cover you, and under His wings you will take refuge,” I stared at the gravestones, all named Somebody-Or-Other Stern.

“Where do you think they’ll stick you?” my oldest brother Jacob asked under his breath, nudging my shoulder.

“Not here,” I muttered.

“Yeah, right. I bet they’ll stick you right there.” He pointed at a narrow space between my mother’s parents, Leah and Levi Stern, who I had heard too many stories about. I imagined being nestled between them, suffocated by the smell of old people and the sound of bad jokes.

When the family got home, I was still sweating. Mom became flustered, worrying that I had lost too many calories. She hurried me into the kitchen and started cooking up a box of mac and cheese for lunch, and put out the George Foreman for bacon. Ella and Ben, my youngest older siblings, came into the kitchen and got excited. “This is for Eli,” Mom said. “There’s peanut butter and bread in the fridge for you, and you can make it yourselves.”

“Why do you always get the good stuff?” Ella asked me, and I shrugged.

But Mom said, “You know Eli has different nutritional needs,” adding, “and God will keep his soul.”

“What if I have different nutritional needs,” Ella said, “than just PB&Js?”

Mom ignored them and carried the bowl towards me at the table, muttering, “guard your going out and coming in, from this time⁠—” which is when Dalia the dachshund waddled into her way and she stumbled and the bowl slipped out of her hands. I already wasn’t hungry from the heat and the tombstones, and I became even less so watching the dogs lick macaroni and cheese off the floor while everybody started yelling, so I got up and ran out of the room.

Outside in the yard, I could still hear them through the open windows: everyone yelling at the dogs, and Mom yelling at my siblings, and someone still yelling about peanut butter.

We had a big old tree of heaven behind the house. My parents, having not a horticultural bone in their body, had not thought to cut it down to stop the rapid spread of its many seeds. Like many people, they liked the flowers but hated their smell. Not much else grew in the yard, probably in part because of the chemical the tree produced to ward off competition. Suddenly, looking at that tree, I thought that if I could just get up high enough, I could shed both the heat and the sounds of my family.

It came so naturally. I put my foot on one of the lower branches, pulled myself up with another, and climbed the tree as easily as if it were a ladder. The branches bent slightly but took my weight. Up high, I found a place where I could lean back and look around. The pinnately compound leaves with their red-brown twigs swirled and bounced. The aged red-brown fruits swung. Of course I could still hear the shouting in the house, but it was enough distance to let me feel I was in a different dimension than all that.

Ailanthus altissima⁠—which I’ve also heard called stinking sumac and varnish tree⁠—is invasive, though its foliage looks similar to native trees from a distance. I can relate to them that way: looking enough like others to blend in while maintaining enough hostility to keep yourself from being crowded out.

It was a little while before they all realized I was gone, and my mother came out into the yard. It was another little while before she found me. I watched her sort through the possibilities: under the little porches, on steps, in the car. It was a long while before she thought to look up. When she did, and saw the underside of my shoes, her fright, as it often did, was converted into action.

“Eli. This is not okay. Come down right now.” My only movement was to stroke a yellowing leaf by my face. “Can you hear me, Eli?”

“Yep.”

“Then come down,” she said, and her tone shifted as a breeze came and bent the branches a little. “We’ve got more macaroni. I’ll make you lunch.” And as a car drove by on the street and I still didn’t move, her fear took over and became prayer: “God will keep you from all evil; God will keep your soul. God will guard your going out and coming in, from this time on and forever.” And I could hear most, but not all, of her psalm.

Not everyone can climb a tree of heaven. They’re easy enough to get into with their low-branching stems, but their limbs are so thin only someone as light and lithe as me can climb them. Still, they can, with time, grow quite tall. So tall, in fact, that after that first time I was an instant convert to tree climbing. I climbed nonstop. I would climb so high into the trees on the playground that teachers would panic. I would run off to the park and climb a new tree every day. I had a few close calls, to be sure. Once, in the park, with no one else around, I slipped off a branch so that I was hanging feet-down by my hands. When I finally hooked my legs around the branch, my sweaty hands slipped off so I was hanging head-down by my legs. When I finally climbed back down, I laughed all the way home.

The groundie’s name is Evan. I prefer not to call him anything but the groundie, just to put some distance between us, but given the circumstances⁠—given that he is not only present but partly responsible for what happened⁠—I suppose I’ll give him that. I won’t say it though. I couldn’t if I tried.

If I could just stay here it wouldn’t be so bad. My arms are wrapped around the trunk. I can feel roots under me. Nearby are cut branches, fragrant and feathery, and I can almost imagine I’m not on the ground at all. If I ignore the warning signs from my body, fight the animal panic in my brain, I can almost imagine I’m up on a limb. These sensations⁠—the feel of the bark, the smell of the sap⁠—these are the reasons I decided to become an arborist. It was the sycamore that really convinced me. One of the best trees to climb, if you can get off the ground.

Which I could, once I was trained. That was years later, after wheezing and coughing my way through high school, patiently plugging through class and then climbing taller and taller trees. At community college, I pursued my degree righteously. I learned to tie a Blake’s hitch and an alpine butterfly. I learned to say bowline with a Yosemite finish and open moving rope system and tied, dressed, and set.

I had never been able to climb a mature sycamore before, because of how high their first branches usually are, even when they divide into secondary trunks close to the ground. I’m talking about the American sycamore, Platanus occidentalis, the planetree. A native with bright white bark and pale green palmate leaves, and branches that squiggle like a bonsai’s.

I hardly remember school. It went by so fast. Everything I was taught felt like I’d already known it somehow, and they were just reminding me. But I still remember the first time I used Double Rope Technique to ascend into a sycamore. Like most mature trees of this species, this one was nearly 100 feet tall and probably six feet around. The bark was smooth and cool. The breeze passed through the leaves in such a sweet, filtered way that, though I had to descend for the end of class, I came back at night. It was in a park in Newark near the university. I ascended the tree again, as high up as I could, and around me, in a full moon, the white bark glowed.

Of course, this was before I had my own place, so not coming home that night raised every possible alarm. My mother cried when I opened the door. I didn’t tell them where I’d been; if they thought school was involved, I feared they’d find some way to intervene.

At any rate, my next step was clear: I used the little bit of money I’d earned from summer jobs to sublet a room in Newark. This was better for me and worse for my family, of course. Not being able to watch over me was a nightmare for them. They were convinced that something was going to happen to me. But I felt invincible. I felt that I had learned from trees: to live for longer, grow for longer. If a tree loses a limb or gets an injury or an illness, they have clever ways of healing themselves. Trees are resilient.

People always told me that my condition would make it difficult⁠—impossible, even⁠—to live a normal life. But I’ve seen trees in far worse condition than me. I once saw a spruce topped to make room for a telephone wire. Sure, it was going to die sooner. And sure, it was oozing mosses and lichens that were taking advantage of its weakened system. But it was going to take in sunlight every day like any other spruce, even put out cones if it could.

I quickly discovered, however, that I was not like other arborists. Bros is the word I would use to describe them. There to grow muscles and use chainsaws and rattle off the names of knots and pulleys. I was closer in temperament to the consulting arborists⁠—the people on the ground who assessed the trees, made recommendations, and, if necessary, made referrals to the people with chainsaws. These people were often in it for their love of trees. They were like doctors, full of knowledge of species and diseases. But I wouldn’t be caught dead in that job. Then there were the groundies, who worked with the climbers but stayed on the ground to handle ropes. Clearly no interest there for me. I was unlike all camps. I was there for my own reasons.

Straight out of graduation I was hired by Wriggley and Sons Tree Service. It was a brand new business started by two brothers, Jake and Thomas. There was no Papa Wriggley on the scene; the brothers just liked how the name sounded.

Jake and Thomas sold climbing equipment on the side and insisted their employees buy all their gear from them. Something about representing the brand. So be it, I thought. I knew I was a better climber than both of them combined. They wouldn’t have had to hire all those people and sell all that gear if they had been good at their jobs.

I would rather have climbed by myself⁠—my prior experience put me at basically an expert level even before I knew how to use ropes. But it’s tricky to find work that way, especially straight out of school. So I grudgingly cooperated with the other two people the Wrigley brothers hired to make up their team. They were two of my classmates.

Charlie, the other climber, was a bro. Ripped and tanned. Never seen without his helmet and mirrored sunglasses. The two of us had a similar gusto for climbing trees, but not at all for the same reasons. Charlie was bigger and stronger than me, which gave me something to aim for: to be better than him in all things. And I was. Being jacked doesn’t make you better at climbing trees.

The other hire was Evan, a timid kid. He had a fear of heights but loved trees anyway. He was still in school when he was hired, but the Wrigleys were alright with that since he was pursuing his degree.

Evan always tired me. His timidity made him hesitant, and tree work is all about self-assurance. Instead of using confidence to do his job, he relied on rules. Like a walking textbook with boots. I could never take him seriously for that.

Still, I was high on life for two years. I didn’t eat or sleep enough. I took on dangerous jobs without a thought and executed them perfectly. I was so good that I started cutting corners on my setups. Nothing major, just using easier knots and simpler systems. Skipping backup ropes and load tests. I loved every second of it, even the close calls, like when the branch beneath me broke or the groundie pulled too hard on the rigging line. This was my superpower, after all. The ground couldn’t catch me.

Then I got a lung infection. Worse than I’d gotten since I was a kid, maybe a fetus. I spent days in my little rented room just coughing up phlegm and sweating salt. I had, unfortunately, had to give my family my address so they could forward my mail and so forth, and after about a week there was a pounding at the door and then my mother’s voice shouting at the guy I shared the house with. He told her, and my sister Ella who was also there, where my room was, and they swept in without knocking.

“Why didn’t you call? My poor boy. Have you seen a doctor? You scared us to death.” These were the exclamations that were poured over me in I don’t remember what order.

I said, “I’m fine. I’m better.”

Mom sat down on my bed, put a hand on the lump of my foot under the blanket, and said, “You’re working too hard.”

“You know exercise is actually part of my treatment. Why did you always skip that one?”

“You need to quit.”

“What?”

“Quit this silly job. It’s killing you.”

I actually laughed. Laughed so hard I started coughing again, and my mother rushed to pat me on the back and my sister grimaced. When it was over, I smiled at them and said, “I would rather die.”

“Eli,” my sister said in the tone of someone watching a dog pee on the floor. My mother began to cry.

Then my phone rang. I answered, and Jake said, “Hey man. How⁠—how⁠—how you doing?”

“Fine. Better.”

“Yeah? That’s great, man.”

“At least become one of those consulting arborists,” my mother begged. I waved her off and stepped out of bed, nearly pitching forward. It was a relief to be on my feet. A bed is too much like a grave.

“We’ve got a job today at Old Man Sheffield’s place.”

“Great.”

“I mean, only if you’re up for it. We’ll be good, you know, if you’re still too sick.” I smiled. If they didn’t need me, they wouldn’t be asking. “I’m leaving now.”

I put my phone in my pocket and grabbed my keys, and as I closed the door, my mother said weepily, “I’ll say a Mi Shebeirach for you.”

Poor Evan. He doesn’t have the constitution to handle being at the scene of something like this. He’ll blame himself forever despite doing everything by the book. He’ll blame himself for not having stood up and demanded that I use the correct technique. Well, maybe this will teach him to demand things of the world.

It’s funny how worst fears can come true in unexpected ways. Not my worst fear⁠—my family’s. That this job would ruin me. They never expected me to crash, though; they expected me to waste away like the doctors said when I was born. Like this infected tree did before I started taking it out of its misery. The Eastern Hemlock, Tsuga canadensis, another one of my favorites to climb, and my first job at the end of my illness.

Like big sycamores, mature Eastern Hemlocks are practically impossible to climb without gear because of their lengthy monopodial trunks. These conifers frequently live for over 500 years and reach 100 feet. They have a conic crown and short needles arranged on little stalks. Their tiny cones are as delicate as flowers. They are also frequently slotted for removal due to an insect pest: the hemlock woolly adelgid.

Adult adelgids are less than a millimeter in length, but can be spotted by their egg sacs, which look like tiny tufts of cotton glued to the undersides of branches. In a year, each adelgid can lay as many as 300 eggs. That means even a 100-foot-tall hemlock can be in big trouble if it gets infected.

In addition to injecting a toxin into the tree, how do the adelgids kill it? By sucking out the sap, one tiny mouthful at a time. Over time, the foliage will turn from dark green to brown, and then the needles will begin to fall. It’s a slow death. Even trees that survive the infestation will be weakened and often die from other causes.

I had climbed these trees before. There were two for this job. The infection had started on one and spread to the other. They belonged to this wealthy guy, Mr. Sheffield, who had a sort of estate on the outskirts of Newark. He had lots of trees on his land, and he loved them. We had been to see him many times to take care of them, even trying to treat these same Hemlocks. They were already too far gone to save, covered in patches of fuzzy white. It was time to burn the wood before the infection spread to other trees.

I got ready to climb one of the trees, and Charlie geared up for the other. I strapped on my spurs, something that’s only used with trees that are dead or as good as dead, since all those punctured holes can introduce infection into the sap. It felt like putting down some prized pet, one that I had walked and fed before. The hemlocks were right between the house and the gazebo, meaning we needed a slide line to get the tops down without them landing on either of the roofs.

It was sad, in the way that putting anything down is sad. But my blood was up. I had spent over a week on the ground and I needed to get my feet off of it immediately. Beside me, Charlie was glistening, somehow already sweaty.

“Okay,” Charlie said, checking one of his knots. It was like the gun fired at the start of a race. We were off.

“Wait!” Evan cried. I only stopped when Charlie did. We twisted our necks to look at him. “Where’s your second point of attachment, Eli?” He hesitated, and when I didn’t say anything, added, “And your cinching tie-in system?” All I had were my spurs, my helmet, and a single steel cable lanyard wrapped around the trunk and attached to my harness at each side.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said, leaning back in my harness and starting to climb. Evan had the rules, but in my book, he didn’t have the authority to enforce them. Charlie, who had the full workup, had no opinion on the matter.

I spurred my way up the long trunk. My lungs burned and my arms shook. I had to stop and pull my inhaler out of my pocket for a puff. As I inhaled, resiny conifer fragrance filled my nose and hit me like a drug. On the other tree, Charlie was like a bear strolling up the trunk. I gritted my teeth and spurred faster, until, finally, my head was above the level of his. When I reached the first branches, I started to cut, sending the bigger ones down on the slide line which Evan dutifully pulled and kept taught. Then I rigged up the top.

“Isn’t that a little too much tree, Eli?” Evan’s voice was small as a mouse’s on the ground. What he was suggesting was that I keep on climbing and cutting branches, and then topping a shorter length. Instead I revved my chainsaw over the sound of his voice and cut my notch.

I would love to blame Evan for pulling the rope too hard. But it’s just as likely that it was, in fact, too much tree⁠—too heavy⁠—or that I pushed it too hard or at the wrong angle. Whatever the reason, when the top dropped, it hit the tension on the rope hard and slingshotted back against the trunk. The aftershock on the rest of the tree was enough to shake my spurs loose from the bark.

It’s sort of funny, really. I always thought the attention of other people would bring me down. I was poisoned against people⁠—against their attention and especially against their advice. And it turns out that’s what really did me in.

The front of me is all scraped up I think. Some parts of me feel out of place. Where did my spurs end up?

It’s possible that someone could fix up a mess like this. But not well enough to climb trees again. Which means I’ll definitely die before anyone can try. I suppose it was presumptuous, after all, to think I could stay off the earth forever.

I can hear Evan running up. The homeowner is hurrying over too, and Charlie has come down from his tree. Oh God, how embarrassing. I can’t tell who’s speaking. For all I know it’s the tree, shouting in fear. And my mother’s voice is coming out of Evan’s body, as he leans over me, crooning, “Merciful one, restore him, heal him, strengthen him, enliven him. Send him a complete healing from the heavenly realm, a healing of body and a healing of soul, together with all who are ill soon, speedily, without delay; and let us say: Amen!”

They’re making such a fuss. Cutting cables and making phone calls. I wish I could tell them not to bother, that it was always going to turn out this way. I wish I could tell them to just leave me here a while, so I can smell the sap.

Stevenson started his live news broadcast for KTBU fully not expecting to shit his pants.

The story didn’t start there, however. Definitely not at this Oakland convenience store by Interstate 980 where armed men pistol-whipped and robbed the clerk. That would’ve made sense, anybody would’ve understood. Nope, nuh-uh, the shitting of the pants had its origins at lunch where Stevenson treated himself to a sixty-dollar grilled cheese sandwich from a gourmet restaurant on Piedmont Avenue. The chef⁠—did it take a chef to make grilled-cheese?⁠—had “constructed” this sandwich with heirloom tomatoes and semi-firm organic cheese sourced from a family farm in Sonoma. The menu was clear about this. And Stevenson only indulged so gratuitously because this sonuvabitch had just won the lottery. Four hundred million if you took the lump sum, and he fully intended on taking the lump sum.

As for the robbery scene, it didn’t bother him much. Been there, done that. The Oakland policemen gave him zero details, probably because they had none. There was a seventy-five percent chance the crime would go unsolved, born of a cancerous belief that no one person could make a difference, not a policeman, not a reporter, not anyone. Oaktown, now, always, a community of head-down, hardworking people, full of love in their hearts but under siege by the violent few. So it went, in a city they all loved but would never love them back.

Stevenson stood in the chill of the night under a starless sky, the galaxies lost in skyglow fueled by city lights brightening their collective gutter. His camerawoman, Zuri, powered on the LEDs above her camera and inspected the monitor.

“Fuck me,” she said, checking her watch.

“We’re platonic.”

“Don’t be cute. This shit’s overmodulated.” She leaned back from the monitor and squinted. He studied a small scar above her eyebrow, inscribed from a childhood bicycle accident. In fact he had a small crush on her. Her hair was drawn into bantu knots and her skin was copper and poreless. Sitting on the can in the restroom at work he’d overheard echoed chatter from the other gendered restroom, Zuri telling a colleague over the wash of water through pipes that he was pasty but funny and not unhandsome. And there was his Scottish brogue, watered down from years in the States but still music to her ears.

His eyes flitted from Zuri’s tiny circular scar to the beaten clerk in the store, an elderly Sikh man with his own forehead split and gushing just below the wrap of the turban.

“Dude better stock up on Neosporin,” he said.

“They don’t sell that at the Quik Stop.”

“That looks like fourteen stitches, easy.”

“You’re a shitty doctor now? Not just a shitty reporter?”

“Wanna bet? Fourteen stitches. Ten dollars.”

She fiddled with a knob on the camera. “What was the stich count for that ax attack in the Home Depot.”

“The one in Emeryville or on High Street?”

“High Street.”

“That one wasn’t an attack. It was an ax-ident.”

Zuri big-rolled her eyes. “Outta pocket, friend. Keep those jokes to yourself. Puns don’t play in Oaktown except with unenlightened white boys. The rest of us detest puns.”

Through their earpieces the anchors read through the story before theirs. Zuri adjusted the light. The B-roll had turned out crappy so they were going all-in with hot footage. The plan was to pan and zoom to the pistol-whipped clerk through the store’s plate-glass front with Stevenson doing voiceover. They glanced over and wanted to feel sad, but locked eyes and knew they could not feel sad. Not anymore.

“You sure about this?” Zuri said. “He’s hella-bloody.”

“Trust me. Let’s put this in the viewers’ face.”

This would be his last broadcast, one to remember.

It wasn’t necessary to rehearse. “Evening, lads and lassies,” he’d begin. “Another robbery today, just blocks from the police station. Response time? Eighteen minutes. Almost nineteen. I know you’re muttering to your drowsy spouse some decrepit platitude, dully acknowledging this happened, what a terrible thing, but inside you think it means there’s less chance you’ll get pistol-whipped tomorrow. But let me tell you something. Nobody wakes up thinking they’ll be cracked across the forehead with a revolver, but some of you, tomorrow, are in for a surprise.”

Would he really do this? Pressing ‘send’ meant torpedoing a shot at the morning anchor job. Nighttime anchor Stan Kashlee was retiring which meant a reshuffle at the station, the morning anchor moving up and leaving that spot up for grabs, and it was between him and the South Bay’s plucky, sexpot reporter who did everything right except shout at the audience like an old-timey war reporter from the 1940s.

Stevenson wondered how far he’d get into his monologue before the control room killed the live feed and square-jawed Stan Kashlee fed the audience an apology and sedated them with happy talk.

But, in his heart, Stevenson knew there was a chance the technicians would let it run. All these grips in the play of life knew what he knew: that day after day of temperate, 72-degree weather and generous sunshine blinded these inhabitants of the Bay Area, this beautiful world, to the reality beneath the daydream, a place mired in homeless encampments and open-air fentanyl use and callous, callous robberies while douchey tech bros zipped through in their Model 3’s wrapped in matte vinyl. The upshot of everyone acting in their own self-interest, winner take all, and the only way out was to win it all.

Which he did, in a way.

It was then the clerk’s wife arrived on-scene and staggered into Zuri’s shot. She pressed her palms to the convenience store’s glassy front, beholding her husband, and she opened her mouth to scream but no sound came out.

He and Zuri exchanged another glance and shared the same horror.

They still felt nothing.

In the night air, the whine of a sideshow, elsewhere in the flats, rose above the drone of highway traffic.

Stevenson sighed. He still gave zero fucks, and he was settling already into a dream, a very real one, that saw him in a villa in Portugal lording over the Atlantic. Though was that the best ocean? The Pacific? Indian? He decided he should pick the best ocean. With four hundred million smackaroos, he should have the best ocean.

Zuri snapped her fingers.

Her fine, slender fingers, those snaps crisp. Precise.

He’d ask her to go with him, he decided. They could live in bliss in a cocoon of immeasurable wealth. They could create their own universe.

Zuri snapped her fingers again. “We’re live in ten,” she said.

“Ten minutes?”

“Kid’s got jokes.”

Stevenson asked himself again: would he really do this? He thought of his mum and dad in their small village outside Glasgow, living their tidy lives, so proud of him for making it on-air in the San Francisco Bay Area. “So prestigious!” they told neighbors who’d watched him grow up. But they didn’t know, they just didn’t know. His thoughts settled on his wallet⁠—in there lay salvation. He reached into his pocket and thumbed along the edge where the lotto ticket stuck out.

Where it should’ve stuck out.

The wallet’s bifold seam was smooth.

He fished it from his pocket. Juices in his organs gurgled with lumpy cow’s milk. He splayed the wallet and looked into its pocket and there was nothing.

“They’re moving to the outcue. Five seconds,” Zuri said. “Drop that.”

He dropped the wallet on the asphalt, splat, and raced his hand back into his pocket and explored its bottom.

Just lint and a seam.

When had he last opened his wallet? At lunch, it must’ve been. Hadn’t the waitress caught his eye, just a moment before he left? A knowing look, one he’d mistaken for interest. Had he paid in cash? He had. Had the lotto ticket wafted out with Mr. Andrew Jackson’s papery face? Stevenson checked his other pockets⁠ ⁠… pants, front and back, his jacket⁠ ⁠… and then there were no more pockets to check.

The red light of the camera blazed on, the big lens pointed at him, to the side the annoyed twist of Zuri’s mouth. In his earpiece the anchor and his pretty cohost Alma Tates set the table for his story. Stevenson’s fingers were numb, his head swimmy.

Stan Kashlee said, “And we go to Alan Stevenson who is out at the scene.”

“Thanks Stan and Alma,” he said. “We’re at⁠—“

His bowels erupted and Stevenson shit his pants.

He’d shit himself so hard it filled his boxer briefs and welled over the belt buckle. There was no hiding it. The microphone, too, had captured the squish of it.

He’d quit the next morning, to the station’s relief. The first month thereafter was the worst. The video went viral, made it onto Jimmy Kimmel, became the backdrop for top-ten memes (“When You Wish You Shit the Bed” and “Massive shitstorm” were favorites). It was everywhere, and Stevenson’s friends and family treated him like the victim of a gruesome, cancerous disease that made sympathetic frowns of their faces but drove them far, far away. This would brand him for life, there was no coming back. If he’d ever wondered whether the world would judge a person by one moment, the rules of this universe were clear.

Five months later, Stevenson sat alone at a counter in a burrito shop at the top of Lake Merritt. He overlooked the darkening waters girded by string lights and reflecting the same. His mouth bulged with carnitas cooked to perfection, a slight crisp on the outside. This was a good moment. He’d resigned himself to the ontology that life was just long sentences packed with shame and drudgery, punctuated here and there with small bursts of joy.

He wondered, what if he died here?

In this restaurant.

Right then.

No one would miss him, not even at work. He worked remote, copyediting Japanese advertisements for Tokyo companies. His latest assignment involved an egg yolk with a face and buns.

“Mister Stevenson, is everything okay?” A fingertip grazed his shoulder.

He looked up.

Rosalia was his favorite waitress and she always seemed present during those off-peak hours when he took his meals. Three-thirty p.m. for lunch, eight or nine p.m. for dinner. When customers were most sparse.

She tied her hair back neatly and perennially wore ironed t-shirts and had dimples and smelled like cinnamon and vanilla.

He’d been taking Spanish lessons online, and his heart raced, for he’d never spoken the language aloud to a native speaker. “Que vas a hacer este fin de semana?” he said, his tongue clumsy, as if he had coins in his mouth.

Rosalia gave him a funny little half-smile. She motioned to a darkened television near the ceiling. “I will turn on your lottery program, yes?”

“Por supuesto,” he said, his mind stuck on that half-smile. Not a full smile.

Did she know his reputation? She had the bottomless eyes and the broad smile of a kind person, the type to look past someone’s worst moment. They’d known each other for a while. He’d walked in every few days for a half-burrito, always polite, still trim, not indulgent, not like the herd of customers who guzzled down burritos the size of forearms, guac dripping from their chins.

He and Rosalia, strangers in a strange land, observing Americans from the outside. If she judged, she judged things within people’s control.

His mind alit on that pivotal lunch so long ago, that grilled-cheese sandwich.

The television woke and he checked his watch. Almost eight p.m. Every week he played the lottery, recreating his original trauma in hopes of reaching a different ending, and he’d noticed a startling pattern during the past six months.

For the most part he lost the lottery like all the other suckers but, on monthly anniversaries of the day he’d won and then lost four hundred million dollars, Stevenson always came away with money. Not change-your-life money, but small sums, each month steadily increasing. Last month he’d hit four numbers and came away with twenty grand.

Something cosmic was at play, it had to be. In the immediate wake of his pant-shitting debacle he saw his humiliation as a punishment for vanity and then, over time, he began to believe there was no higher order, that the lives of humans were as meaningless as the lives of beetles, that millions of each would live and die with no purpose but to perpetuate their species. But to win money, without fail, on the anniversary of his literal and proverbial shitstorm, he re-believed that the universe had its plans.

All he could suss out here was that throwing money at problems worked, because it was only money that could lift him from his current circumstances, that could offer him the opportunity to create a new world forever insulated from the sharp and immutable verdicts of thoughtless people.

But as he watched Rosalia straighten little bottles of salsa on the tables and her fingers sweep up, skimming her collar bones to adjust her necklace, Stevenson understood there was a richer way to escape. Love, to fall in love. In fact, this was a burrito shop born in love, owned by the son and daughter of rival taco trucks who overcame competition, got married, and birthed this place, Hijo-Hija, an unsung success story of the community, a bloom in an otherwise leaden landscape.

He sat there satiated with a belly full of horchata and carnitas, watching the tail end of Jeopardy, the final answer “The Treasure of Montezuma” scribbled by two of the three contestants on their blue screens. An omen of Stevenson’s promised financial windfall.

He would get the girl too, it was all connected.

So when the Latino man entered and approached Rosalia⁠—a man with a strong, clean jaw and hazel eyes that matched his honeyed skin⁠—and when this man tapped Rosalia on the shoulder and made her smile like he’d never seen her smile before⁠—definitely not a wan half-smile⁠—Stevenson felt a twist of steel in his bowels. He doublechecked her fingers and confirmed there were no markers of matrimony, no ring of any type. Had he waited too long? She and the stranger chittered in their language, Rosalia looser in her posture, her face less reserved.

And wait, was she touching his arm?

The man also had dimples and a thought dawned. Could this man be a relative? A brother?

The universe responded: the man gave a slight pat to Rosalia’s backside, just a tap, and she covered her mouth and volleyed back a playful push at his shoulder.

On the television, the Powerball logo filled the pixels and a sexless woman in cat-eye glasses told them it was time again to play America’s favorite jackpot. Two enormous glass globes swirled with ping pong balls.

Stevenson pulled out his wallet. These days he packed a wallet with a zippered pocket and he unzipped this pocket and fished out a neatly folded lotto ticket.

The broadcaster read aloud the first number and it wasn’t a number on his ticket.

“Chufter-fucker,” he muttered.

His eyes flitted back to Rosalia and the stranger. The man was showing her something on his phone and she threw her head back and laughed with her perfect white teeth.

He’d missed the second and third numbers and when he checked them against his slip of paper he found matches.

He blinked.

His gut buzzed.

More ping pong balls dropped from their swarm in the globe and lined up in a tube, shuddering to a stop, sitting like a row of eyeballs with their printed numbers.

“… followed by fifteen, twenty-one⁠—” the bespectacled woman leaned in for a better look “⁠—and the Powerball Number is eighteen.”

He’d won. Five friggin’ numbers.

But really?

His focus bounced between the television and his ticket, his vision glitchy. But yes, it was so. He fished his phone from his pocket and ignited search algorithms and learned he was due an amount swollen with seven figures.

Stevenson excused himself to nobody and holed himself up in the bathroom, quadruple-checking the ticket numbers. It matched, it really matched, and with utmost care he folded the ticket, matching corner to corner, and restored it within the zippered pocket of his wallet.

So much money. Not never-have-to-work-again money, but enough for a new life. A different country? He thought of Rosalia, of her sumptuous lower lip. He wanted to buy her a new life, one rinsed of all-day shifts in a burrito shop. It wasn’t like they were strangers. It wasn’t like she was married. The worst she could say was no.

Stevenson’s whole body buzzed. His belly was heavy with burrito, but no matter. He’d make his move, he’d seize this day.

He emerged from the restroom and she was there, serendipitously, coursing the hall to the kitchen.

“Rosalia?”

She turned.

The scent of cinnamon swam up his nose and he kissed her. Just like that, no más thought whatsoever.

In the nanoseconds before her kneecap smashed his testicles, he spied a modest diamond ring peeking out from above her shirt collar, looped into a necklace, and a great flash, like a photo flash, illuminated a domino chain of truths. That she was married, that only a restaurant owner would spend so much time grooming the store at all hours day to night, that the man who’d met her was the Hijo to her Hija and that Stevenson, in the suffocating haze of loneliness, had woven a different narrative that suited himself and which positioned poor Rosalia as the antidote for his solitude, discounting that she, herself, had a rich interior life that situated him as a customer, nothing more, just a small rock in the Kuiper belt of her solar system.

The pain of the kneecap squashing his testicles, captured in electric signals surging through the thready neural pathways from testicle to brain, took a blink longer to process. When it hit home, asterisks blared across the dark hallway, stopping everything, his body suspended for a solitary moment before its inevitable collapse.

In that tick of spacetime, Montezuma had his revenge and, naturally, Stevenson shit his pants.

A month later the lottery stood at two billion dollars.

Stevenson headed first thing in the morning to the nearest gas station, along with his short, roly-poly neighbor Jax, who was a second cousin of Zuri.

He thought of Zuri often.

He never contacted her, no sir, for she’d been there on that nuclear day, had seen it with her own eyes, had driven him to the station while he sat on a garbage bag with all windows fully open and the air putrid nevertheless. What Stevenson knew of Zuri was whatever he gleaned from Facebook pics. She’d quit the news station, met someone, and was already glowingly pregnant and headed into an ordinary life. A beautiful life, he thought.

A car jammed its horn and Stevenson jumped. Lost in reverie, he’d stepped into traffic.

Jax tapped him on the shoulder. “Did you shit yourself?”

“Instantly.”

Having shat himself twice now, he could laugh at it⁠ ⁠… sometimes. It’d been six months since the original incident, and the attention-challenged world already forgot him, had already beheld and giggled about a dozen similar humiliations. But this amnesia was conditional. Foremost, Stevenson couldn’t re-emerge from the shadows and step back into any spotlight, lest he remind the world of that splattered broadcast. The video would resurface, multiple platforms buzzing with push notifications, those memes again traded for chuckles.

And for fuck’s sake, he didn’t need the limelight, that’s what he told himself, because the cosmos had been paying him back. That day in the burrito shop, he’d won two million dollars off five matching numbers. With the money he bought a simple, 1,615-square-foot bungalow near Dimond Park, across the street from a former mayor. And he settled in under a spell of anonymity because he went through the bureaucratic hassle of changing his name. And so when his neighbors Googled him, they wouldn’t land on any videos of colossal diarrhea. They’d see that Bob Smith’s life was indistinguishable from the ten thousand other Bob Smiths, a soppy oat in a bowl of oatmeal. Just another tale of a person who’d never done anything heroic nor anything barbaric, just a person living a simple, quiet existence, which fairly accurately described his life absent the fecal incident.

But Jax had put 2+2 together.

Jax knew his distant cousin had filmed that notorious, evacuatory event outside the Quik Stop by I-980 and had remembered Stevenson’s face, had laughed about that face, had ingrained that face into the farthest recesses of his gray matter, that mouth forming an “oh” as the body below shit its britches. Jax laughed and laughed until he awoke one day to find an image of his naked pelvis and his stunning micro-penis headlining a revenge porn website. The commenters called it a truffle, after the dark little mushroom unearthed by French piggies.

So Stevenson had a home and an empathetic friend, but was he happy? Yes and no. He had a buddy, but he did not and could not land a romantic partner.

He’d tried to date. He could make it through small-talk and even a bone here and there, but snuggling intimacy required telling tales about one’s family life, one’s career, ones triumphs⁠—all threads that, if pulled, would lead to a great unravelment.

He’d have to settle for lottery wins.

So, on the month anniversary of the burrito shop win, expectations were high. He suspected the passage of six months meant six matching numbers, which meant a big payout, a massive infusion of cash to dull the pain.

In the 7-Eleven the wares smacked him across the face. A bazaar of snack foods⁠—Bimbuñuelos, ChocoRoles, Gansitos, Donettes⁠—all those bubbly letters shouting at him from their shiny packaging. An odd place where summer bucket hats sat side-by-side with motor oil, suntan oil, and beef jerky, each sale item uniquely capable of causing colorectal cancer.

They were halfway towards the back when Jax said, “You buy the tickets and I’ll get us drinks?”

“We each buy our own.”

“That’s fucked up man.”

Stevenson thought of his shitscapade and his friend’s baby-sized dick. “Fine, mate, sure. I’ll buy the tickets. Get me a horchata.” That made him think of Rosalia. “Actually, get me a kombucha.”

“You got it boss.”

“Thanks. If we win, we’ll split the pot.”

And why not? Luck was a gift. Those who were successful in life never acknowledged it, and he’d no reason to hoard something that wasn’t truly his.

“You want any special numbers?” he said.

“All good, that’s your department.”

Jax turned and positioned himself at the coolers in the back, arms akimbo, beholding an encased wall of drinks blended from corn syrup and coloring dye, and Stevenson trudged to the front toward the clerk, passing sad food under warming lights and a single hotdog on rollers spinning to infinity.

He saw the mask first. Passing outside between ads pasted on the glass front windows. He saw it and disbelieved it, something his brain refused to process, but the masked man threw the door open and fired a pistol into the ceiling. Powder sprinkled down in a column that made Stevenson think of sand in an hourglass.

Now the gun, held sideways. Aimed at the face of the cashier. She was an Asian lady, and her nametag said “Faye.” She looked at the nozzle of the pistol, that tiny black hole, her eyes nearly crossed.

“I want five thousand lotto tickets bitch.”

“Quick picks?” she said.

The cashier hadn’t meant to be funny. Her hands hovered over the cash register, tremoring.

The gunman pulled down a rack of potato chips and stomped a bag. It blew open with a pop not unlike the gun, jolting the heavy air once more. A pregnant woman near a swivel rack of miniature license plates with boys’ and girls’ names was praying on her knees, hugging her belly.

“Bitch, I am not⁠—” the robber struck the butt of his pistol against the counter “⁠—playing the fuck around.”

Stevenson flinched, expecting an accidental discharge.

The robber’s mouth lay pulsing with breath under the balaclava. His hands were gloved, he was more an entity than a person. A bogeyman. For the briefest of moments, Stevenson locked eyes with the gunman and saw reflected back only deadwood pupils, behind them a howling moonscape where nothing bloomed, where conscience was extinct.

Stevenson looked away.

And a cold front descended through his intestinal lining. He considered that buying the drinks at the back of the store would’ve given him more options. He considered that his body existed in this convenience store next to a rolling, lethargic hotdog, but was also nowhere and everywhere.

To do, what to do, and what went through Stevenson’s head was this: He’d never done anything too terrible or too heroic. Yet he knew that life at certain times, perhaps once or twice, would throw out decisive moments, moments that showed you who you really were, showed the world, and that this moment here was such a moment, a chance to do something which would erase all that came before. A chance to be born anew.

His feet were rooted. Was he afraid? He couldn’t explain what he felt. A buzzing in his chest and stomach. Terror, yes, but exhilaration too.

His feet wouldn’t work, and Stevenson told himself to move them. The thought of going back to his life, whatever cosmic treasures it held, wasn’t something he could stomach. It was sickening. With a side-eye glance through the shadow of peripheral vision, he appraised the distance between him and the gunman. Ten feet? Three lunging steps? How far would he get before the gunman swiveled? How far before a shot was fired?

The Quick Pick machine was chittering, branding hundreds of tiny black characters onto an unspooling strip of thermal paper. The robber leaned over the counter, watching the tickets coil and gather in a pile, the clerk mesmerized too.

Stevenson caught Jax’s eye, a certain glint evident, and knew his little friend was sizing up the situation, thinking the same exact thing for the same exact reasons.

What Stevenson knew was that he had to act first if he meant to obliterate the narrative of his life. Going along with another wasn’t heroic, at least not enough to wow the media and its audience or himself.

He moved.

At two steps, the gunman hadn’t cogitated the situation, but stood footed and spellbound by so many lotto tickets, all that possibility. On the third step, the gunman looked over and his eyes widened and filled the holes in the balaclava and he half-turned, his arm following, the gun and the little black hole shifting its focus of doom, but Stevenson got there in time, into the man’s defensive space. In this moment, he couldn’t believe the plan⁠—was it a plan?⁠—had worked, and then they were on the ground wrestling.

The gun, where was the gun? It hadn’t discharged, it was somewhere on the floor or between them, this object and its location the most important thing in the room. In the fugue of limbs and struggle, the only move was to pin the man, to immobilize the moment. Jax was there now too, the backup arrived, and his friend stomped the robber’s head and Stevenson heard it crack like a ceramic bowl. In this instant, in this briefest of instants, relief suffused the universe, him, and his surroundings, there being no distinction between physical things. He was swept in the warmth of an interdimensional current, flowing through the multiverse, the past, present, and future all visible and demystified. He knew then he’d be on television again, held aloft to the world as a local hero, the news anchors gushing, his past erased, the community in agreement because they, that ubiquitous they, wouldn’t sour heroics with trifling gossip about past misfortunes. There was incontrovertible proof one person could make a difference, and if each of them could all make small differences⁠ ⁠… in those briefest of moments, Stevenson knew he’d be okay. Perhaps they’d all be okay.

And then he saw the gun. The robber held it in an outflung hand and, still somehow conscious, he bent his elbow inward. The pistol’s nose turned upward, toward Jax who stood above them, the gun’s hammer cocked and poised to fall, and Stevenson seized the assailant’s wrist and wrung it like a wet towel, catching skin through the cotton sleeve. The man groaned and the gun dropped from his hand.

It hit the ground and discharged into Stevenson’s face.

He died.

Then he shit his pants.

Devon Graham, his little brother Jamie, and their friend Marco Pérez stood amidst the throng of middle schoolers outside Roosevelt’s southern entrance. Behind them, a pair of seventh graders huddled on the concrete staircase and shouted at their Nintendo Switches. A few feet away, Lauren Bremmer and Rachel Sommers took a selfie together, then flicked through filters that gave them both glasses, or dog ears, or made their cheeks impossibly high and their necks impossibly thin. Teachers waded through the press of small bodies, their bags held aloft, their faces stretched with desperation.

“Last night,” said Marco. A pair of cordless headphones encircled his neck. “He was walking down 21st and took three to the chest.” Marco sliced a thumb across his Adam’s apple. “I guess someone from Trey Six fronted him a zip, and he never paid ’em back. Then he posts this shit.” Marco dragged his index finger up Jamie’s phone. “There. That’s the dude who gassed him.” Devon leaned over to read the penultimate comment on the photo: catch you on the block markass ho.

Jamie scrolled back up to the image, of a shirtless teenager with a Yankees starter cap pulled low over his eyes. He had a small stack of bills pressed to his ear with one hand and was holding a bottle of Hennessy in the other. do the dash in the whip, count the cash in the whip, i pull up with a stick, i let that shit hit #scumgang, read the caption. Jamie pocketed his phone, and the three boys started walking off campus, along 39th Street. Behind them, e-cigarette vapor and body spray hung like an oil slick over the crowd of adolescents.

“But so that makes three Oak Streeters popped this year,” said Marco. The slashes razored into his right eyebrow had started to fill back in, making the lines look less intentional and more like an old scar. “You see Aaron Chesterfield’s last video got like 80,000 views? My brother said BrickTalk Records is thinking about signing him.”

“For real?” asked Jamie. He had his hood slung halfway off his head and kept adjusting it to keep it from slipping the rest of the way down. “His shit is straight trash. Our shit goes way harder.”

“No cap,” said Marco. “But nobody’s listening to our shit. We got no clout.” He toed a chunk of asphalt.

The boys dropped down into a concrete wash. Thistles forced their bony limbs through the cracked embankment. Plastic bags impaled on the thorns snapped in the hot breeze. “Whatchu tryna say, Marco?” asked Devon. The tallest of the trio, Devon was Roosevelt’s starting shooting guard. He walked with an exaggerated buoyancy, rolling up onto the balls of his feet with every step. “You down to catch a headshot to boost our streams?”

“If it gets me out of Ms. Reynold’s test on Monday, light me up. On gang,” said Marco. The brothers laughed. Shafts of sunlight punched through the mottled sky, the angled rays spotlighting a KFC, a carwash, a Dollar Store. A billboard with before and after photos of collagen-fattened lips.

The Dunthank Tree was empty, but the stale air trapped beneath the fir’s low-hanging boughs still smelled like pot smoke. Marco pulled a baggie from his backpack and began breaking up the weed with his fingers. He sprinkled it into a Swisher, then tried to roll it shut. But as he cinched his thumbnail along the brown paper, he tore a hole in the middle. Carefully, Marco poured the weed into a second cigar wrap.

When Marco finally managed to get the malformed blunt lit, Devon filmed him taking a hit and passing it to Jamie. He captioned the video, twistin one up with the homies #VVS #gangshit, and posted it to his story. But when Jamie handed the blunt to him, the cherry fell out, and it took Devon several attempts to get it relit. He inhaled a thin stream of smoke, only to have the tip snuff out again. “Goddamn,” said Devon. “Marco, you gotta buy a grinder.”

“Why me?” asked Marco. He was watching a glossy beetle trundle clumsily across one of the branches.

“You got that Ritalin money, son,” said Jamie. “Share the wealth.”

“Oh shit, that reminds me,” said Marco. “I promised Lauren I’d sell her a couple after school today. Y’all cool if she slides through?”

“Ask Devon, he’s the one who dogged her,” said Jamie, elbowing his older brother.

“Man, you know how these hoes be,” said Devon, trying to appear blasé. “She got over it.” The truth was, Devon had sent Lauren a series of groveling texts begging her forgiveness after pictures of him making out with Clara Barts at a LINK dance started circulating on SnapChat. A week prior, Lauren finally accepted his apology, and they’d resumed messaging. The more they texted, the more Devon avoided Lauren at school, nervous that, without the buffer of premeditation, he might say something stupid. All of a sudden, Devon was grateful he hadn’t been able to get too stoned.

The three boys walked out from underneath the tree and over to the bleachers beside the soccer field. In the parking lot across the grass, a chubby man in black leggings and a sleeveless hoodie got out of a red Dodge Charger. The man knee-hugged his way to the start of the Dunthank Trail, then began trotting toward the river. Devon, Jamie, and Marco watched him disappear around a bend.

After a moment, Marco said, “Yo. Am I tripping, or did that fool just leave his car unlocked?” He worked a screw loose from the bottom of the bleachers with his thumbnail.

“I was gonna say the same thing, fam,” said Jamie. He turned to his older brother. “Lemme get a video of you in that thing.”

“What? Hell no,” said Devon. “Marco was the one who said he was tryna get shot, not me.”

“Come on, dude,” said Marco. “It’d be perfect for the Drive-By visuals.” Marco mimed cranking a steering wheel to the right. “Skurt up in that Hellcat, dumpin’ smoke, let ’em smell that, VVS where them shells at,” Marco rapped. “What’s the deal? You bitch-made, or what?” Devon shook his head, grinning.

“Two seconds. Keep a lookout,” said Devon. The three boys walked across the soccer field, their gaits tense with exaggerated nonchalance. The Charger was the only car in the lot, the candy-paint body sitting on matte-black rims. Devon opened the driver door like he was scared it was wired to blow. When nothing happened, he climbed into the front and sat on the edge of the seat, perfectly rigid. But after Jamie began filming, Devon loosened up, moving his face through a series of sneers and twisting his fingers into various shapes. Marco started playing Drive-By on his phone, and Devon lip-synced along to his own amateurishly autotuned voice: “Got bop from bitches you might see on the gram, drop-top with switches, I might be in the Lam, rock Glocks that itchin’, we might squeeze on your man—”

“Hey! What the fuck!” The three boys turned to see the Charger’s owner running toward them, his florid face looking as though it might pop. They took off sprinting into the Dunthank neighborhood. Jamie and Marco followed Devon up the alley behind Ibrahim’s Halal Chicken and across the pre-rush-hour traffic on MLK, before finally slowing down in front of Ivyhurst Park, all three sucking in deep, shuddering breaths.

Finally, Devon turned to Marco and punched his bony shoulder. “I told you,” Devon gasped.

“He was a lot bigger up close, huh?” said Marco, rubbing his arm. “Guess it makes sense, why he needs that wide-body.” Marco’s phone chimed in his pocket. He read the new message, then began tapping out a reply. “I’m gonna tell the girls to meet us here, okay?” he mumbled, his voice slurry with distraction.

“Word,” said Devon. He wrapped his arm around Jamie. “Well, since it almost got us killed, lemme see this video.”

The boys were sitting at one of the picnic tables, debating how to film the rest of the Drive-By music video, when Lauren and Rachel appeared at the top of Ivyhurst’s staircase. Devon, still rinsed with adrenaline, didn’t feel the normal throat-clutch of nerves at the sight of Lauren. “Hey,” he said as the pair of girls walked over. He stood up and raised an arm. “So. Why are you copping ritties?”

Lauren rolled her eyes and slid into Devon’s side-hug. “I haven’t even opened Ms. Reynold’s study guide yet.” She glanced at Rachel. “But also, me and Rach might just take a couple and spend the whole weekend playing Fortnite instead.” Lauren had a Twitch profile with over 23,000 followers, where she live-streamed herself gaming. Unbeknownst to anyone but Rachel, she also regularly sold photos of her feet to a few select members of her audience.

After everyone had exchanged hellos, Rachel looked at Jamie, sitting on the other side of Devon. “What’s your name? You’re not in our class, are you?”

“Jamie. I’m the sexier Graham brother,” said Jamie. Devon snorted. Rachel glanced from one brother to the other.

“Damn,” said Rachel, making a seal with her lips, then popping it. “Y’all do look alike.” Streaks of blue stood out from her blonde hair. She sat down beside Marco, who shook the pill bottle in his hand like a rattle. Rachel poked him in the side.

“Yo, y’all see what’s going down on the Pickle?” asked Jamie, thumbing his phone screen.

“Nah, what?” asked Devon. He pulled out his own phone and opened Facebook.

“What’s the Pickle?” asked Lauren. She kept moving her hand in front of her mouth in the manner of the newly-braced, trying to hide the glinting metal fastened to her teeth.

“It’s this group where guys talk shit,” said Marco, scooting away from Rachel as she continued to jab him. The full title of the page was: I bet this pickle can get more likes than oak street middle school, created two years prior by Rodney Weatherspoon, at the time a Roosevelt student. The page quickly became an archive of various beefs, where students from the two schools threatened each other in the comment sections of memes.

The most recent upload, by Aaron Chesterfield, read: RIP Ray one in the chamber #oakstreet #payback #greenlight. It was the same photo Marco showed them after school, of the skinny boy brandishing cash and Hennessy, now overlaid with a blue filter. The photo had 34 comments and 512 likes. The first comment, from someone named Nick Hobbocken, read: bout time someone put his ass in the dirt. Below that, Aaron Chesterfield had replied: green light on this faggot too. Devon scrolled down, reading the threats various Oak Street boys had posted to other commenters. He recognized a few Trey Six accounts, making fun of Ray’s picture.

“That’s the Oak Street kid that got shot?” asked Lauren, sounding impressed. She leaned into Devon, looking at his phone.

“Yeah,” said Devon, glancing up. Lauren’s face was very close to his. Devon thought for a moment. Then he typed: rot in pieces, and tapped Post.

“Devon!” said Lauren. She smacked the back of his head lightly.

“What? Oak Street pussies,” said Devon, laughing.

“They’re not gonna like that, D,” said Jamie.

“Man, whatever,” said Marco. He glanced at Rachel, who had stopped poking him and was now watching a TikTok skincare tutorial. “Let ’em try something, feel me? Anyway. How many ritties y’all need?”

Devon woke to the sound of Jamie tapping his thumbs against his phone very fast. Above his little brother’s bed, a corner of their Tekashi 6ix9ine poster had come untaped and was curling over itself.

“Come on, bro,” Devon groaned. “Can’t you play in the living room?”

“My b,” mumbled Jamie, tilting his phone to the right and tapping even faster. Then he cursed and tossed the phone onto the covers. Outside, their neighbor was stripping bolts on something in his junkyard, the loud whirrs repeatedly edging to a screech.

Devon swung out of bed and walked to the kitchen. Last night’s pizza box still sat on the table. Devon poured a bowl of cereal, sat down, and unlocked his phone.

The Instagram post Devon had uploaded the night before, of him reclining in the Charger, had 58 likes. The bubble of anticipation in his chest burst, replaced by disappointment. Devon began scrolling through the list of likers. Most of the profiles didn’t belong to anyone he actually knew. Aspiring YouTube rappers he followed and who followed him back. A girl from another school he’d never met but with whom he sometimes messaged, making plans to meet that always fell through. A couple bots. Devon scrolled through the comments. Marco had written: thuggin. Lauren had posted seven heart-eyed emojis. At the bottom, Aaron Chesterfield had commented: lol you finna learn not to play wit real ones its on sight wit u. Devon read Aaron’s comment three times. He wished he hadn’t written anything in the Pickle. The chatter of a drill bit skipping filled the kitchen.

Without looking at the photo of himself, Devon thumbed over to TikTok. The last video he’d posted, a compilation of him shooting three-pointers in the Roosevelt gym, only had 47 likes. His disappointment quickened to a fluttery anxiety. What was going on? Were people angry with him? His mom walked into the kitchen, wearing grey sweatpants and a ratty t-shirt. She’d pulled doubles for a week straight, 14 hours a day serving cocktails to the Keno zombies at the casino down the road, and her face was bruisy with exhaustion. “We gotta get ready to leave soon,” she announced, scooping heaps of Folgers into the ancient coffee machine. “I told Gina we’d meet her at gramma’s around 11. Wear your button-downs, okay? We’re gonna try and look nice.”

“They’re too small,” called Jamie from their bedroom. “I can barely breathe in mine.”

“Just for today, okay? I’ll buy you new ones, but for today, just wear them to make gramma happy.” At the tortured shriek of an air saw, their mom looked murderously toward the window. “Every fucking morning. I swear, your dad better get out early, because they’re gonna be locking me up too one of these days.”

The Corolla gnashed the first few times their mom turned the key, but finally caught and started. Devon sat in the front, Jamie in the back, following a brief, well-worn argument. After the brothers exchanged their customary insults and accusations, their mom had intervened and declared that Devon would ride shotgun on the way there, Jamie on the way home. Jamie stared sullenly out the back window. Devon informed him that he was being a baby. Islands of heat quivered in small depressions along the road.

Their gramma lived alone, above a laundromat on MLK and 115th. After their mom parked in front of the Taco Bell across the street, she told Devon and Jamie to sit in silence for ten seconds. On the way over, Jamie had tried to tell their mom about a boy in his class who’d seen Young Thug at the East Ridge Mall the previous weekend, while Devon had scoffed repeatedly and rolled his eyes.

“I dunno why you’re such a retard. He’s obviously lying,” said Devon, breaking the silence before two seconds elapsed. He thumbed the top of his Instagram feed, hoping for a notification to appear. “Why would Young Thug be at the mall? Was he hitting up Panda Express or something?” Devon forced a mean laugh. Their mom sat with her eyes closed.

“Fuck you, Devon,” said Jamie, his voice tight with tearful pressure. “Why do you have to shit on everything I say?”

“Jamie, watch the language!” snapped their mom. “And Devon, stop being such a dick. I asked for ten seconds.” She opened her eyes and looked at Devon, then back at Jamie, her young face spiderwebbed with premature creases. “Can’t you guys at least pretend to be nice? Just for a few hours?

Jesus.” She pulled the keys from the ignition, grabbed the coleslaw from the trunk, and walked towards Sudz’n’Budz on the other side of the street.

“Nice going,” said Devon, and slid out of the car before Jamie could retort. At the door, their Aunt Gina greeted each of them with a kiss. She had long, spangly earrings and a dreamy smile.

“Hey, guys,” she said. “Mom is in the living room with Reggie. Sally, you look amazing! You gotta give me your secret.”

“No problem,” said their mom. “It’s called the too-broke-to-buy-food diet. I’m thinking about trademarking it.” She handed Aunt Gina the bowl of coleslaw and shrugged off her coat. “God, I’ve missed you. Are you done with Tulsa yet?”

Devon and Jamie slipped their shoes off and walked to the living room. Reggie sat on a couch with Gramma Gloria, who had a photo album open in her lap. “There’s my boys,” she said. “Come sit. I’m showing Reggie pictures of our first family vacation to Beachport.”

Devon and Jamie leaned over the couch and kissed Gramma Gloria on the cheek. “Happy birthday,” they mumbled in unison. Her skin smelled like rosemary. They obediently looked at the album.

In the picture on the left, Gramma Gloria wore a sundress and a wide-brimmed hat, standing behind Aunt Gina, Uncle Malcolm, Uncle Lawrence, and their dad. Devon examined the impossibly young version of his father. A small potbelly stretched the waistband of his pale blue swimsuit, and he had his eyes clenched against the sun. “He was such a good boy,” said Grandma Gloria, touching their father’s image. With a sigh, she closed the album and set it on the coffee table. “I’ll leave you boys to catch up.” Gramma Gloria stood and walked to the kitchen, where Aunt Gina and their mom spoke in low, serious tones.

“What’s good, fam?” asked Reggie. He dapped up Devon, then Jamie. Reggie, at 17, was their oldest cousin. Tall, with light eyes and a lethal crossover, he’d been the undisputed king of his class at Roosevelt. Kids still asked Devon about Reggie, even though he’d moved to Oklahoma two years ago. Lately, they asked about him even more, ever since Reggie posted a link to Lil Scamma’s new single on Spotify. Reggie had produced the looping visual that accompanied the song, of a cartoon toddler wearing a Cuban link and Yeezys shoving through a swarm of cartoon paparazzi. For the past year, Reggie’s Instagram had been filled with clips promoting small concerts or block parties or poetry readings. Retro fonts and muted pastels, layered with splashy animation. Reggie had over 100,000 followers now, the most of anybody Devon knew in real life.

“Chilling,” said Devon. He hopped over the back of the couch and sat beside Reggie, spreading his legs so there would be no room for Jamie. “How’re things out west?”

“Fresh. Way more cracking than around here, that’s for sure. You should slide through this summer,” said Reggie. Jamie sat in the armchair next to the couch.

“That’d be dope,” said Devon. “You got an extra couch for me?”

“Got a couch for Jamie,” said Reggie. He winked at his younger cousin. “Your dusty ass can sleep on the floor.”

Jamie grinned gloatingly. Devon wanted to whip a coaster at his face. “Yeah, whatever,” said Devon. The meaty smell of jackfruit and barbecue sauce wafted from the kitchen. Devon decided to broach the conversation he’d been contemplating for the last couple weeks. “So what’s up with you and Scamma? Y’all tight?”

“Not really,” said Reggie. “My homie Kenny knows a producer he works with. They got to talking, and Kenny showed him my page. I never even met Scamma, we just messaged a couple times.” Reggie licked his finger and wiped a smudge from one of his suede Dunks. “But it’s been popping off since he used my shit. I’ve had hella people hitting me up.” Reggie glanced toward the kitchen. “Mom doesn’t like it. But why should I sweat college when people out here talking racks for a couple doodles?”

“Word,” said Devon. He tried to think of how to nudge the conversation along without being obvious.

“Maybe you could pass Scamma some of our shit,” said Jamie, looking at Devon hopefully. “Maybe he would wanna hop on a track or something.” Devon gritted his teeth and glared at his little brother. Reggie’s phone dinged on the coffee table.

“Maybe. Like I said, I don’t really know him.” Reggie read the message, then stood up. “Let’s go shoot some hoops.”

The three boys walked out into the afternoon heat. Jamie dribbled the ancient ball they’d found in Gramma Gloria’s closet and told Reggie about a kid in his class who’d been arrested for trying to steal a car idling outside a Chevron. It turned out the boy didn’t know how to drive stick. “I saw that video,” said Reggie. “Where he drops it into third and crashes into the pole? Dude was in your class?” Devon trailed behind, kicking along an empty can of malt liquor. A man in ripped cargo shorts pushed a shopping cart past him.

Although he would never admit it out loud, Devon took his dream of stardom very seriously. Whether basketball or rap, whenever he thought about the future, Devon always imagined himself through a camera lens. In the shower, he practiced telling Jalen Rose about the ten thousand hours he spent working on his midrange jumper. He wrote BET acceptance speeches during math class. After he saw Reggie’s post, Devon gradually convinced himself that this connection would lead to a feature on Lil Scamma’s next album, which would lead to a record deal of his own. Since his mom mentioned Gloria’s visit a month ago, Devon had rehearsed dozens of conversations that ended with Reggie messaging Lil Scamma a link to Drive-By. And then, a day later, a FaceTime from Scamma, asking Devon to send him a verse.

But now it was ruined, because of Jamie’s fat mouth. No subtlety, no hinting, just a bald-faced request. Sometimes it frightened Devon, the depth of anger he could feel toward his little brother. For small stuff, too. Like when Jamie chewed with his mouth open in their bedroom. Or when he brayed at some stupid YouTube video. Devon’s mind would short-circuit, and he’d say the nastiest thing he could think of. Before he knew it, they’d be locked together, wrenching on whatever limb they managed to grab. Trying to hurt each other as much as possible. Afterwards, Devon always felt drained and embarrassed, unsure about what had even caused the snap.

The three boys crossed the street to an asphalt court. It overlooked the river, which was bright and opaque beneath the sun. Devon walked up the embankment behind the hoop and opened Instagram, trying not to look at the red number dotting the bottom of his screen. He panned from Reggie shagging a rebound, out over the river, to the apartments on the opposite shore. Everything trembled in the heat. Devon flicked through filters until he found one that superimposed the words Oak Heights over the clip, and posted it to his story. Then he undid a few buttons on his shirt, sat beneath a tree, and began scrolling through his feed. Four new likes on his photo in the Charger, for a total of 62.

Devon examined an image of Tekashi 6ix9ine, sporting rainbow hair and a wicked grin. Then he flicked. He read a long caption beneath a photo of an awful watercolor that Ashley Tite, a sixth grader at Roosevelt, had posted, where she rambled about her depression. He flicked. A video of Tyler Herro dancing. Flick. A Kanye West meme. Flick. A clip from CNN, of a hurricane in Puerto Rico. Flick. Devon watched Lauren’s story, a video of Rachel playing HyperRoll Mode on Teamfight Tactics. He tried to ignore the small sinkhole of nausea in his belly. Even in the shade, the air felt feverish.

Devon was reading a listicle on BuzzFeed titled If You Were Born After 2007, This List Is Your Childhood when he heard shouts. He looked up, because someone was yelling his name. “Yo, Devon! Devon Graham!” Jamie and Reggie looked at a grey Impala idling by the curb. A vaguely familiar face was framed by the passenger window. “You on the wrong side of the block, Blood!” the kid in the car yelled. Jamie looked up at Devon, his eyes wide. “Punk bitch,” the kid shouted, and then, impossibly, he was pointing a pistol at Jamie. Three deafening shots, and Jamie toppled over backward. The car peeled away. Reggie crouched beside Jamie, then ran after the car, then ran back to Jamie. Something dark was spreading from Jamie’s head. There was a long span of silence.

Devon watched Doctor Shaan rearrange the blocks on the table in front of Jamie. Doctor Shaan was a fat man, with a thin mustache and watery brown eyes. “Okay, Jamie,” the therapist said, over- enunciating. “Which one is the triangle?”

The slack flesh of Jamie’s face twitched. His tongue pushed out between his lips and he released a small, wet honk. His arm lifted, bent at the elbow, then spasmed out so his curled hand flopped on the cube. “Now, Jamie,” said Doctor Shaan. “That’s a square. Let’s try again.”

Jamie’s face twisted, and twin plugs of mucus shot from his nose. Devon stood up. Two nurses hurried in as Jamie thrashed on the bed. “Give him another round of diazepam,” said Doctor Shaan. He sounded disappointed. Devon walked down a hallway, to the lounge. Beeps of various length and pitch perforated the air. Devon sat in one of the chairs, pulled out his phone, and slipped his earbuds in.

It had been just over a month. Out of the three shots, only one hit Jamie. The bullet had clipped the side of his head, shattering half his skull and causing a massive hematoma. He’d spent nine days in a medically induced coma. The doctors couldn’t say what to expect in terms of recovery. Most people didn’t survive that kind of brain injury. In fact, Jamie had become something of a marvel in the world of neuroscience. At the moment, their mom was downstairs in the cafeteria talking on the phone with a brain surgeon from Chicago about some new, highly experimental procedure.

Aaron Chesterfield had been caught less than an hour after the shooting, because another boy in the car had live-streamed the whole thing. Aaron was being tried as an adult, and faced a mandatory minimum of 15 years. YouTube had taken down the video of the shooting, but it kept popping back up on different websites. Devon watched it compulsively, over and over, as he sat beside Jamie’s hospital bed. He pulled it up again, here in the waiting room. It wasn’t long, a little over three minutes, and began with Aaron showing Devon’s Instagram story to the camera.

“Dumbass is just up the block,” Aaron cackles. “Should we fuck with him? Scare him a little?” Aaron’s defense rested on this line in the video.

Aaron laughs and jokes with the other boys in the car. The driver says, “There they are,” and Aaron rolls his window down. A hand with a pistol comes into the frame, and Aaron takes it. Jamie is dribbling at the foul line, while Reggie stands beneath the basket. “Yo, Devon! Devon Graham!” Aaron shouts. Jamie’s face opens with confusion. Then the camera is blocked by Aaron’s body as he leans out the window. Muffled shouts, and the crack of gunfire. The car speeds away. The video shows Aaron as he pulls back into the car. The laughter is gone from his face. “Fuck. I think I hit him,” Aaron whispers. No one else in the car says anything. “Oh, fuck.”

Devon dragged the circle at the bottom of the screen to the left and watched the video again. He paused the moment Aaron slid back into the car. Devon’s body felt too small to contain whatever this emotion was. Like a drop of water trying to hold the tide. He hadn’t said a word since the shooting. His mom cried endlessly, and pleaded with Devon to talk to her. She slept in Jamie’s bed every night. Devon didn’t sleep. He sat up late, reading new posts on Jamie’s Facebook from people who’d never met him. Devon’s SoundCloud had gone viral in the aftermath of the shooting. Drive-By had 1.2 million streams.

Blue-check-marked rappers messaged him, asking if he wanted to collaborate. Sometimes Devon imagined interviews where he talked about Jamie’s shooting as the moment he got serious about music. Sometimes Devon imagined jumping off a highway overpass.

Devon got up and walked back to Jamie’s room. Doctor Shaan was leaving, and said, “He’s pretty tired.” Devon nodded. Jamie’s eyelids fluttered against cutting-edge sedatives. With his face relaxed, he looked like his old self, except for the bandages wrapped around his head. A heatwave had been causing power outages all over the city, as AC units siphoned electricity into wealthy neighborhoods. The hospital had been running on a generator for a week. Devon sat in the chair next to his brother’s bed. Jamie’s breathing was labored, and he moaned a little with each exhalation. Devon closed his eyes, too. After a while, Jamie’s moans began to take a shape in Devon’s mind. It sounded like a muttered refrain. I know, Jamie seemed to be whispering. I know. I know.

On May 12, 1989, Gordon “Gordy” Paige missed the bus. Gordy missed the bus at least once a week but this particular Friday he missed it on purpose. Instead of rushing to catch the bus at 7:30, Gordy enjoyed an extra bowl of Honey Combs and actually toasted his blueberry Pop Tarts instead of eating them cold straight from the foil packaging. He left his house around 8:30 and walked through his back yard, opened and closed the gate behind him, and turned left onto the small gravel alley which ran behind his and the other six houses in the lane. At the end of the alley, he squeezed through a large hole in the wooden fence and followed the well-worn trail along the railroad tracks for about 100 yards before passing under the railroad bridge. He squeezed through another hole in the chain link fence and arrived at his destination. His timing was perfect; the middle school bus pulled in to the Winocongo Lanes parking lot less than two minutes later. Gordy had missed the bus but had not missed the annual eighth grade bowling alley field trip.

By missing the bus on purpose, Gordy saved himself much more than a 45-minute bus ride. Walking would have taken him 20 minutes tops, but Gordy rarely walked anywhere. (The days he missed the bus, he simply didn’t go to school.) Today, missing the bus allowed him to avoid both 40 minutes of homeroom boredom with Mr. Wesley, as well as eternal rounds of head counting and saying “here” before anyone could board the bus. He also missed out hearing the teacher’s peppered warnings and threats about “best behavior” and “consequences” which, by law, must accompany any pre-boarding of a school bus before a field trip for it to officially qualify as such.

Gordy put the last bite of his blueberry Pop Tart into his mouth and walked behind the bus towards the front door where his classmates were getting off. When he saw his friend Scott Karmonicky holding a paper towel to his nose, he joined the line walking into the bowling alley.

“Hey, Scott. You okay? What happened?”

“Hey, Gordy. Yeah, I’m fine. Bartkiss and HardOn happened. Again. I’ll tell you later. Hey, heads up they’re right behind you. I gotta get another paper towel for my nose. See ya inside.” Gordy knew Barton and Harris wouldn’t miss an opportunity to say hello.

“Gordon Percival Paige! Where the hell were you on the bus?” (In the fourth grade someone suggested the full names of students be included in the yearbook. Gordy had strongly disagreed with the idea then and was still suffering from the result of the idea four years later.)

“Yeah, Gordo. What gives? You didn’t sit with your boyfriend, Karmelicky. He really missed you.” Gordy waited for Barton’s obvious slap on the back⁠ ⁠… there it is⁠ ⁠… “Well, good luck bowling today, Gordo. You’re gonna do great!”

Once inside, Gordy wasn’t sure how he was going to explain his presence if any teacher asked. The only thing he thought of was telling them he’d been in the bathroom⁠ ⁠… but no teacher ever asked him anything (Ha ha! Yeah! Score one for the fat kid!) so he joined his friends in the shoe line.

“Hey guys. What’s up?”

“Hey, Gordy!”

“Gordo!”

“Gordy? Dude, I didn’t see you on the bus. Where you been?”

“I have no idea what you mean. I’ve been here this whole time. So⁠ ⁠… what’d I miss on the bus ride here?”

Of course, in the back of every teacher’s mind is the field trip fantasy that this educational trip will provide someone the gentle nudge they need into greatness, that years later historians will look back on this trip as the definitive before and after moment that marked a young person’s life. A young person who will change the world and inspire other young people to pass the motivational torch of⁠ ⁠… Not quite.

Scott’s bloody nose earned him the right to give the play by play. “So as soon as I get on the bus, Barton shoves me in the back, I go flying and of course Harris has his knee up waiting for me to run into it. They both said they were ‘so sorry’ for the ‘terrible accident’ then when no teacher was looking they give each other a high-five. But Barton messed up the high-five ’cause he had just given Stacey his breakup note and he was watching her for her reaction. Apparently, this time he meant it but Stacey was laughing the whole ride here after reading the note. Then Rick Davis smashed his finger putting up his window and then when the bus is almost here, Jim Murphy is mooning all of Winocongo. So Ms. Ramsauer yells ‘Mr. Murphy! Pull your pants up and get your rear end out of the bus window this instant!’ ”

Gordy enjoyed the recap as much as everyone, but still had no regrets about missing the short bus ride here. Short, but dense with eighth grade drama. He turned around and asked his crew, “So⁠ ⁠… what’s it say today?” Sam took off the paper sign taped to Gordy’s back and showed him. Wyde Lode was written in thick red magic marker. He was about to throw it away when Gordy stopped him and re-stuck the note to his back.

“Whatcha doing, Gordy?”

“I want everyone to see how the geniuses spelled it.”

After picking up his shoes, he went for a bowling ball. While his lighter classmates struggled with the heft of even the kid size bowling balls, Gordy found the heaviest ball he could find. When his fat fingers fit snuggly into the large holes, he held it up above his head and smiled at his buddies who laughed so hard they almost dropped their balls on their socked feet. Gordy never was a sports fan, and absolutely hated gym class, but could not wait to hurl his ball down the lane as hard as he could and make some noise knocking down pins.

After putting on his shoes and just before he figured out how to include everyone’s name on the screen above, Ms. Ramsauer came and handed everyone a piece of paper and a weird blue pencil. One by one, the screens above each lane shut off, followed immediately by a groan and an “Aw, man!” by each pocket of eighth graders sitting below. They were going to have to keep score manually. They always get ya, no matter where they take you for a field trip. They get ya. Every. Single. Time.

Ms. Ramsauer wasn’t the gym teacher. In fact, she wasn’t a teacher at all. She was the middle school librarian. Like all librarians she loved books far more than she loved the loud, careless, uneducated heathens who moved, mishandled, mistreated, disrespected, occasionally read, but more often than not, lost them.

In their kindest words, Winocongo Middle School students described Ms. Ramsauer as “crooked.” The description was accurate, so there is no need to share the cruelest descriptions of her. Suffice it to say, her left leg was two−and−a−half inches shorter than her right leg but her left shoulder was four inches higher than the right, making Ms. Ramsauer perfectly straight only in mid-stride in midair. The effect of this constant rocking motion wreaked havoc on Ms. Ramsauer’s undergarments; on dozens of occasions her slip could be seen around her ankles. The entire eight grade class was grateful Ms. Ramsauer had chosen pants for today’s bowling outing.

Ms. Ramsauer called everyone over and quickly reviewed how a bowling score is calculated. The week before, in gym class, the students had studied how to do so, but until now there was no way to apply what they had learned, or rather, not learned.

Ms. Ramsauer quickly changed her normal shoes for her own bowling shoes that she had brought along with her own bowling ball. Not one of the eighth grade students could tell the difference between either pair of shoes. She then bowled (left-handed) a “practice frame” with an explosive strike that left the eighth graders with their mouths open and added curtly, “Any questions?”

The explosion of sound caused by the impact of heavy ball on heavy pins flipped a switch in Gordy’s head. He was now torn between the desire to make his friends laugh and seeing if he too could make that same sound and make ten pins fall down just like Ms. Ramsauer did. Having never been interested in sports or keeping score, he was unable to identify this feeling in his gut. It was a strange, electric, gnawing spark. And Gordy Paige liked it.

Back at his own lane, he watched all his buddies try to make the others laugh with their own impressions of Fred Flintstone’s twinkle toes release. He watched three of his buddies throw six consecutive gutter balls. The fourth buddy rolled another gutter ball before he knocked down two pins with his second ball. Gordy was last. Now, it was his turn. He knew his impression would be funnier because of his bulk, but he resisted. He spotted some arrows painted on the floor halfway down the lane and something else clicked in his head. The arrows told him to take a half a step to his left. So, without really understanding why, he did so. He felt the heft of the ball and smiled. Let’s make some noise.

With a coordination he was unaware of, he took a four-step windup, holding the ball high behind him, and releasing it with a perfect mix of power and grace. As he released the ball and pointed it where to go with his arm following through, his right leg swung behind him as natural as a sail turns to catch the wind. He enjoyed the controlled slide of his shoes on the freshly oiled lane. The ball shot down the lane, but strangely looked to Gordy to be in slow motion. The din of the bowling alley switched to a silence only Gordy experienced. The part he enjoyed the most was the split-second before the ball crashed into the head pin. It was going to hit it just a tad off center, but somehow it looked right to Gordy.

It was right! With an explosion of pins, everyone in the alley stopped for a split-second to see where that noise had come from. The lull lasted no more than half a second, but Gordy would remember that half second for years to come as when his entire life began. Everyone’s eyes were on Gordy’s lane. There wasn’t a pin left standing. At the end of the lane, a massacre of pins lay sprawled out like dead soldiers in a sniper’s wake. A few mortally injured pins were still crawling to the gutter to find cover before they died.

The silence, then the crash breaking that silence, and the destruction his ball left, made Gordy smile. He couldn’t wait to do that again. He watched other balls going down their respective lanes and none of them made a crash like his did. None, except Ms. Ramsauer’s. She was nearly unrecognizable as she smacked her hands together, having just missed converting a 7⁠–⁠10 split. The nearly 70−year−old woman looked decades younger with a big heavy ball in her hand. Gordy liked this bowling thing. He liked it a lot.

Skip Brody, the Winocongo Lanes owner and manager, working on an inventory report for the alley’s lunch counter didn’t see the strike but he heard it. Whoa! Now, that was a strike if I ever heard one! Lane 15, maybe 16? No. Lane 15. He turned and smiled. Lane 15, yes! He was right and he knew it. It was lane 15 where that perfect crash had come from. He could still see two pins spinning on their sides like spooked doves unable to escape on broken wings. He rolled the unlit cigar from one side of his mouth to the other. He saw a fat kid high-fiving his friends and plopping down into a seat to mark his score and wait for it to be his turn again. The kid looked a lot like he did at that age, but lighter on his feet than he’d been. He returned to his inventory report to get as much work done as he could until it was the fat kid’s turn again. He knew exactly how long it would take five beginners to throw two (most likely gutter) balls each and for the fat kid to be up again. Wonder if he can do that again?

When Gordy did do it again, exactly the same, Skip smiled at how cruel bowling was. He remembered his first strike and that pursuit of perfection to get ten in a row that is always right there⁠ ⁠… and always beyond your grasp. Therein lies the beauty, and cruelty, of bowling. There is a perfect score possible⁠ ⁠… the only catch: it’s impossible.

By the time he finished crunching the lunch counter numbers, the eighth grade field trip was winding down. Skip breathed a sigh of relief that last year’s episode on Lane 22 had not been repeated. Two kids thought it would be funny to see how high and how far down the lane they could heave their balls before they landed on the hardwood floor. Lane 22 was still damaged and Friday night leaguers refused to bowl on it. The eighth grade field trip was over. The next hour or so of his life would be spent pairing the shoes dumped onto the shoe counter back together again. The balls looked to be all back in the racks, but not in the order he liked them. He timed his arrival to the shoe counter to coincide with the fat kid’s.

“You had some nice strikes, kid. How long you been bowling?” Skip assumed Gordy was new in town because he had never seen him on Saturday morning youth league, but it was obvious someone had given the kid some pointers.

Gordy was all smiles. “Thanks. Actually, I never bowled before today. Today was my first time!” Brody’s jaw tightened around his cigar as he mumbled something about beginner’s luck.

“Sorry, what?”

“Nothing, kid. Hope you had fun.”

“I sure did. I gotta go, see ya, mister.” Gordy waved with the flyer in his hand that all eighth grade students get when they turn in their shoes at the Winocongo Lanes field trip each year. It was good for a free lesson which was rarely ever cashed in. Skip Brody knew he’d see a dozen or more in the parking lot over the next few days. The flyer was also good for something else.

“Keep that flyer, kid. It’ll get you a free Coke if you bring it on Saturday mornings.”

“Cool, thanks.”

Brody waved as he rolled his cigar from one side of his mouth to the other and headed behind the lunch counter and into the kitchen.

Gordy hoped the manager would be gone for a while. If he was, the plan sprouting in his head just might work.

While the eighth graders were putting their street shoes back on, Ms. Ramsauer announced that everyone’s bowling scores would be read aloud in five minutes. Teachers might always get ya with something to learn on a field trip, but kids never miss an opportunity to get smart back. Reading the scores out loud at the bowling alley is a perfectly logical way for a teacher to end the bowling alley field trip. What could possibly go wrong? Students who had already turned in their scores wanted to “double check their work” which is music to any teacher’s ears, and so Ms. Ramsauer gladly handed back the score sheets and the weird blue pencils to do just that.

Reading out the scores would give Gordy time to figure out how he could ride back to school on the bus without messing up the count. Of course, he could just get on the bus and let the teachers worry about why the count was different, but the idea of the teachers being happy about having the count right when it was wrong was irresistible. Somehow, Gordy had to get rid of one person. But who? Seeing Barton twist little Stephen Kreider’s arm, Gordy knew who. Now for the how.

Ms. Ramsauer began reading out the scores. After an impossibly high incidence of one score (69⁠—followed by a roar of giggles) and after the Bailey twins matching scores of 500 were read aloud, she announced only the top three actual scores would be read aloud. There was a pause, and then a wave of sarcastic boos which she countered with the timeless classic, “If anyone has a problem with that, they can speak to me after school⁠ ⁠…” A silence punctuated with more giggles and whistles filled the air. Ms. Ramsauer quickly looked through the scores, and then cleared her throat to speak louder than any librarian should ever speak. The students could barely hear her.

“In first place, Jimmy Lefew with 227. Well done, Mr. Lefew. In second place, Winifred Ramsauer, that’s me, 210⁠ ⁠… my personal best, by the way, and in third place⁠ ⁠… Gordon Paige with a 209. Well done, Mr. Paige.” The flame in Gordy’s gut had grown. It was burning good. Third place. Not bad. Both Ms. Ramsauer and Jimmy had been bowling in leagues for years: Jimmy for four years; Ms. Ramsauer for⁠ ⁠… oh, say⁠ ⁠… call it⁠ ⁠… forty. With a little practice, he could probably beat both of those scores. Funny, he never cared about scores or places or winning until he had almost won. Bowling just might be something he could be good at. Someone joked that Gordy’s score matched his weight which Gordy thought was pretty funny and, milking the moment, raised his hands in victory making his buddies (and even those outside of his group) laugh.

As his friends circled around again, Gordy could see Barton near the restrooms trying to steal from the candy vending machines. “Guys, quick! Let me have your coupons. Follow my lead.” His crew was onboard immediately.

Approaching the candy machines, Gordy spoke in a louder voice. “Man, sure wish we had more of these coupons. The guy at the counter said with eight coupons you get a free burger combo. But we’ve only got six. Oh well.” Gordy placed his and the five other coupons on a bench near the bathrooms and walked away.

Barton took the bait Coke, fries, and burger. He scooped up the six tickets with well-oiled sticky fingers. As Kreider passed by he threatened him to hand over his coupon, or else. Kreider immediately did so disbelieving how cheap this latest Barton toll had been. Gordy shook his head. Kreider really should have developed better Barton radar by now. Barton now had seven tickets plus his own made eight. He counted the tickets twice then strutted over to the food counter and slouched into the seat closest to the cash register. No one was at the food counter. Barton tapped the tickets on the counter. He didn’t mind waiting. He had all the time in the world.

Meanwhile, Gordy and his friends were “very helpful” getting the rest of their classmates in line and back on the bus.

“Thank you, Mr. Paige. That was a big help.”

“My pleasure, Ms. Ramsauer.”

Mr. Brown was counting each student as they entered the bus. Gordy was the last student to climb the three steps.

“… and Mr. Paige makes 37.” Mr. Brown was extremely happy the count was correct and on the first try. He nodded to the bus driver to close the door. “Mr. Dvorak, we are all set. You can return us to the school now, please.” Mr. Dvorak turned the key and the old school bus reluctantly coughed alive.

Gordy and his crew were just about to burst, but knew they had to keep it together for just a few more seconds. Come on, come on. Let’s go. Bartkiss wants his free combo, but surely he must realize we’ve all left. Come on⁠ ⁠… Move the bus!

A thought crossed Gordy’s mind. Harris. If Harris asks where’s Barton it’s game over. He looked for Harris. He was always in the back of the bus, but he didn’t see him. Where’d he go⁠ ⁠… ?

Spotting Harris near the front of the bus, a sneaky grin snuck across Gordy’s face. Guess he’s not worried about his friend. Harris was sitting next to Stacey Barnett. Since Barton had made it clear he wanted nothing to do with her, Harris had wasted no time letting her know he wanted everything to do with her. He agreed with every bad thing she said about his best friend.

Mr. Dvorak revved the engine, struggling to get the crabby old bus in gear. Gordy’s crew called him to the back of the bus where they had saved him a spot. He was almost to the back seat when he spotted Barton running out of the bowling alley. Mr. Dvorak finally got the bus in gear and lurched forward, pushing Gordy into the back door of the bus. Regaining his balance, Gordy pushed forward. He knew what he had to do. He was halfway to the front of the bus and called out.

“Ms. Ramsauer! Ms. Ramsauer! Is there a book in the library about bowling or famous bowlers ‘cause I really am interested.”

“Mr. Paige, please go back to your seat! The bus is moving now! And, yes I know just the book for you when we get back to school.”

“Ok, great! Thank you, Ms. Ramsauer!”

Gordy turned and began his slow and cautious return to the back of the bus, making sure his bulk blocked Mr. Dvorak’s entire view of the bus’s back window. Gordy was enjoying his uninterrupted view of Barton waving his arms and screaming. Afraid Mr. Dvorak would hear him, Gordy began singing the Winocongo Middle School fight song with infectious school spirit. The rest of the bus, and even Mr. Brown and Ms. Ramsauer, immediately caught the fever and joined in. Still, he was worried Mr. Dvorak might spot Barton in the side mirrors. But Barton was running directly behind the bus where Mr. Dvorak couldn’t see him. When Gordy was just a step or two from the back of the bus, Mr. Dvorak yanked the bus into second gear. Taking full advantage of the lurch with perfect timing, Gordy turned and gracefully allowed his bulk to tilt and come to rest on the bus’s back door and window. He made sure the center of his back was perfectly centered in the back window. Gordy smiled, closed his eyes and spread his arms along the bus’s back wall, relishing in his friends’ applause and laughter. The last thing Barton saw before the bus left the parking lot was the Wyde Lode sign still stuck on Gordy’s back.

The first time Frank Adams ingested his wife’s cremains, he sprinkled only a scant quarter-teaspoon over his oatmeal. Such a tiny amount, a pinch, really, he thought, swirling the ashes into the oatmeal with butter and brown sugar so that when he swallowed, he detected only the faintest sensation of grittiness, though even that sensation may have been his imagination. Eating the ashes made him think of his mother, a farmer who had often reassured him that ingesting any animal or plant meant it became part of you forever⁠—her way to make sure he ate his sausage and gravy, even if the sausage had formerly been an affable sow named Pinecone. He had just turned 52, the same age his mother had been when a vessel burst in her head and she had died, slumping over in her pew at Fort Perkins First Baptist as if she had simply fallen asleep while everyone had their heads bowed for the altar call.

Of course, the ashes in the urn had been his wife, dead six months now, not a lamb raised for consumption and wool, but he had read somewhere that cremains were nutrient-dense, or at least not harmful, and he yearned for something of Eva that lasted longer than her scent. Although Frank was not historically prone to emotional displays, at least not when he was sober, he had cried the first time he changed the sheets after Eva died because he could not figure out how to make them smell like she had. Lavender oil, sprinkled on the woolen dryer ball, his daughter told him later. Eva had long ago informed Violet that the smell of lavender coaxed better dreams, and Violet’s explanation made him tear up all over again. Back in college, Eva’s apartment had been littered with moon-charged crystals and cloudy tinctures purported to soothe everything from scraped elbows to heartburn.

The first time he visited her apartment, he said, “I thought you were in nursing school.”

“Yeah? I am,” she replied, her head cocked to one side.

“What’s with all the hoodoo nonsense?” Frank picked up a vial filled with cloudy blueish liquid and shook it. “Like, is this supposed to cure anything, for real?”

Eva took the tincture from him and placed it back on the counter. “That’s for cramps, for women at that time of the month. And yes, I find it helpful.”

Chastised and mildly embarrassed at the mention of menstruation, he shrugged and muttered something like, “Whatever floats your boat.”

After they had been dating for several months, he dropped by one evening to find her arranging pale pink rocks and opaque crystals in a spiral on her tiny balcony. The apartment smelled of fresh black pepper and something raw and earthy, like crushed fig leaves or green cypress wood.

“Full moon tonight,” she said.

Frank, who had just left a seminar on the future of machine-learning and was feeling practically scientific even though he had understood very little of the lecture, rolled his eyes.

“Seriously, Eva, you have to be kidding. This is a bunch of hoodoo bullshit⁠ ⁠…”

She turned to him, a rock the size of a deck of cards in her hand, the fading sun behind her setting her pale hair aflame. She looked as though she were about to smash the rock against his face. Instead, she slipped it into her pocket and they had their first fight, a raging one filled with indignation (her) and self-righteous condescension (him). He woke the next day in his own apartment with a belly full of regret. What did he care what Eva did with her potions and notions? She was a healer (at least, that’s what she had screamed at him when he accused her of ignoring common sense and her own medical training), so why should he care if she contradicted herself by believing in moon magic and actual medicine at the same time? He had been raised to believe in the healing power of prayer, and wasn’t that just as unproven (and unscientific) a remedy as moon-drenched geodes and blended herbs?

He had given her a box of dark-chocolate-dipped madeleines, a bottle of chianti, and a sincere apology. She forgave him, but she never talked about crystals or essential oils in his presence except for the time she insisted on burning a thick wad of sage in the house before they moved in to cleanse the space of “unwelcome energy.” Even then, he had tried (and failed) not to roll his eyes.

Now he couldn’t sleep without the scent of lavender, without Eva.

When their daughter Violet had still lived at home, Sundays were Frank and Eva’s most jealously guarded “we” time, and they continued the tradition even after Violet moved out. After a coffee-and-sesame-bagel breakfast, Frank and Eva would a) sit on the couch while she did a crossword and he watched CBS Sunday Morning with the volume on low, b) go on a meandering walk-hike through Cloudland Canyon or up to Rainbow Lake, or c) have sex. Frank liked the sex-days the best, with their coffee-scented grappling followed by lazing in bed as the sun moved above the trees until it glimmered in the reflection of the mirror above the dresser.

After Eva died, he found he missed the couch-sitting and leisurely hikes more than he expected, which was not to say he did not miss the sex. He missed it quite a lot, had missed it in the months when Eva was so weak and nauseous that it made him hate himself that he still wanted to lie beside her, to slip into the warm space between her legs and stay there until words like palliative care and accelerated death benefit faded from his vocabulary. Instead, he coordinated with the nurses and hospice people, accepted casseroles and promises of prayer, and, when the house lay quiet and Eva murmured in morphine-fueled dreams, he shut himself in the upstairs bathroom with MILF-inspired porn and tried not to cry out when he came.

Lately, his Sunday breakfast often came from Hardee’s (he was particularly fond of the pork chop and gravy biscuit), but the restaurant was always crowded with old men in unironic mesh-backed caps and he dreaded becoming one of them, reliving the best parts of his life over senior-discounted coffee in a cup with a leaking lid. He was only 52, but his unkempt gray hair and shuffling step marked him as a man aging into loneliness.

When Eva’s death became a when rather than an if, Frank felt his grief transform from a wide lake that stretched around him in all directions and splashed sadness onto everyone who approached to something akin to the Mariana Trench⁠–⁠bottomless, deep, dark⁠–⁠the pressure of which threatened to collapse his lungs and capillaries when he tried to concentrate on anything other than the slow pulse of her breath. He took a leave of absence from work⁠—in theory, to help care for his wife, but in reality, because he was afraid he would miss some critical step in the no-margin-for-error security coding he was managing for his company’s newest client.

But on that Sunday morning, after he ate the oatmeal with the ashen swirl, he settled himself on Eva’s spot on the couch and tried to meditate, a practice he picked up only after Eva had provided him with scientific studies backing meditation as a proven way to reduce stress and improve focus (rather than the new-age nonsense he assumed it was). Ingesting the ashes had helped his disposition right away; he thought of the breakfast as a postmortem extension of their “we” time. He sat in silence, trying to clear his mind and coast on the positive feeling. He imagined Eva’s essence seeping into his blood and bones. Velvety whispers gathered around the edges of his consciousness⁠—murmuring watch out, the world’s behind you. He gave up on meditation and drifted off for a nap.

Two days before what would have been Eva’s 50th birthday and about a month after he started dosing himself with her cremains each Sunday morning, he sprinkled ashes into a scrambled egg and folded the mixture into a slice of white bread. The day had dawned with just the kind of misty sunshine that would have compelled Eva, and, by extension, himself, to trek through the woods up on the mountain. He had not gone on a hike since Eva got sick, and this morning, promising though it was, made him want to go straight back to sleep. He washed the makeshift sandwich down with a tumbler of whiskey, then another, but the grit seemed to stick between his teeth and his tongue felt swollen, foreign in his mouth, as it sometimes did when he drank brown liquor. He opened a book, a slim volume of Baudelaire that he had been trying to get through for years, and stared at the pages until he fell asleep, sprawled inelegantly across the old leather sofa, the third glass of whiskey permeating the air with its odor of oak and bitter honey.

“I can’t believe I had to die before you’d eat me proper,” she said, clear as if she were sitting in her favorite chair, knotting one of the macrame plant holders that Violet sold at the greenhouse she managed in town. The voice sounded Irish to his ears, a thick brogue straight out of Derry Girls, one of Eva’s favorite shows. Her words, her turn of phrase, and even her accent was different from when she was alive, and yet, he felt the voice belonged to Eva in the same way he might identify someone in a dream, even if they looked or sounded strange. A sort of heart-knowledge.

Her presence did not feel like a dream.

Without opening his eyes, he muttered, “Damn delicious.” His voice came out as a rasp⁠–⁠he had not spoken aloud since Violet’s visit the week before. He had returned to work, but he, like the other programmers and tech guys he worked with, was more comfortable communicating via WorkChat or TaskList. He was rarely required to talk to anyone directly, and it was even rarer for him to have to attend an on-camera call, or to actually go into company headquarters, two hours away in metro-Nashville.

Eva did not speak again, but he felt her presence, smelled the sex musk of her thighs. He pushed down his boxers, took his rising dick in his hand, then took care of himself with a few rough jerks. He wiped his hand on a tissue before drifting back into a semiconscious reverie in the warm room filled with dust motes and gray light.

On Monday, he woke late and grimaced. His skin smelled sour, his hair looked somehow both oily and dry. If Eva had been there, she would have told him to take a hot shower⁠—his preferred method of dealing with everything from headaches to malaise. He stood under the water waiting for the steam to clear his head, but all he could think about was how Eva used to make him green tea with a hunk of ginger root whenever he was in danger of dropping into one of his funks. He did not want tea, or whiskey, or a nice walk in the woods; he wanted her, and he did not want to wait until Sunday to be with her again. All day, he debated whether or not to dip into the urn. His screen blurred before him.

On Monday evening, he sprinkled ashes on his linguine like a dusting of gray Parmesan and carried the bowl of pasta to the den, where it had been their habit to watch the prior evening’s episode of Game of Thrones over some sort of pasta or grain bowl. Eva was always a big fan of themed dinners⁠—meatless Mondays, taco Tuesdays, Sunday suppers. When Frank used to travel for work, he found himself adhering to the same dinner schedule, and, even now that he was alone, it seemed a habit he could not⁠—or perhaps did not want to⁠—break. As he slurped the last noodle and HBO queued up the next episode, he felt her again⁠—a warmth that took hold in his chest and spread down until it collected, concentrated, in his lap.

“Eva, is that you?”

“Frank, my love.”

Again, her voice, which seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time, more purr than intonation. No brogue this time, but no Appalachian lilt, either. “You sound different from before,” he said. He did not examine if he meant from the day before or from when she had been alive.

“How am I different?”

Frank felt a pressure against his crotch, though he couldn’t tell if the pressure was from his erection straining against his briefs or a glowing warmth that seemed to fill the space around him.

“Your voice is different. Silkier, or, oh⁠ ⁠…” he stuttered, and stared down at his unzipped khakis. He did not remember pulling the zipper down. Eva used to joke that her next embroidery project would involve pillows cross-stitched with reminders like “Frank, Zip Your Pants” or “Frank, Take Your Meds.” He tucked his dick in an uncomfortable position upright against his belly and zipped his pants.

The voice, again, “It’s hard here, to remember myself.” Then, after a heartbeat, “Show me.”

Show you what, he thought. Then, with inspiration that felt like his own, he scrolled through his phone until he found a video he had taken a few months before Eva died. She was forming Sunday meatballs and singing along with The Velvet Underground, her voice uneven and slightly raspy from pollen allergies, wearing only cotton underwear and his old Journey T-shirt. She stopped singing and gave a mild shriek when she caught him filming, then approached the phone lens with her outstretched hands covered in raw ground turkey and sticky breadcrumbs.

“More,” the Eva-not-Eva voice said.

Frank found the link to the video of Eva’s last birthday party. He cast to the TV and wondered how different the celebration might have been if they had known she would die before her next birthday. She had not been diagnosed yet, though in retrospect he could see the signs. Her skin, which had always been pinkly pale, had taken on a yellowish hue. Her unpredictable period disappeared for months before returning with such force that he found her curled on the bed in tears the morning of her party. She blamed perimenopause for her pallor and bleeding and crushing fatigue. By the time Eva went for her annual pap smear, the cancer had devoured her cervix and was working its way through her abdomen. On the screen, the undiagnosed Eva sliced into a Funfetti cake and laughed at something Violet said off-screen. She turned and looked directly into the camera, her pale blue eyes shining, and winked.

The room was too warm, and his penis was softening. He yawned, stretched⁠—he always felt so sleepy lately. He drifted off before the on-screen Eva opened her gifts. When he woke, the video had ended and his pants were unzipped, his briefs pushed down, his penis shriveling in a room that had gone cold and damp, as if a dew had settled over everything while he napped.

On Wednesdays, his daughter Violet visited. She always brought some sort of baked dish or picked up something ostensibly healthful, like a Taziki’s family dinner, in the hopes that he would be able to have not just one, but two or even three good meals. Violet, much like her mother, offered solace by feeding people, and the two of them had been planning a cancer survivor’s cookbook until it became apparent that Eva would not. Survive, that is.

At his request, Violet would also bring Cupcake, an affectionate border collie with the same kind of heterochromic eyes, one ice-blue, the other doe-brown, as Violet herself. Twenty minutes before Violet was due to arrive, Frank looked up from his screen⁠—he often worked in fits and bursts and was known to lose 16 hours in the echoing world of security software. His daughter’s visits forced him to break out of his own head, to look up from the screen, to think about the world that still stuttered on, whether he went out into it or not. The lid to the urn where Eva’s ashes were kept was ajar, and the house smelled as musty as his college apartment. How long since he had gone further from the house than his mailbox? He raced around opening windows and straightening throw pillows. He replaced the lid to the urn and had just swept some of the scattered ashes around the base of the vessel into his palm when he heard Cupcake’s familiar whine-bark and the back door opening.

Violet sang out, “Dad, it’s me! I brought spinach lasagna.”

Frank did not want Violet to come into the den to see him brushing traces of her mother back into the urn, and he did not feel right just dusting Eva against his khakis, so, on impulse, he tossed the ashes into his mouth and licked his palm. Cupcake bounded into the room and pressed her snout against his knees. He bent to pet her, and she licked the side of his face. “Good girl, who’s a good girl,” he murmured. He heard Violet in the kitchen, placing things on counters, the click-ticking of the oven as she turned it on.

Cupcake stiffened, and she gave a low, rumbling growl⁠—the kind she usually reserved for bearded men and people wearing hats. “What is it, Cuppa?” he said. The dog’s hackles stood, then her growl faded to a low whine, her tail tucked close, her ears switching between alert and laid low. Despite the breeze from the opened windows, the room was too warm.

“Dad, where’s your olive oil?” Violet called.

Frank straightened and walked toward the kitchen, but Cupcake seemed glued to her spot in front of the mantel, staring toward the far corner of the room where Eva used to keep her embroidery basket and a messy stack of books in an ever-growing to-be-read pile. The week after she died, Frank dumped the books and embroidery materials in a brown grocery bag and stashed it all in a closet, afraid that if he left her possessions as they were that he would never move them and the corner would become a dusty shrine to the quiet joys of a dead woman. He had not touched them since.

“Dad, did you hear me?” Violet said.

A wind ruffled the curtains, Cupcake let out a yelp-bark, and the room seemed to lighten. Frank passed a hand over his face and answered, “I just ran out.” He did not add that he had used the last of the good olive oil the day before, when he made soft-shell tacos with ground turkey, shredded cheese, and ash-speckled sour cream.

Violet mumbled something that sounded like, “Knew I should have⁠ ⁠…” before he heard her rummaging in the pantry. He joined her in the kitchen, where he saw that she had made a too-big-for-two-people lasagna in an 8 × 8 pan. A head of romaine and an English cucumber still in the cellophane sat alongside a spill of cherry tomatoes that Violet was methodically slicing into halves on Eva’s scarred wooden board that made everything taste like onions. Frank surveyed the meal and caught himself wondering if he could sneak a sprinkle of ashes over his slice of garlic bread before recalling that he had just licked some from his palm. Perhaps, he thought, that would be enough to beckon forth night dreams of Eva.

He tried to pay attention to Violet during dinner, to ask questions about her new position at Green Thumb Nursery, to nod and smile when she talked. Violet was prone to periods of sadness and withdrawal, just like Frank, but, unlike her father, she was practical when dealing with the human condition and strove never to slide down into the darkest places, had always managed to keep a firm grip on reality. When Eva’s condition took a turn for the worst, Violet had made an appointment with her gynecologist to get a pap smear in case cervical cancer ran in families, and, while she was at Dr. Mitchell’s office, requested a prescription for Lexapro to help her through the coming months.

Over dinner, as was their custom, Frank and Violet ate portions of the lasagna with a glass of wine each, then ate the dressed salad from their lasagna-smeared plates. For dessert, they usually finished the rest of the wine while watching an old episode of Seinfeld or playing a round or two of gin rummy. Frank ate quickly and tried not to glance at his watch to see how much longer he needed to be present before he could go into the den, draw the curtains, and slip into a dark sleep where Eva would visit him, pulling him up and into her as he dreamed.

“Dad, did you hear me?”

“I’m sorry, honey, what was that?”

“I said I can’t stay long⁠—I promised Vonda I’d drop by to help her pick out a color for the kitchen.”

“Oh, that’s okay. It’s been a long week and I’m kind of beat,” Frank said.

“Dad, it’s only Wednesday.”

“Exactly.”

Violet rolled her eyes. “I was thinking, maybe we could take a trip to the Glen next month, spread Mom’s ashes.”

Frank had put off spreading Eva’s ashes for months, well before he began incorporating them in his diet, and the thought of tossing them out now made his scrotum tighten.

“I kind of like her here, with me.”

Violet opened her mouth to speak, shut it, then tried again. “Dad, do you think that’s what she would’ve wanted?” She glanced around the kitchen, taking in the loaf of bread moldering in its plastic bag on the counter, used coffee cups that filled the sink, splatters of red sauce staining the cabinets.

“You seem like you might be slipping into one of your funks.”

Frank shrugged. “I’m fine.”

Violet turned her gaze to him, her brow creased and her eyes wide with worry.

“Really,” he said. He made the tcht-tcht sound to call Cupcake to his side. Cupcake perked her ears, but she stayed in her spot next to Violet’s chair.

“Just think about it, okay?” Violet said. She covered the rest of the lasagna with foil before gathering her tote and calling for Cupcake to follow. Frank waited until he heard her car drive away before he closed the windows and drew the curtains.

“Eva, you there?”

The whole house darkened and grew warm as the sun set. Frank drifted into an easy sleep on the sofa, waking sometime deep in the night feeling raw and depleted. His unfinished wine gave off an acrid smell, as if it had turned in the hours since he had opened the bottle. He took the glass to the sink, then, shrugging, took a sip, which he promptly spat out. How could wine turn to vinegar in the space of a few dark hours? He poured the rest of the bottle down the drain and wondered why he didn’t notice it was off before, why Violet, who loved a glass of good cabernet, hadn’t said anything.

The next night, in the liminal space before sleep, he whispered, “You’re not Eva, are you?”

“Don’t I fuck like Eva?”

“No.” The room was silent. Down the street, a car backfired. Frank spoke into the dark, “Eva and I didn’t fuck, we⁠ ⁠… it was different. Quieter, but good.”

A soft rustling sound, and then, “You want to cozy cuddle? A sweet coupling? You want to play missionary?”

“I⁠ ⁠… yes. Yes, I want that. The way it was with Eva.”

Even as he spoke, he could feel the lie, or, not a lie exactly, but not a full truth. He wanted both, like all men. And women, too, he supposed. He was silent. Thinking, waiting.

“I knew you would call me back to you.”

His balls and heart seemed to meet in his stomach, and his mouth went drier than it had the first time he ate the ashes straight. Violet had been right⁠—he had gone back to the dark place, the deepest “funk,” where real and shadow worlds blurred. Eva had always pulled him out of it, with her easy laughter and lavender-scented sheets.

“No,” he said. The darkness in the room came together, took on form. “No,” he said again, but softer, already defeated. Tumbling curls, swirling skirts, full breasts, just like his dream-girl had looked in college, dark in all the places Eva had been light.

“Get out,” he said. His voice was weak, unconvincing. He almost lost himself before, when he stopped going to classes so that he could fuck in the dark with a woman who seemed insatiable, a woman none of his friends ever met.

“I can look like her, if you want, but I’ll still fuck like me. Isn’t that what you really want?”

He shuddered, aroused despite himself. “Please. Just leave me alone.”

She was fully formed now, the shadows falling away like a cloak dropped onto grass. He lay on his back, tears leaking from his eyes. She climbed atop, and he wished it did not feel as good as it did.

He didn’t remember falling asleep, and he would have written Lil’s visit off as another dream were it not for the way his skin felt tracked with touch. Did he cause this? Beckon the-almost-but-never-quite-forgotten shadow-woman back by consuming the dead? He longed to slip back into that obsessive darkness.

He sat up in bed, and he had a sudden urge to hurl the urn, ashes and all, out the window. Instead, he called Violet and made plans to drive out to the Glen with Eva’s ashes that weekend. After he hung up, he took a Ziploc and scooped a teaspoon of ashes into it, then carried the baggie to the closet. He felt like an addict hiding his desperation stash, and it was all he could do not to gorge on the ashes, choke himself with handfuls of incinerated bone that tasted like sand, let Lil take him, drain him, leave him for dead. His hands trembled as he pulled Eva’s books and embroidery basket from the back of the closet. When he opened the basket, Eva’s smell of vanilla and vetiver overtook him, and he paused, let the scent float over him, protect him. He tucked the bag of ashes between bright skeins of floss, under a half-finished canvas that depicted clusters of violets in shades of pink and lavender.

God, he missed Eva, but Sundays were so lonely.

I.Me

I liked it some nights:
Windows down,
a light breeze wafted in,
stoplights swung in the rearview,
and I cruised under
a cloudless, endless sky.

Other times,
nothing could cover
the stink of pizza⁠—
a smell that
lingered,
like my life,
going nowhere,
stuck in traffic
in a suburban nowhere.

Once I ran a light,
screaming, punching the wheel.
Somebody called the manager,
said I was crazy,
should be taken off the road.
He relayed it like a good joke,
and went back to flipping dough.

II.Mark

With a mohawk mullet,
wraparound shades,
and a sour smell,
Mark liked to strut about,
thrust his hips, and proclaim:
“I’m gonna get me some skull tonight!”

After washing dishes,
he’d take a big butcher knife,
and jam it in the drain.

We delivered to a street called Butternut,
that he liked to call “Bustanut,”
and another called Tunacliffe
that always made him smile.

The day they fired Mark,
the manager called him a three-time loser.
Mark called the store from a customer’s phone
in front of their eight-year-old daughter,
yelling that he lost his keys,
and that the last time this happened,
someone died.

They sent me to help him find the keys
that were in his pocket all along.

We never knew what came of Mark.
We assumed he was an addict.
Some said he lived with his mother.
Others that he lived in his car.

III.Rick

A soft, big-bellied man,
with graying hair,
and moustache,
who wore a red sweater
with a store logo,
stained with oil,
and caked with dough.

He liked to lean in close
to point out a customer’s bra straps,
which he said looked tacky,
or to say that a Black woman could be sexy
if you thought of it as a tan.

Once he brought in flowers
for a high-school sophomore named Heidi.

But he was no Mark.
Not quite.
He worked his way to assistant manager⁠—
or “ass man,” as he liked to tell us⁠—
a position he kept
long after I left.

IV.Ray

“Around this time last year,”
he declared,
“A man fucked a turkey in a grocery store
and then put it back in the freezer.”

He mused,
“I wonder who wound up eating it.
I hope it was a woman!”

Ray was married, and
repaired his own truck
from junk-yard parts.
It seemed to work for him.

V.“Scoob”

They called him “Scoob,”
due to certain mannerisms
of speech and body
that reminded us of the dog
from the old cartoon.

Poor guy:
Even the strippers called him that,
when after a long night
I would visit them,
slinking from my stinking car,
marching in the cold
across cracked asphalt,
under streetlamps
and neon signs
for fun,
for company,
for oblivion.

I tipped dancers
with tips I’d earned,
and then charged them
on a card
when the cash ran out.

I don’t remember “Scoob”’s real name.

VI.Me

I’ve changed a lot since then:
I got a Ph. D. in English,
turned my dissertation into a book,
travelled all over the world,
and now work for a university.

Yet, some nights,
I dream that I still deliver pizzas,
and I’m still in school,
and I can’t get out of bed,
and I’m late for school,
and I’m late for work,
and the pizzas keep backing up,
and I’ll never get them all out.

Two lovers
were necking
under the willow
by the lake

they were
actually
using
their necks

from a distance
they could
have been
swans

from a distance
they could
have been
in love