ABSTRACT a SEAHORSE RODEO by Shawn Harwell This Novel Details

ABSTRACT

A SEAHORSE RODEO

by Shawn Harwell

This novel details the events of the weeks following the graduation of Lipton Greely from college. Lipton is a history major planning to spend his summer at his father’s house in the small furniture town of Lenoir researching a hypothesis. At the end of summer, he’ll be moving from his home state of North Carolina to Atlanta for graduate school, and Lipton can hardly wait. Unfortunately, his enthusiasm suffers an instant blow the moment he spots Evan Barnes, one time friend and current nemesis, standing on the lawn outside the graduation hall smoking a joint. This is the same Evan Barnes who played a part in Lipton’s first real heartache seven years earlier, and the wounds still sting. Evan is friendly and casual, but Lipton can’t help suspect his old friend has an ulterior motive for the sudden appearance.

A SEAHORSE RODEO

A Thesis

Submitted to the

Faculty of Miami University

in partial fulfillment of

the requirements for the degree of

Master of Arts

Department of English

Shawn David Harwell

Miami University

Oxford, Ohio

2005

Advisor______Eric Goodman

Reader______Kay Sloan

Reader______Brian Roley

TABLE OF CONTENTS

A SEAHORSE RODEO

by Shawn Harwell

Part One…………………………………………………………………p.1

Part Two………………………………………………………………....p.73

Part Three………………………………………………………………..p.150

Part Four…………………………………………………………………p.172

ONE “Whoop!” Lipton Greely allowed, as he stepped into the sunlight from the massive domed blob where phase one of his college career had come to a ceremoniously dull resolution. A history major specializing in the Civil War era, Lipton had a theory positioning the oft-heard phrase “The South Shall Rise Again!” alongside recent advancements in the production and marketing of pharmaceuticals aimed at treating erectile dysfunction. It wasn’t much more than a theory in its current state, a hypothesis really, for a project that would require much research, the conducting of interviews, and, perhaps, embarrassing measurements, over the course of the summer and beyond throughout his beloved South. This theory, or hypothesis, along with his overall academic record had landed Lipton in a prominent graduate program in Atlanta, and it was the illuminated promise of future studies which kept him awake during a multitude of numbing speeches about metaphorical paths, roads, and intersections. So, unlike most of his fellow undergrads, Lipton’s celebratory caw was one of relief more than release, and his demeanor was relaxed despite his naturally hunched bony shoulders. Then, like a horse crashing into a wall, he saw him. Evan Barnes. Barnesy. Barnbuster. Barnacle breath. The nicknames were the first thing Lipton thought of when he saw him leaning against a tree in a grassy area a more civilized person would have thought to keep off, smoking what Lipton could tell was definitely not a tobacco cigarette. Barnacle breath. He had on khaki shorts well above the knees, a white t-shirt, no pocket, a visible orange stain near the neck, too small sunglasses over his eyes, and a full milky face as if he were going to vomit or had recently. Although Lipton had sworn off the words as derogative, he couldn’t help but think redneck, another nickname, and then hillbilly, yet another. Lipton had a spot on his eye, something he’d only noticed recently and had begun to develop a slight concern for as it seemed to be permanent, that was small like a fleck of ash, gray and in the shape of a tiny seahorse. He noticed it mostly when he was looking at some undistinguished image, and when he turned to the pale, humid Carolina May sky, the seahorse swam back and forth in between blinks, and disappeared again when Lipton decided he had no choice but to approach Barnesy.

“Nice gown, Cujo,” said Evan, his own nickname for Lipton. It had been seven years since anyone had called him that, and the fact that he had no idea how he had earned said nickname simply made hearing it again all the worse. Evan took his sunglasses off with some difficulty due to their tightness against his face, which left lengthy slender imprints above his ears. His eyes were muddy brown, the skin below puffy and dark like grapes. “I guess this whole college thing is something you done real good.” Hick, Lipton thought unable to help himself. Bumpkin, cracker, cornpone. Evan moved closer, his hand outstretched to shake, but the stench of marijuana overwhelmed Lipton and spun him into a coughing spell. As if he had forgotten it were there, Evan looked at the joint then took a quick sip before throwing it on the ground and extinguishing it beneath the toe of his camel colored work boot. “How’s it feel?” he asked. “How does what feel?” Lipton spoke short, still struggling for breath. He certainly hadn’t invited Evan and knew this sudden appearance was cloaked in the ulterior. Evan wanted something, he was sure of it. “Graduating college,” Evan said, an air of excitement in his slow, low registered, voice. “Now, you can pretty much do whatever, right?” He smiled at him and it was then Lipton noticed how closely Evan resembled the sun, round and unrelenting, full of something hot and unbearable. Lipton’s face was damp with sweat, his ribcage wet with the runoff from armpits caged beneath a starchy button-up and the stifling black gown. He looked at the sky and his seahorse galloped across lines of clouds like fuzzy ice, and Lipton saw things from his own history with Barnbuster, Hickbilly, Redbreath that made him feel like he could die at any moment; his future Atlanta nothing but a fiery march for days that would only end draped over a bayonet, sliding, sliding, sliding. Call it a premonition, of sorts, the motivating intangible. Whatever it was, it stirred. Lipton, with the springing force of seven years, struck forth a lanky arm and punched Evan in the stomach as hard as he knew how. Surprised and elated, he darted back into the throng. * * *

Seven years; the proverbial Itch. Wars were fought in seven years, notably the Seven Years’ War, though scholars disagree over the accuracy of that title in regards to the battles in North America. Between Evan and Lipton, however, the dates were unmistakable; when something happens on New Year’s Day, you remember it. And it was January 1st, 1997 when Evan did what he did, so, and not so, long ago. The temptation to label it a typical sophomore grudge is strong – for it involves matters of the heart and was very much a high school thing. But then grudges tend not to itch for seven years, do they? Surely, after seven years it must be called something else entirely: conflict, bitterness, rivalry, war. And for seven years the two men engaged in their particular brands of dispute, which when between one very out of shape stickly young Lipton and one diabolically unfit rotund Evan, translated mostly to silence, avoidance, and utter dismissal. So, you can see why Evan’s appearance, like Sherman’s, on territory that was decidedly Lipton’s would strike such a rekindling spark. But there could be no surrender now. Things had to burn awhile yet. Among the crowd, Lipton found and embraced his father and girlfriend, threw his cap to the non-existent wind, and escorted them immediately towards the parking lot. Over his shoulder he saw no signs of Evan, and knew that his victory here would stand, small but decisive. “Sic Semper Tyrannis!” he screamed and his fellow graduates cheered wildly in response, orgasmic in the mere joy of making a collected noise one last time.

TWO Paul Greely was a man who accepted more than he understood. He accepted that his son Lipton was a history major, though he didn’t understand what that meant for him in today’s marketplace. He accepted Lipton had a watchamacallit about the South and those blue pills he’d seen on TV, but he didn’t understand what in the world the two had to do with one another. He accepted that Lipton seemed to be in no hurry to marry this girl, Nora Varner, a sweet, perfectly good looking thing, but he didn’t understand why not. A man needed a good woman, at least for a little while. His Jenny had left him ten years ago, but he didn’t regret what they had together, not a single day of it. He thought she should’ve shown up for her son’s college graduation, but she had a life in Florida now, and this too he accepted. At a table in a fancy restaurant that was actually a house, Paul sat across from his son and his son’s girlfriend, and tried not to smile. His teeth were crooked and yellow from smoke, and altogether too big for his lips, which made concealing them even harder. He was sure proud though, boy. He didn’t need to understand things to feel that. He patted his short messy hair, a mound of mulch faded by the sun, with thin fingers whose skin was starting to wrinkle. “You two get whatever you want. My treat,” he said and it was something he’d always wanted to say, though never had the occasion, save for a few dinners while on vacation before his wife left the family. He’d said it once to her, he remembered, and she’d ordered soup. “Thanks, Paul,” Nora said and smiled at him. His teeth came loose from his lips and he tried to recover. She was so pretty, like a little bug, he didn’t know why Lipton was wasting so much time. What was his hold up? “Not every day your son graduates from a big time college,” he said taking his hand away from his hair finally. “One of the best days of my life. Right up there with getting married and when he was born. You know the doctors thought for awhile that he was a girl?” Nora laughed and blushed, the cute thing. “I still have the original birth certificate in a file cabinet. Says ‘Female’ on it.” “Dad,” Lipton said, and scratched his beard, unperturbed. “You know I’m going to have to ask you to smoke outside while I’m home this summer.” His son was the

champ at never being embarrassed. He was like his mother that way, could be a statue at times when others would turn red, or cry, or get mad even. His wife was especially like that in bed. And on a day like today, Lipton didn’t know how to take things in and appreciate them; he’d rushed them from the ceremony before he’d had a chance to meet any of Lip’s classmates, or their mothers, all because he was hot. Paul wanted desperately to make his son crack right then at the table, thought Nora would like him for it, and thought, most importantly, that Lipton needed it. “Yep, the only other thing that could make this day any better is if you two were to tell me you’re getting hitched.” There, Paul thought. “Or having a baby!” That should do it. “Nora doesn’t believe in marriage, dad,” his son said and Paul twitched as Nora looked deep into the napkin on her lap to avoid looking at him, an old man talking about love and babies. “And, frankly, I’m not convinced about it either. It’s a simple matter of logistics, really; if a business contract fails as often as the contract of marriage does, then someone designs a better contract. Yet, with marriage, it’s as if no one wants to bother, and the reason for that seems quite obvious.” Paul watched his son look up somewhat sheepishly at him. “No offense to the present party, of course.” “None taken,” Paul said, though certainly it hurt a little to hear. For once his son had said something that he didn’t accept, but understood all too well. “And children are, certainly, something I’m interested in. Lineage, ancestry, it’s all very important to me, naturally, given my area of studies.” Paul listened as Lipton spoke, but kept his eyes trained on Nora. She looked up now from her napkin to her plate, but he guessed it would be awhile before she made eye contact with him again, if she did it all. He sure had scrogged this one up, man oh man. “But then again, once the children are born and frolicking the studies have a way of taking precedence, so it’s more or less a classic case of our friendly Catch-22, which seems to dominate the lives of so many professional academics; being selfish, yet not so.” “I was just making a joke,” Paul lied and watched as Lipton’s brow furrowed. “You gotta live your life the way you want to live it.” It was what he’d always wanted to hear his own father, the drunken gunsmith, say to him. Now that he’d said it to his son, the feeling he felt was singularly awful.

THREE “Were you really born a girl?” Nora said, her arm draped across Lipton’s hairless chest, the dew of sex still on both of them. They had christened her first apartment, she thought and nearly blushed. “Dare you question my manhood now? After that virile display?” His beard scratched her shoulder as he turned to her. “I’m not questioning it, silly. But is the birth certificate true? “Yes,” Lipton said and sighed. “And no.” He rubbed his eyes and continued. “My mother explained to me that my testicles were slow to descend, thus the clerical error my father mentioned.” “Aww,” Nora said and placed her hand on Lipton’s balls, warm and sticky. “Poor little guys wanted to stay in from the cold.” She giggled profusely and Lipton got off the kitchen table and began to get dressed. Nora couldn’t help herself, she was happy. For the first time in her life she was spending her summer away from New York and her family, and living on her own in North Carolina close to Lipton, whom she adored, regardless of the state of his genitals at birth. Her apartment wasn’t much, but there was a sprawling wild rosemary bush in the yard and that had been enough to seal the deal for her. She liked plants. She also liked pastels; her fingers were always smudged. They had dated for two years, and it was true, she, an aspiring archivist, wasn’t fond of the ideas behind marriage, but she had no intentions of letting go of skinny Lipton, her bony beau. Marriage was simply a formality she’d rather not mess with, but she was already looking forward to the monthly visits to Atlanta she’d make, and in a year, once she’d graduated herself, maybe they could move in together. “Oh, listen, I punched someone today.” Lipton stood at the sink washing his hands. The words were enough to make Nora sit up completely, her skin making a noise as it peeled from the table. “What? When?” she said and looked to see if he were joking. “And who? Why?” “Right as I walked out of the building to find you and dad. He, Evan Barnes, this turd I grew up with, was against a tree smoking marijuana.”

“And you hit him because of that?” Her throat was dry; the question ended in a guttural squeak. “No, although, it is illegal and who knows what the cops would have done to him. So, in many ways I saved him from a far crueler fate. I hit him, simply, because I should have a long time ago. Seven years, in fact.” “I can’t believe you! What did you do after you hit him?” “Well, I ran away. To find you and dad.” “You left him there?” “I only hit him in the stomach. He’s fine, I’m sure.” “Lip!” “I know,” he said and finally turned to look at her. “It was spectacular!” Nora stood at the sink beside him now and put her back to the faucet. In a few hours they would go to sleep and then in the morning Lipton would leave for his father’s house in Lenoir. She would be alone then and she knew she needed to say something that would surmise her disapproval of his actions without ruining her plans for their future. If pushed in the wrong direction, Lipton could turn sour and quiet and might stay that way for days, weeks even. They had fought exactly three times in their two years, over trivial things, and it had been horrible each and every time. Delicacy was required. “So, what happened? Seven years ago, I mean.” “History, my dear.” He tapped her head, not unlike a dog, his childlike hands producing no more than a gentle wrap. “Everything comes back to history.” Nora watched as he walked into the bathroom, the subject effectively dropped, and knew this was one of the reasons she did not want to be married. Delicacy was for housewives and surgeons, and an opportunity for discovery was abruptly squandered because of it.

FOUR During the ninety minute drive to his summer lodgings, the same house that had lodged him for all of his previous summers (with the one foul exception of a short excursion to Honduras with Habitat For Humanity, when he was certain he had contracted a nasty strain of malaria (which later was diagnosed as common influenza)), Lipton twice swerved off the road due to a lack of concentration. There were so many things to consider! For starters, there was his confrontation with Evan, a scene he had replayed dozens upon dozens of times by now, with increasing similarity in production to a Hollywood boxing film. He wondered what Evan would think of him now, how quickly word would spread through the modest foothill town of Lenoir, and how best to prepare for any possible retaliatory strikes while he was home with his father, should he have to venture away from his studies and into the madness of that tiny burgh. God forbid Evan should attempt to bring the battle to him. Clearly this strategy had not worked out well for him at the graduation, but Lipton couldn’t count on Evan to not be so stubborn as to give it another heave ho. In his own way he was a soldier, after all, and no group of men has ever been motivated to feats of undeniable foolishness more than soldiers. Yes, Lenoir was Lipton’s home in name only. His mind had explored beyond its borders long before his body ever did, and after attending college for four years in a larger, far more cultivated city, any emotional or nostalgic ties to Lenoir were neatly packed away, seemingly for good. But, as his mind slipped from Evan to his hometown, it also slipped from these things to his theory of longstanding regionalism and declining impotence. Lenoir had the potential to be a hot bed of study. The furniture factories alone were sure to produce a wide share of men with racist-inspired devotion to the South, and among them, though it would likely take an extraordinary amount of prodding to overcome extreme levels of misplaced machismo, there were bound to be at least a few with medicated, or fledgling and in need of medication, wieners. Unfortunately, the town itself was dredged of any interesting history in favor of dual drive-thru hamburger stands, but it was at the bronzed plaque middle school field trip destination of Fort Defiance a short drive away, where Lipton’s devotion to the era began in earnest at the puberty starved age of eleven.

He still remembers the maiden, dressed in full O’Hara regalia, her eyes a burning emerald green, who offered him a cup of hot cider that cold November day. She was delicious. Lipton swerved into the dirt once more, and quickly whipped the car back into the lane. Focus, he thought to himself. Focus. Like a lens... Photography! Yes! This summer would be a chance to renew his experimentation with photography! Lipton swerved again and turned on the radio. * * * To describe the Greely house is to subscribe to centuries old stereotypes. A fair, but weathered one story trunk skinned in dirty brick, with a broken wooden tail of a deck, the house sat close to a moderately busy road near the public golf course, and was the product of two eras: With Woman and Without. When Lipton’s mother lived there, things were constantly appearing and disappearing. Smells like vanilla and nutmeg would appear, as would objects like pillows and paintings. Clothes and crumpled sheets of paper and empty soda bottles would disappear, the whole act a ballet that went mostly unseen and often unrecognized by Lipton. Without her, things appeared more and disappeared less. Mostly this was a path towards a state of disgustingness - overflowing trash cans, spoiled fruit, sandwiches of hair in the shower drain – though some of what didn’t disappear were the things Lipton’s mother made appear and forgot (the pillows for instance), or chose not to take, and in this way the two eras of the Greely house coexisted and combined to create an odd sensation of forward futility. It was ludicrous to Lipton that neither he nor his father was capable of maintaining a respectable house without his mother, yet there were so many other important things that he simply had to attend to first. His father, though, had no excuse and it was on his mind to tell him this when Lipton parked his car, one tire fully on the curb, in front of the house. * * * Inside, Lipton immediately noticed the air conditioner was either not working or completely exhausted, for it was nearly as hot inside as it was out. By the door off of the kitchen stood the stacked structures of Lipton’s belongings, boxed frantically the day prior to graduation and sent with his father following the lunch where the tired bird had

discussed his nether region with Nora. The thought of unpacking his things, all of which were of great importance to Lipton and his studies, was nonetheless instantly depressing, so he slid onward through the house in search of his father. Sunday’s were a busy day for the old man. He went religiously to Church, though more out of routine than any fit of faith, something Lipton had tried on numerous occasions to discuss logically with him to no avail, and afterwards he lunched with a group of stodgy businessmen who were all older and richer than his father and talked mostly about golf, a sport he didn’t even play. Lipton had obliged him once by accompanying him and had spoken so poorly of the men on the ride home that he assured himself he would never be asked to go again. And now, at half past two, his father would be where he always was, in the spare room next to Lipton’s, in a short broken office chair, by table lamp, devouring his girls. The girls, as he had always referred to them, were his father’s excuse for a hobby, and Lipton remain undecided whether or not it was an altogether healthy one at that. The older Greely liked to sketch pictures of women found in magazines. It was something he’d started not long after Lipton’s mother left, and while fortunately the women he chose were always clothed, there was nonetheless a quality of discomfort Lipton felt when around them. He was uneasy in the presence of his father’s girls and avoided the room as much as possible. On this day his father was sketching a made-up moll from a movie still. “Knock- knocketh,” Lipton said and entered the open room. There were stacks of magazines four feet tall in all but one corner, and on the desk were piles of drawing paper, the edges all curling upward like the hair of the actress in the photo. “Is the air conditioner in need of repair? It’s intolerably hot in here.” “I dunno,” his father said, gaze firmly attuned to the task in front of him. “I hadn’t noticed.” Lipton grabbed a magazine from the stack closest to him and began to fan himself. “Hey,” his father turned. “Those are in order.” Lipton stopped fanning and felt the sweat brimming beneath his pores. “Come here a second, Lip. I need an opinon.” There it was. The worst request imaginable. Lipton approached the desk, and as always, saw a crude and vague reproduction of the image from the magazine. This

particular starlet had been drawn with one eye set ghastly lower than the other, and a mix of lips that reminded Lipton of a pair of filthy old sweat socks laid out flat on a face that was square and brutish. There was no depth or dimension to the drawing whatsoever; his father insisted on using No. 2 pencils with erasers as weak as the lead was dull. “Well, what do you think?” his father asked, never turning away from his proud work. “She’s a vixen, ain’t she?” “She’s missing an eyebrow.” “What?” Lipton reached over his father’s shoulder and pointed at the poor drooping eye, its eyebrow a splotchy patch of crisscrossed marks, and then the other, which despite its cartoonish roundness was by far the more natural of the two. “No eyebrow.” “Huh. Glad you noticed.” He set to work immediately on correcting the error; Lipton didn’t have the heart to tell him it really wouldn’t matter. “She wouldn’t like me very much if I made her out to look like some freak, now would she.” “The Mona Lisa has no eyebrows. Maybe you were making a subconscious homage.” “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” “Well, then,” Lipton said and felt the sweat come full force now. This would definitely not do. First he had to educate his father on the most recognized face in the entire world and then, perhaps, he would leave a message with a repair man to come first thing in the morning. But not right now. “I’ll leave you to your work, and see to my own.” “Lip,” his father said, pencil scratching away at an angular brow that stood no chance of matching its sister. “You hungry?” “Yes,” Lipton said, turning back to his father, somewhat puzzled. “Of course. Didn’t you just eat with your so-called friends?” “Nah. I didn’t go today.” “Then, by all means, let us celebrate the occasion!” Joking was what felt safe, but there was a rumble deep in Lipton’s psyche that suggested, even more so than the ludicrous drawings, that something was not quite right with the old man.

FIVE Paul’s car, a dying green hatchback, was a noisemaker, a New Year’s party. It popped and burped at every light and made a buzz like a weed whacker when he got it up to forty going downhill. He remembered clearly when Lipton used to be embarrassed and rode in the floorboard of the backseat with his hands over his ears when they’d take it to church, or the baseball field, or a movie, just the three of them. Ever since he’d gone to college, though, Lipton had said the car was symbolic of some kind of social something or other, and flat out refused to go anywhere in town unless they took it. Paul didn’t mind, he liked the car okay, but boy would he love to trade it for one of those big red super trucks they had on the car lots. Those were dreams though, he knew, what with his job at the stairs factory, and besides, it was just a truck, though they really were something to look at. Lipton said something right as the car let out an energetic POMMT! and with the window down, Paul couldn’t make out a word of it. “We shoulda brought your car,” he said as the hatchback buzzed past the golf course. “Nonsense,” Lipton said, rolling up his window. “Yours has character.” Paul huffed a sarcastic laugh as they came to a stoplight and another POMMT! “I was just asking where you were taking me.” “I don’t know. Anywhere but Mexican.” “But that’s exactly what I was about to suggest!” “Eh,” Paul muttered, knowing full well how demanding his boy could be. “It hurts my stomach.” “That’s crazy!” Lipton said looking at him as if he were some kid trying to sell him a piece of nickel candy for ten bucks, his thick brown beard and boxy glasses reminding Paul of a loony lumberjack he’d seen in the paper once. “You’re just ordering the wrong things. Turn left.” Well, maybe this was true; he could accept that. He’d only been to the place once, after all. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t holding out a lot of hope either. He’d only been once, but it had made an impression, that’s for sure. With pinched lips, he made the left and listened as something in the car rattled like a loose tooth in a tin cup. * * *

What Paul knew more as a brown and orange Hardee’s, was now a dark green and white place with a name he couldn’t pronounce. He parked the hatchback and killed the ignition with a final PRRING! then watched as Lipton fanned himself with his hand as they walked the short distance across the lot to the door. Inside the green and white continued, and on the walls hung Bud Light posters, a Corona clock, a mirror, and a mirror with a clock. He’d seen similar things as prizes at the Fair and wondered if that’s where they got them from. They were seated by a short Mexican fellow who had a nice silver watch that slid up his arm when he bent it, like his elbow was more interested in telling time than his eyes. It seemed a little silly to wear it like that, Paul thought, but still it was a nice watch. The little guy sat a bowl of chips and a bowl of salsa on the table and said something Paul didn’t catch. “Dos Equis,” Lipton responded and Paul let his mouth open slightly in surprise. Goodness, the brain his boy had! “I didn’t know you spoke Spanish.” “He’ll have water,” his son said and the host trampled off. “Dos Equis is beer, it’s a brand. Saying it doesn’t technically represent an understanding of the language, though I do know a few...” Lipton gasped loudly, like some creature from the sea, and slid underneath the table. “What’s this now, Lip?” Paul craned his head to see his son scooting as near to the wall as possible. There was gum stuck to the underside of the table. “Shh! Just,” Lipton’s eyes were wide and the darkness made his mouth all but disappear into his beard. “Shh!” “Hola,” said a thick voice behind him. Paul turned and saw someone he knew but hadn’t seen in a while. A young guy, little heavy set, but familiar looking. One of Lip’s friends? Yeah, that’s it. It was whatshisface. Whoshisname. “Eggs!” Paul said and pointed. “You’re Eggs, I know you!” He craned his head back beneath the table. “Hey Lip, get up here, look who it is! It’s Eggs!” The waiter stood still and chunky in blue jeans and a green golf shirt with a yellow sombrero embroidered above the right breast. His hair was cropped short, blond, and military and the cut had thrown him off, but now Paul remembered him exactly as he

was. Evan, that was his name, Evan somethingorother. But to him, he was always Eggs. Lipton slithered back up into the booth, his face and ears red. “Now, see!” Paul said motioning to his son. “Bacon and Eggs together again!” Oh, how he’d loved that joke! His son the skinny one, and Eggs the round one. It was just perfect. And now there they were, just like the old days, and suddenly Paul felt okay about the fact that the food would probably hurt his stomach and give him cramps in the night. “Hello, Mr. Greely,” Eggs said. His voice sounded too low for his face, like there was an invisible ventriloquist somewhere messing with him. “How are you, kid?” Paul looked again at his son, who seemed to be hiding in his own skin. Playing statue again, same as always. How he’d like to get inside his mind and understand what made his boy tick sometimes. “Come on, Lip, aren’t you gonna say something? This is your old buddy Eggs here, for corn’s sake.” “Evan,” Lipton mumbled, his eyes never straying from the table in front of him. “Hey, Lip.” Eggs took out a pen and a pad from his back jeans pocket. “We have three specials today. One is steak fajitas with beans and rice, another is two enchiladas, a taco, beans and rice, and the third is...” “Listen, Eggs,” Paul interrupted. He didn’t understand what the kid was saying anyhow and there was news to tell. “Lip here graduated college. Did you know that? Happened just yesterday. Walked across the stage and everything, how about that!” “Congratulations,” said Eggs, his voice so low and interior it sounded to Paul as if someone were holding his nose. “Are you ready to order?” “Number 12,” Lipton mumbled. That was nice, Paul thought. You could order by number instead of trying to speak Spanish. But he hadn’t even looked at the menu. “Eggs, tell us,” he again changed the subject. “You in college or anything?” “No, sir.” “Ahh,” Paul nodded. “Working like the rest of us non-brainiacs. That’s good, that’s good.” “Thanks.” That voice was something else. Like a trombone, Paul thought. Lip used to play the trombone and it sounded like Eggs’ voice. How about that. “Do you know what you want, sir?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t even looked at the thing.” “Number four,” Lipton mumbled. He looked like he was trying to stuff his chin down his neck for some reason. And with all that fuzz on his face it would be a painful gulp. “Number four it is.” “Okay,” Eggs tromboned. “Thanks, Eggs. Good seeing you, kiddo.” When Eggs was out of sight, Lipton stood up and reached for his father’s shoulder. “We have to leave.” “What are you talking about?” “Our food isn’t safe here. We must leave at once. Quickly.” He tugged Paul out of the booth, and nearly backed into the short Hispanic fellow who was there with their drinks. “Dos Equis, Senor,” the host spoke. “I’m sorry we’ve decided not to eat here,” Lipton said. “You still have to pay for the Dos Equis, Senor. I opened the bottle.” “Well, can I get it in a to-go cup?” The short man shrugged his shoulders. “I guess, Senor.” And left for the kitchen. “Now, father, now! This is no time to dawdle!” “But Lip!” Paul said, rather loudly, realizing after he’d spoken just how much it must’ve sounded to the other people like he’d said just one word, buttlip. Finally, Lipton succeeded in getting him to stand, yanking his shirt into all sorts of disarray, and as he stood readjusting himself he noticed Eggs walk casually straight out the front door. Lip had seen it too. The short fellow returned with a Styrofoam cup and a straw still in its wrapper. He handed the cup quickly to Lip, then raced out the front door, seemingly after Eggs. They stood still, father and son, and listened as the window buzzed a conversation of rapid Spanish and one English word (asshole), then watched as the Hispanic host returned inside the restaurant. He nodded at them and headed towards the back. “Hey wait a second there,” Paul said and this time it was he who was leading Lipton through the room towards the kitchen. “Did you just fire Eggs?”

“Eggs, Senor? No eggs. Lunch and dinner.” “Evan,” Lipton spoke, translating if you will. “He wants to know if you fired Evan Barnes.” “No, Senor.” The little man wiped sweat from his brown with the arm the watch was on. It slid back and forth on his wrist. “He quit.” “Just now? Just like that?” Paul asked. “Si, Senor.” “Well, did he say why?” “No, Senor. But he kept his shirt. He’s not supposed to keep his shirt. It’s embroidered.” Paul stood there thinking that perhaps it was just an entire generation he didn’t understand, didn’t get. Why would Eggs do that? What kind of man quits a job in the middle of a shift? Lipton stuck the straw in the cup, making a noise that irritated him in a way he couldn’t explain. He didn’t even want Mexican and now all this had happened! He thought of his girl, the moll with one eyebrow, her pretty face from a time that would’ve made a lot more sense to him than this one did, when Lip finally suggested they might as well sit down and eat.

SIX Another blazing victory! Lipton thought. Two in as many days! And this one had been on enemy soil, a complete ambush that had resulted in his foe’s loss of honor and employment. Oh, how he had forgotten the thrill of the game, and how it had reached new heights now that he was fresh with four years of tutorials. He even had the tiny glimmer of anticipation, a desire to seek his enemy out, just as the green hatchback gurgled into the tiny driveway. “My stomach hurts,” his father bellowed as he brought the car to a clanging halt. “What did I eat?” “Quesadilla, nothing more than flour and cheese, father.” “Well, it hurts, by God.” Lipton opened his door and felt the heat encompass him like a dry shower. “Then it was probably the beans.” The retainer wall between yard and driveway left little room to maneuver out of the car, and he was again fortunate for his slim physique. He thought of his father’s prescribed nicknames for him and Evan, bacon and eggs, and shuddered at the mere stupidity of the image. He did, however, much prefer being called bacon to eggs. “I ate no beans and I feel comfortably full and satisfied.” “Then why didn’t you tell me not to eat the beans?” “Well, they’re beans. I thought you would recognize a bean and know best whether you should or should not eat them. I didn’t see it as my place, or duty, to interfere.” “This is no good, this is no good.” Lipton stood aside to let his father hobble to the door with the only set of keys between them. He’d had a set years ago, but his father’s reaction to him losing them and the cost of having to replace the locks wasn’t worth the trouble of making another copy. Lipton merely left his window unlocked and the screen loose, though at the moment there was more work for him to do at his desk than in the field, so it really was of no consequence anyway. Inside, the house remained hot and Lipton again passed his boxes with a mind of disdain for the effort needed to move them into his room. It was far too hot to do just now, he thought, and retreated to his room while his father spoke of finding antacids. Once there he thought to call Nora and describe this latest turn, but could not find his

phone. His room was a bit of a disaster, a disordered time capsule of how he’d last left it while home the previous Christmas. It had always been a room short on space, but now Lipton thought it looked as if it were gradually compacting and eating itself. On the other hand, his bed was covered in books and he immediately plopped down with the intent of quickly pouring through some of them. In a comfortable repose, Lipton lifted the book nearest to him and tried to recall the title: Upon Guarded Glance. The cover was a somewhat primitive painting of a moonlit lake, and still not recognizing a plot (for he assumed it was no doubt a work of fiction with a title and cover like that), he turned the book toward the middle and page 147. He read: It was then that Madame Stephanie saw the unmistakable rise of power through the cabin boy’s cheap denim. By God! What was this? He clearly was a boy by title only. For underneath, lurked a beast Madame Stephanie knew too well was all man and she hungered for the man-imal to attack its prey. Stepping from the shadow of the elms, she let her figure take form in the light of the moonlit lake. With a mere clearing of the throat, the cabin boy turned to her, and holding her glance, that old guarded glance, she gently dropped her robe. Lipton wondered how he’d possibly overlooked this particular bit of bound debauchery from his shelves all these years, and felt an unmistakable rise of power in his own pleated chinos. He shifted onto his belly, holding the book out in front of him, when from somewhere down the hall his father spoke: “Oh, Lip, I put some things on your bed. Just stack ‘em in my office, will you?” Lipton closed his eyes, then the book, and with a flick of the wrist, sent it sailing end-over-end onto a pile of linens that had been on the floor for who knew how long. He must have a talk with his father, he thought, before he left for Atlanta and possibly for good. First though, he had to find that phone. Starting with mountain number one, Lipton filtered through a garbage bag of clothes for Goodwill and a garbage bag of clothes that looked like they had come from Goodwill, mounds of papers on all sorts of subjects copied for free by his darling Nora at the college library where she worked. Peak number two uncovered a collection of comic books that would have carried some

value perhaps, had they not been water damaged somehow and weren’t growing mold. Finding the whole process ultimately distracting, Lipton shifted his focus to the world beneath his bed, and it was here, hidden by the leg of the headboard, that he rediscovered his one and only picture of her: Marnie Teaks. Lipton’s heart fluttered and his rampant eyes, behind glasses behind the loose fibers from the bottom of the box springs that were stuck to them, blinked wildly when the phone rang from inside the middle drawer of his bedside nightstand. That’s where it was. * * * Marnie Teaks. Twin Peaks. Marnie the Carnie. Marnie Wan Kenobi. Marnie Wan Chablowme. The nicknames were the first thing that came to him, and he knew they were rather cruel nicknames at that, but it wasn’t the hate associated with that name that he remembered first when he saw her face again. No, that would come later, but at first glance, that old guarded glance, it was anything but hate that Lipton felt seeing the young Mrs. Marnie Teaks. Tart and red with curls and freckles, blossoms and bosom, Marnie Teaks in that photo was a wild cherry plus, a genetically enhanced fruit of indescribable taste, ripe and his to be plucked. The phone rang again. “Bonjour mon petit garcon, Lipton!” It was his mother. And yes, she always began a phone conversation this way. And no, she was not French nor spoke a word of it beyond this recycled phrase. “Bonjour mama.” And yes, this is how he always grudgingly answered her. It had gone on for years, nearly as long as he could remember. She left when he was twelve, simple and flat on a Saturday with a man in a truck, and increasingly this tired phone routine was one of the few ways in which Lipton could actively describe his mother to any degree. Their get-togethers were few and far between; she and DJ (a horrendous name for a man over 50 that never failed to make Lipton think of disc jockey) were on the dog show circuit with two beloved behemoth Great Danes and rarely lived in a town longer than three years, though in all their moving they never ventured out of Florida, a state Lipton generally loathed to begin with. It was so hot. And swampy. “How was the graduation?” “Unbelievably boring.”

“Did your father make it?” “Yes. He told Nora I was born with a vagina.” She cackled loudly in Lipton’s ear. Despite her many flaws as his mother, he nonetheless had always appreciated her sense of humor. “Well, I just wanted to call and say congratulations. DJ says congratulations too. You’re his first child to graduate from college, did you know that?” “I’m not his child, mother.” “You know what I mean. Anyway, he’s real proud. Say,” she paused and said something, presumably to DJ, that was spoken away from the mouthpiece of the phone. “You’re not going to be in Ohio on the 28th are you?” Lipton waited to see if he could hear her admired sense of humor pulse its way through the ether and somehow land in the form of a signal, a clue, that she was not possibly being serious. Would he be in Ohio? Why not, Would he be in Atlantis?, the questions were equally irrelevant. Nothing happened. “No, sorry.” “Well, that’s too bad. Guess we’ll have to see you another time.” Lipton looked again at his sweet Marnie and the pings of hurt began to invade the protective mesh of his heart. He solely and squarely blamed his mother and her impossible timing for the sudden onslaught of these feelings, inevitable though they may have been, and passionately wanted to hang up the phone and slam the drawer back into the nightstand. “And how is your father, Lip?” Always she asked this, as if she honestly cared. “He’s good.” And always he responded, one more trick in their routine. “Give him my regards, dear.” But never would he do such a hot false thing. He rolled his eyes and the bland color of his bedroom walls brought out the seahorse in his eye, awaken from its bed of coral for a quick float. They said their goodbyes and Iloveyous, estranged mother and beleaguered son, and Lip sat the phone back in its cradle, leaving the drawer open. He then took the photo of Marnie, that spoiled, rotten corpse of a fruit, and shoved it into the broken copy of his father’s Upon Guarded Glance, tossing both out into the hall and out of his mind. So besieged by the discovery of the photo and the memories embossed within, the rattling

disinterest his mother held in his young bright life, that Lipton set to moving and unpacking his boxes by the kitchen door.

SEVEN Paul lit a cigarette. He didn’t know why, but there was something about finishing up one of his girls that made him always want a cigarette. Sure, there were lots of things that made him want cigarettes, namely every cigarette he’d ever smoked prior to the one he wanted presently, but with his girls it was like clockwork. Yeah, yeah, he knew the old bit about smoking after being with a woman, but he’d never done that with Jenny. Nope, she was a classy woman and what would he have looked like to her lightning up a smoke after doing a thing like that? Like a miserable bum, that’s what. He’d always suspected he wasn’t good enough for her, and eventually he’d been proven right. If he had smoked after being with her, who knows how much sooner she would’ve left? Lipton might not have ever been born, god forbid, and then he wouldn’t have that funny story about his birth certificate. Paul looked then at the moll drawn on the white construction paper he’d gotten at the gas station and wondered if she was the kind of person who let a fellow smoke in the sack. She was young, just a little vixen, and probably didn’t know any better. He sat her on top of the rest, the curled pages of the others clinging to the newbie welcoming her. “Ah ha!” Lipton’s voice beamed from behind, startling him. He turned and saw his son covered with sweat. “I knew you were smoking!” “I’m almost done with it, Lip. Really.” Paul didn’t want to move. He just wanted to sit there. He didn’t mean his son any harm it was just something he needed to do. “Outside!” “Come on, Lip.” “But this was our arrangement,” his son whined. Paul thought an arrangement was generally some sort of compromise, but he didn’t exactly see what he was gaining in this particular instance. “Last one, I swear.” Lipton held up his pointing finger and glared at Paul like a schoolteacher, then stormed off. Paul exhaled and then took another drag off the cigarette. His boy sure was a worry wart sometimes. And that temper! That was something else he’d gotten from his mother, unfortunately. She’d used to get so mad sometimes, he’d taken to calling her a

roman candle: a skinny stick full of colorful fits. He guessed his son was a bottle rocket, though, he swore it seemed like the boy could build up to a fourth of July spectacular if he didn’t learn to relax every now and then. “We have no milk.” Lipton returned with a fresh shirt and his forehead wiped dry. “Or cereal, or quite a few other basic items. I’m going to the store and when I return you’ll be done with smoking inside for the summer. If not, I’ll be forced to take drastic, yet altogether necessary, measures.” Just then Paul thought that it was his son who really needed the cigarette. Irony? That was the word, wasn’t it? He nodded. “Then it’s settled.” Lipton ran a hand through his brown wavy hair, a little long on the sides, Paul thought, but he knew there was really no controlling hair like that. It too was just like his mother’s. “Oh and I’m taking your car.” He nodded again and watched his boy fall out. Cigarette between his lips, Paul turned and in one fluid movement closed and tossed the magazine onto a stack of others against the wall. It was his house, after all.

EIGHT Lipton drove the coughing green hatchback south on Highway 18 towards the grocery store, though there was one closer in the opposite direction. At twenty-two he still refused to go to the nearer of the two because oval Barnbuster had worked there for one week when they were 17, a year into their feud. And now it appeared as if his enemy was still making the rounds of the town’s places of employment; it was only a matter of time before he completed the sequence and returned to the grocery store, which clearly was ever-desperate for employees regardless of prior credentials or demerits. The young night was still insufferably humid, but Lipton kept the window up for fear it would not raise again if lowered, and his father would subsequently transform into all manner of vile creatures upon discovery, though the smoking was as intolerable as anything else he might conjure. This dubious window didn’t bother Lip terribly, as it was one more thing to separate himself from everyone else. Lenoir, it had long been noted by Lipton, seemed to operate socially based upon the awards of an unspoken automotive costume contest. Sure, there were indeed a few very nice vehicles, but mostly the ball consisted of similarly cheap cars adorned with rather expensive accessories. And thus their owners were judged by the dangle of an earring and not the ear itself, an altogether preposterous notion which had infuriated Lipton for years now. In his father’s car, which presently let out a rousing POMMT! while switching lanes, Lipton mocked them all in a way not possible in his own similarly cheap yet painfully unadorned sedan. And there they were! The cars, their dull teenage drivers, parked in the outskirts of the Pizza Village parking lot and across the highway in front of the car wash. Lipton had the urge to shake his fist at them, to drive his father’s hatchback on top of them, in a delicious crunch of rubber-on-metal-on-flesh, like the foot on a grasshopper. Instead, he called them morons, then Lenoirons, under his breath and turned the knob of the deliriously old radio, which produced a slight POP followed by a sizzle that was echoed at every frequency. He needed his own theme song, his own soundtrack, for moments like this, he thought. Yes, this summer was also for theme songs! He counted another new fast food Japanese restaurant as he came to the main intersection of town, bringing the total now to three that Lipton knew about. The joke was that there were more Japanese restaurants in Lenoir than Japanese people, and like

any good joke, it was only funny because it was true. Evan’s most recent employer brought the Mexican eateries count to four, though no one made a similar joke about Mexican people. They had come, like most, to work in the furniture factories, and North Carolina provided the additional incentive of a driver’s license without proof of residence. Lipton cared very little for the plants themselves, their sawdust and smoke no doubt damaging the air regardless of what their publicists claimed, but he understood that the industry was the bread and wine which sustained the town. People always needed furniture. His father’s work at the stair factory was separate but related, he knew, and he couldn’t recall a single instance of his father claiming things were, to use the popular choice, “slow.” Additionally, (although their own house had none) people always needed stairs. Inside, the grocery store was cool and Lipton was surprised to find the vegetables had been recently sprayed with mist. Though the bagman was very obviously a bit (using again the word of the times) “slow,” Lipton was in and out in a comfortable fifteen minutes. Placing the bags in the floorboard behind his driver’s seat, for the actual back of the hatchback had not opened in a number of years, Lipton was sitting with his foot on the gas pedal easing the engine to a drivable GRRDLE-GRRDLE-GRRDLE, when a tall black truck whirred into the space beside him, its horn sounding an ominous bleat. Lipton sighed, knowing full well before he saw him, that the mischievous face of Chance on this day was a two eyed creature. Here was Evan, again. Another ambush! * * * “Wanna go for a ride?” Evan said in that god-awful baritone voice of his, testosterone the unruly colonist. He still wore the green shirt with the embroidered sombrero, leaning across the seat of his truck to look out the passenger window and down at Lipton, who could nearly see his brains through his nostrils, such was the view granted to him. “No, I’m afraid I must get home or else my groceries will spoil.” It’s a little known fact that the Confederate Army had some of the world’s first submarines, Lipton recalled, manpowered tubes that weren’t much more than sizable drops of chum for sizable sharks. And here was a skipper inviting him for a nice relaxing ride on a warm Sunday evening. Such an honor!

“Hmm,” Evan said, the GRRDLE of the hatchback causing his eyes to avert every now and then. “I’ll follow you then.” Before Lipton could respond, the window was up and Evan was backing out of the space, clearing room for the hatchback to do the same in front of him. As he saw it he had little choice. If Evan followed him home there was a very serious threat of another bacon and eggs episode with his father. He could try to ditch him on the way, but his decision to bring the hatchback had proven to be a tactical error on his part, in this regard. There were other options, he was sure, but at the moment he could only think that if this was how it were to be at least there would be witnesses. He shut off the engine and grabbed his bags from the back. “Do you have air conditioning?” he asked. Evan nodded. “Good. Turn it on full blast at the feet.” Lipton climbed into the truck, thinking of submarines and rough seas. * * * The interior of Evan’s truck smelled like Armor All and vanilla. It was as clean as the hatchback was dirty, and Lipton’s shoe slipped across the floor mat as he got in, causing him to kick something in one of the grocery bags with a sound foot. “Careful,” Evan said. “Those are slick.” Lipton buckled his seat belt, a myriad of cynical responses in his mind, though he somehow managed to keep his mouth shut. “See my new player,” Evan said nodding to the dash. Though Lipton had never seen the “old player,” in the slot for the radio was something silver and alive. “23.2 RMS four ways, 7 band EQ, 120 signal-to-noise.” The numbers meant nothing to Lipton, but a brief demonstration proved the new radio could be loud. Very loud. Evan had joined the contestants in the town ball, and to say Lipton was unsurprised is to say he was happy to be with Evan in the first place. At a stoplight, Lipton spoke up, an attempt to save his hearing. “That place is new, isn’t it?” Evan turned down the music. “What’s that?” “That bingo place. It’s new right?” “Yep.” He looked at Lipton. “Why? You wanna stop?” “No, I was just curious.” “Good. Bingo’s gay.” Something was always gay in this town, Lipton remembered, though it rarely was an actual person.

The light changed and Evan gunned it through the intersection up a hill towards the old middle school, which sat on the edge of the worst part of town. Out Lipton’s window was a huge grassy bank that looked down on his father’s stair factory. When it snowed, Lipton remembered, his father used to bring him here to sled with dozens of black kids who lived nearby, but now the bank was empty and dark and the grass needed to be cut. “So, this ride we’re on. Might it have a purpose of some kind?” “I gotta pick somebody up,” Evan said and turned the radio off from a little remote control that was held by Velcro to the dash. That certainly was worth a few masquerade points, Lipton thought. “Anybody I’d know?” Evan laughed short and breathy. “I really don’t think so.” They passed the middle school in silence. Lipton, bored by this very masculine game of not talking, wanted to stare at Evan’s face and try to figure it out, wanted to see in his eyes the place where this hesitation was coming from, what color it was. Mostly, though, he just wanted to go back home. This was not how a civilized battle was fought at all. There were no plans, no method! “Well, what does this all have to do with me?” “Nothing, really.” Evan turned into a curve. The bags shifted on the floor mats. “I just have to do this favor and then I thought we could talk.” Uggh, thought Lipton. Talking. As if all history’s great conflicts were solved by talking. “Perhaps you should do your favor without me and then we could talk at another time.” He phrased it not as a question but a declaration, and wasn’t prepared when Evan did the same. “Sorry. We’re here.” Lipton shifted in his seat. He pushed his bangs back from his face and scratched his beard at the neck. The road now was lined by houses, old skinny houses that needed to be painted or condemned. There were cars in the same condition parked in gravel driveways, and further down the street Lipton saw a group of children dancing moves which all seemed to generate from the crotch and explode out their limbs. Evan pulled into one of the driveways and honked the horn twice.

Impatient, he put the truck in park and opened his door. “Scoot over,” he said and got out. Lipton moved to the middle of the bench seat, bringing his groceries with him, and watched Evan approach the house. He knocked on the door, covered in iron bars, and a young black man answered. The two shook hands. Evan took something out of his pocket and tried to give it to the black man, but the black man waved him off. The children continued dancing and grinding, gyrating and simulating in the street. A second later, the truck doors opened on either side of Lipton. Evan was in first, his brow creased as he stared briefly at the buckled seat belt against his right hip. The black man was then inside and Lipton saw he was big, but not as thick as Evan. He smelled like food, like French fries, and the pale underside of his fingers shone slightly with grease. He had on big dark jeans and a baseball jersey for a team Lipton didn’t recognize, and his hair was cut right up against his skull. “Lipton, B.T. B.T. this is Lipton,” Evan said. Lipton offered his hand, but B.T. was staring at the grocery bags. “I have things that will spoil,” Lipton said. “And this was his idea to begin with.” “You got anything to drink in there?” B.T. asked. His voice wasn’t as deep as Lipton expected, nowhere near as deep or annoying as Evan’s, and he imagined B.T. was much younger than he looked. “Yes, actually. I have some skim milk and a gallon of pure spring water.” Dissatisfied, or disinterested, B.T. shook his head, turned a shoulder into Lipton and pulled a small brown paper bag from the opposite pocket of his jeans. He threw it across the cab into the floorboard by Evan’s feet and it slid back and forth before coming to a stop. “I told you not to pull that shit until we was in the car. I tell you that every time,” he turned to Lipton and continued, “I tell him that shit every time and still he do it. Still. Every god damn time.” “Hey, Lip,” Evan said. “Why don’t you ask B.T. where we’re taking him.” “Fuck you,” B.T. said, wiping his hands on his jeans. Evan looked in their direction, an odd grin visible despite the relative darkness of the cab. “B.T.’s got a little lady, a little white lady, lives over by the Presbyterian church.” He looked directly at Lipton. “Ask him how old she is.”

“Man, nobody gives a shit,” B.T. said slowly, his voice tired more than annoyed. “What you say your name was?” “Lipton.” “Like the Tea?” Daggers shot into Lipton’s heart. How many times had he heard that one? My, what an original mind we have here! “Yes.” “How you know him?” he asked and nodded in Evan’s direction. “Well, we grew up together, in a manner of speaking.” B.T. snorted and shook his head. “And you still friends?” It was a loaded word, friends, and Lipton was sure of the answer, though uncomfortably unsure whether or not he should say it. “Lipton here just graduated college,” Evan announced, on cue, a carnival barker avoiding the kid who has questions about the validity of his freak show. “Just yesterday.” “No shit?” B.T. asked. “No shit,” Evan answered for him. “I was there. He punched me in the stomach.” “What?” B.T. blurted and then was overcome with great chuckles of laughter that struck Lipton as altogether fake, though he was not about to accuse him of such verbally. After a moment, B.T. controlled himself and spoke again. “What you hit him for?” Where should I start? Pete thought, and immediately knew the answer: at the end. “Marnie Teaks.” “Oh,” B.T. said and snorted again. “I know her.” Lipton turned and looked at him, but B.T.’s eyes were somewhere out the window. * * * Evan turned at the rusted city park and they rode in silence toward Church row. Within three blocks of one another were Lenoir’s largest Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian Churches, the triumvirate of architecture and influence in Caldwell County. Evan and Lipton had both grown up Methodist, though the church they attended looked nothing in form like any one of the Big Three. They passed the domed sanctuary of the Methodist and then the pointed steeple of the Presbyterian. A block further and Evan stopped at a modest cape cod on the left. The lights were on.

“You coming back at one, right?” B.T. said, opening the door. Lipton turned to watch Evan shrug his shoulders. “Maybe.” “You wanna see another one of them paper bags, you be here at one.” “I quit,” Evan answered. “This one’s for Lipton.” B.T. looked at Lipton then back at Evan and laughed again like he had when the stomach-punching incident was mentioned. He shut the door and walked towards the house. Lipton immediately slid over, close to the door, away from the middle, groceries in tow, relieved that the point of this adventure might at last make itself known and he could then go home. He was ready to discuss, though he was certain he would concede nothing. “B.T.’s my nigger,” said Evan, the language gluing Lipton to the vinyl beneath him. “He’s a good kid.” Lipton closed his eyes and the truck was moving again. “Do I want to know what’s in the paper bag?” “Weed. You want?” “No, thank you.” “Suit yourself.” “Evan, let me ask you something.” Lipton rubbed his eyes, dry from the air conditioning rising off his groceries. “Why are you giving a drug dealer a ride to his girlfriend’s place?” “Oh, that ain’t his girlfriend.” “Well,” Lipton swallowed, the frustration taking hold. “Be that as it may, why are you doing it?” “Because,” he said, not quite stopping at a stop sign. “He asked me to.” “And you’re going to come back at one in the morning and pick him...” “Hey,” Evan said, finger pointing, no recognition he was being spoken to whatsoever. “I almost forgot. Open the glove compartment.” Lipton let his gaze linger on Evan and then did. On top of a stack of papers, registrations and insurance cards, was a pistol, a little thing, black and somehow childish. This was decidedly not the summer for firearms, Lipton thought and closed the compartment.

NINE Sheesh, Paul thought. Jeez-Louise, Lip sure was taking a long time at the store. They didn’t need that much stuff, he knew. He lit another cigarette, his fifth, and moved in front of the television. It was a small set, color, though not really the traditional colors as everything ended up looking kind of green, and the remote had stopped working a long time ago. He bent over the set, careful not to extend his back, and pushed on the little button that ran through the channels. He wished they would make those things bigger, or just bring back the knob like tv’s used to have. What was wrong with the knob? Who didn’t like the knob? He did. This button was too small and the writing was barely visible above it, so that sometimes he’d hit the volume button instead of the channel button and damn near make himself deaf with the noise. These are the complaints of an old man, he thought. I’m only 51, what am I complaining for? Tomorrow he would go to work at the stair factory, watching over the warehouse and the guys, and the shrink-wrap machine would break down at some point. Tommy would try to turn a five minute problem into a twenty minute break, and then he’d be the one who gets yelled at by Risa up at the main office, where they wore “casuals.” He didn’t like Risa, didn’t like her name. Why couldn’t it just have been Lisa or Rita? What was wrong with those names? They weren’t good enough now? He stopped the button at sight of a commercial for one of those super trucks he liked. They were driving them in the desert to rock music and kicking up dust clouds as tall as houses. Who would take a truck that nice into the desert? He sat on the one cushion of the sofa he left uncovered from mail and receipts, and finished his fifth cigarette. It was even better than the fourth. And where the hell was Lipton?

TEN Evan pulled the truck into the parking lot at the Mr. Omelet and opened the paper bag before cutting the engine. He inhaled the marijuana and spoke quietly, almost to himself: “I didn’t really quit.” “I would like to go home, Evan,” Lipton said. “My groceries are surely spoiled.” “I thought we were going to talk?” “You have a gun. Right there.” He pointed to the glove compartment. “I need it.” “And I’m well aware of that, which is precisely why I am so eager to relieve myself of your presence!” “I thought you liked guns. You used to.” It was true even still; his grandfather was a gunsmith, after all. “Well, not in this context.” “Oh.” Evan sat the paper bag in the seat between them. Lipton scratched his beard and stared out the window at shrubs growing in a designated area of the parking lot. They had recently been shorn, and this upkeep seemed odd to him. Had anyone ever parked, noticed the shrubs, and then changed their mind about eating at an establishment called Mr. Omelet, of all things, due to an unruly limb? It seemed unlikely, but then so were the current circumstances. “Let’s get an omelet,” Evan said. “No, no. I am certainly not going in that dreadful place.” “Now, come on! I know for a fact you like omelets.” “Will you please stop doing that? You have no idea what I like.” “Fine, then. Sit here.” Evan opened his door. “Guess you don’t want to hear about my plan.” He stepped out leisurely and stretched. Lipton didn’t say anything. He rolled his window down. He turned his head to the shrubs and waited to see if Evan would really leave. Finally, he did. Lipton was mad and glad at the same time.

Moments later, Evan was in a booth by the window and waved when he caught Lipton looking his way. “Dammit,” Lipton said aloud and turned away quickly. Thinking there might be a spare key and that he might be able to drive himself home, he checked the visors, the crease of the seat, and lastly the glove compartment. There was no key, but he couldn’t help removing the gun. He held it with two hands, keeping it low beneath the window and out of view. It was cool to the touch although the cab of the truck had become warm in the night’s humidity. Lipton pulled on the gun’s finger, poked out its belly, and saw that it was fully loaded; six shiny teeth in a circular smile. God! What was the dolt thinking? He was sure to shoot himself! And then a car door shut right beside him. Lipton dropped the gun and produced something that sounded like “awaiee-ahh!” from his lips, and waited for a bullet to ricochet through the cab and into his face, or ear, or genitals. He heard voices and didn’t move. Angels? He didn’t believe in the sort. No, it was merely other people in the parking lot. He was alive! Once the voices began to fade, Lipton sat upright and looked out the window. Evan waved again and held up a glass of milk in an imaginary toast. “Bastard!” Lipton said then looked in all directions to make sure no one else was watching. With great dexterity, he buckled over and found the gun in one of the grocery bags next to a tube of toothpaste, and returned it to the glove compartment, intact, safe as it possibly could be, for the time being. A moment’s pause. Exhale. A bag of weed to his left, a gun to his right. Lipton opened his door. If the battle was to be on Evan’s soil, then he would be sure to leave a mighty footprint amidst the muck. * * * Inside Mr. Omelet, smoke and grease combined in a way Lipton expected to coat the lenses of his glasses in thick bile, so he took them off and covered his brow with his hand as he found Evan’s booth. He slid into the booth and immediately reached for the napkin dispenser. “Something wrong?” “I’m allergic to murder.” “Wha’?” Evan said, his mouth full of something soggy and revolting.

“This place, the chemical content in the air, not to mention your mouth right now, is as good as a nuclear outhouse, my friend.” There was that word again, unintentional but alive: Friend. “It’s the airborne assassins that kill you slowly and unknowingly, though that shouldn’t be mistaken as something painless, because it isn’t. I choose to protect myself; fault me if you must.” He held a napkin over his face like a surgeon’s mask. “Did you touch my gun?” “Why would I do such a thing?” Lipton shifted in his seat, looking at the few other patrons to be certain they were caught up in their own disgusting habits as to not notice that Evan had just announced to the world that he had a gun in his truck. “I dunno, I thought I saw you messing with it.” “How can you see anything through these windows? They’re filthy with grease.” “Looked like you ducked your head. You didn’t drop it did you?” “No! Now please, can we just talk about your plan and get out of here? I’ve been in restaurants all day and they’ve only gotten progressively worse.” “Okay,” Evan said and polished off his glass of milk. He turned around to signal the waitress but she was asleep on the counter with her head in her hands. “Airborne assassins,” Lipton mumbled from behind the makeshift mask. “Hmm,” Evan said and turned back around. “Well, what I was wondering was, if you didn’t really have any plans so to speak, maybe you’d wanna come with me to Myrtle Beach.” “What, for like a weekend? Together? Who put you up to this?” “No, no,” Evan said and wiped his lips with his tongue. “I mean to live. I’m gonna get an apartment down there and thought you could be my roommate.” He looked up, his face pudgy and earnest, and smiled a crooked line of anxious anticipation. * * * Lipton was still laughing when they got back in the truck. It was a wheezy laugh, something that took effort, but necessary for Evan to understand what an entirely absurd idea this was. Lipton loathed Myrtle Beach. To him, it was all bad t-shirts and skin cancer; a boiling pimple on an otherwise lovely stretch of Southern back. There was history everywhere for miles and miles near Myrtle Beach and Evan wanted to live in the

one place that continually erased its history with strip malls and cheeky crab shacks, go- karts, waterslides, drunken spring break buffoons, and illiterate country music performers hoping for some sort of “break.” And then the thought of living with Evan, something that seemed as if it had been concocted out of thin air or the loose puff of a joint too many, was just too much! It was like a sit-com, or the pilot of a sit-com, or the idea for a pilot that should’ve been squashed by a rogue squadron of brain cell revolutionaries waving six-shooters and flags. “You know, you woke the waitress doing that,” Evan said starting the truck. “I’m sorry,” Lipton said, finally containing himself. “Truly. But what were you thinking?” He laughed again, louder. “Just drop it all right? I’m taking you back to your car.” Evan put the truck in reverse and eased off the brake without looking. The police officer cruising the lot, no doubt distracted by his own ignorance, apparently wasn’t looking either. His fender hit Evan’s bumper with enough force to send Lipton, whose laughing act had prevented him from buckling his seatbelt yet, jutting forward, left elbow collapsing hard against the glove compartment. The latch gave. The gun slid forward, like a shot glass across a dank saloon bar top, landed on a dimpled cantaloupe in one of Lipton’s bags, and fired a bullet into Evan’s right shin, an inch or two above the ankle. Evan yelped, a high pitched thing that sounded foreign, and Lipton found himself folded like a wad of bills in between the dash and the seat. “Your truck shot me!” Lipton yelled. “Gurgh!” Then, at the sight of blood which was in no way his, the young Mr. Greely passed out.

ELEVEN Nora couldn’t sleep, so she sang instead. “Darple diggle, diggle-do-dee. Look at my dweedle and scriggle-go-pee.” It was a song she knew by heart, from childhood, in a language she invented but had no literal translation. With her, it was all about the sound of things. “Graygull-figgle-miggle-pie-zol!” She held the last note, raising her meek voice dangerously close to a volume her neighbors would be able to hear through the electrical outlets. “Zoooooooool!” She sang, even louder, and finally she heard gibberish through the walls so she stopped. Not that she cared; her neighbors, Jim and Jeff, were two/thirds of a group of pizza drivers who also formed a club of game show fanatics. DR. BARTER was their thing, a show about contestants making dares in order to win plastic surgery, and on the two Monday nights Nora had lived in the apartment she heard chants of boobs! boobs! boobs! come through the electrical outlets in her bedroom. Nora avoided Jim and Jeff as much as possible. It was well after one when the phone rang. “Blaggle,” Nora sighed and walked into her kitchen. Jim had called earlier in the week, inviting her to watch DR. BARTER, the wall between the two apartments so thin she hardly needed the phone, and she had politely blown him off. She was relieved to hear Lipton’s voice on the other end, though slightly upset because he knew he wasn’t supposed to call this late on a work night. It was a rule she had established and repeated. “You must come at once,” he said, his voice urgent. “I’ve been in an accident.” “Glarp!” Nora slipped. “What’s that?” “Are you okay?” “No. I’m very badly bruised. It’s my elbow. They’ve got me in a sling already.” “Aww, slingypants! What happened?” She was thirsty now, her singing having taken a toll on her throat, but wasn’t sure the phone cord would get her to the sink. “Evan smashed his truck into a patrol cruiser. I’m telling you, it’s a miracle we weren’t arrested on the spot. They kept us for hours asking questions.” “Who’s Evan?” She could reach the faucet but not the cabinet. She ran the tap over her fingers.

“The turd I punched in the stomach.” “Oh, right. Is he okay?” “Well, there was some difficulty with a gun he kept in the glove compartment...” “A gun? A real gun?” She shut off the tap and sucked on her fingers. “Yes, I know. He continues to astound me. You should’ve heard what he asked me to do in Mr. Omelet.” “But what happened? With the gun?” “Well, basically he shot himself in the shin. The doctors had to remove the bullet with a pair of pliers.” “Fleeg!” She slipped again. “What? Flee?” “You’re really okay?” “Yes. Are you coming?” “I don’t know. I mean, I have to work tomorrow. It’s my first day.” “Well, surely they’ll understand if your boyfriend was nearly shot.” She considered briefly what this meant, being nearly shot, but now she was too stressed out about work to even ask. And she was so thirsty still. “I guess I could call in the morning.” “Oh crap.” “What?” “Evan’s drug dealer friend just showed up.” “Who?” “T.B. Or something simple like that. Listen, I should go. Please say you’ll come. At least after work if you can’t get off.” “If I can, crashypants.” Their nicknames for each other always had the word pants in them, for some reason. Though Lipton didn’t sound exactly consoled by it at the moment. “I need you.” “I know.” She started to say I Love You but the line clicked to tone. She sat the phone on the cradle and stuck her mouth under the faucet and let it run at full blast. It was like

drinking from a hose. She couldn’t swallow fast enough, couldn’t be concerned when the water bounced off her chin and down her neck. Wet and tired, Nora went back into the bedroom where the lights were already off. She lay on her hard mattress and quietly sang to herself as Jim and Jeff’s intermittent shouting at the TV came through the electrical outlets.

TWELVE B.T. stood in front of the Cape Cod already pissed when Jessica’s brother, Pat, turned off the light on the post he was leaning against. “I’m standing right here, motherfucker!” he yelled, and after a moment the light came back on. Pat stuck his head out the screen door. “You’re still here?” he said, rubbing his eyes. “You see me, don’t you?” “Yeah. I mean, I didn’t, but yeah. I do now.” “Just leave the light on, man. My ride coming any minute now.” This, though, he was starting to doubt. Usually, when he told Evan to do something Evan did it exactly as he told him to. But tonight he was late, and the only thing different about tonight, B.T. knew, was that other guy with him. There was something he didn’t like about that guy, something that seemed to say he knew things nobody else knew, and he planned to let Evan and the scrawny fool know about just as soon as they showed up. If they showed up. “Uhh,” Pat said and stuck his head out a little further. “I’m supposed to turn the light off at one, though. Last time we left it on the Nillsons complained.” “Man, I don’t give a shit about no Nillsons.” “Yeah, but, I don’t want to get in trouble. Last time they took away my keys.” “You let your neighbors take your car keys?” “No, no. Not the Nillsons. Mom and Dad.” B.T. had trouble sometimes understanding how a knock-out girl like Jessica could be related to a fool like Pat. It crossed his mind if their whole thing together was even worth this. “Well, ain’t that a bitch, being without a car.” “Right,” Pat said and B.T. heard the door close behind him. He glanced down the street, furious at the sight of cars in driveways, cars parked against the curb, but no black trucks coming from any direction. The light went out. He kicked the post once for good measure and started walking. The whole night had been nothing but a hot mess. B.T. was bored by midnight, having easily seduced his fourteen year old girl not long after he arrived. He’d suggested they wrestle with the lights off and that was all it took with some of these girls. After he

had done his thing, he’d sat up on the bed and traced his name with his finger on her bare ass as she slept. Poor bird, he’d thought. He had worn her right out. Or maybe it was the pot. He made the period following the T as big as a doughnut and then lightly tapped her cheek with the palm of his hand, making the brand complete. “You awake?” he’d asked, whispering. Jessica turned her head on the pillow, her little pale face reminding B.T. of a cartoon he’d seen. “Banana Berry,” she’d mumbled. “What? You hungry?” “Hnnh,” she buzzed and had shook her head. Without opening her eyes she’d pointed across the room. B.T. turned to see some plush yellow thing on a chair in the shape of a banana with eyes and a mouth and a hair helmet made out of red fuzzy cranberries. “Oh.” He’d picked up the stuffed thing and sat it on the pillow beside Jessica. She’d nuzzled it and smiled. “I’ll talk at you later,” he’d said and she nodded. The sex, the weed, and the banana thing had made him hungry, and there really wasn’t a whole lot else they did together. On the fridge was a picture of the whole Spindler family – aunts, uncles, grandparents, the works – all dressed in matching green turtleneck sweaters. The picture was made on the beach, the same one Jessica’s parents had escaped to for the weekend. Pat, the older brother, was supposed to be in charge, but he was a client of B.T.’s and was easily distracted. B.T. had checked the fridge, found a Styrofoam container with leftover Japanese, and then dug into his jeans pocket for his cell phone to call Evan. That picture was the whitest thing he’d ever seen.

THIRTEEN Officer Charles Pritchard liked the night shift. He didn’t care for his nickname, Charlie Doo-Doo Brown, and at night nobody really bothered him about it. The fellas Tim, Ronnie, and in particular, Marcus Harbaugh, who everybody called Hardbarf, a nickname Marcus thought was cool, didn’t work as many nights as he did. At night, Charlie did his shift and went home; during the day, he’d do his shift and it would follow him. Lenoir was easy at night, too. He’d get people breaking routine traffic laws, drivers who got antsy and brave at red lights when they’d think nobody else was around and things like that, but for the most part it was relatively quiet. That’s why he was surprised to see a black man walking by the Methodist Church. All three of the big churches had been broken into since Charlie had joined the force a year ago and they had yet to name a suspect. He pulled up to the curb and rolled down his window. “Excuse me, Sir.” The man stopped but didn’t look at him. His jeans were too big and he had a hand on his waistband to keep them from slipping. This gesture drove others on the force crazy, Hardbarf in particular, because they always looked at the waistband first when doing a visual check for firearms and knives. Charlie tried not to judge. “Bit warm for a stroll isn’t it? Bit late too.” The man sighed. He tugged on his jeans. “Racial,” he said quietly, slowly, turning his head as he spoke. “Profiling.” “Now, wait a second, I was just...” “Racial. Profiling...” “It’s one fifteen in the morning! I would’ve stopped anybody out...” “Racial,” the man drew it out, louder now. “PROfiling!” “Don’t start yelling, now. That’s disrupting the peace,” Charlie said, pointing his finger, and then remembered they weren’t supposed to do that because nobody took finger pointing seriously anymore. “RACIAL!” the man shouted. “PROFI...!” “All right, all right!” Charlie shouted, matching the man’s voice. “Now we’re both doing it, see? Now we’re both doing it.” The man didn’t say another word, and

unexpectedly smiled a large, sarcastic smile. It didn’t last long and then he was walking again. Charlie took his foot off the brake to catch up with him. “Hey, all I want to know is if you need a ride or a phone or some help or something. In case you hadn’t noticed, there ain’t a lot of other people out this time of night. That’s why I stopped you. I thought you maybe could use some assistance. See, we police officers are actually here to help people, though I know some folks see things a little bit differently. Me, I’m just trying to help, man. That’s all there is to it.” The man stopped again and looked at Charlie. “Bullshit,” he said and started walking. “Hold on, now,” Charlie said, his head hanging out the window as he paced his car with this man in too-loose jeans. “Now, I’m serious. Some young male just got shot tonight a little while ago and...” “I didn’t shoot nobody, man. I got an alibi too. And she’s white.” “No, no, nothing like that.” Charlie never imagined how hard it was to be a good cop. It seemed like lately the harder he tried, the bigger he failed at it, too. “No, this guy shot himself accidentally. A white guy, about 22 years old. Probably not a whole lot older than yourself, I’d bet, and I’m not trying to suggest...” The man stopped in mid-step and turned immediately to Charlie. “What you say his name was?” “Now, see, I can’t tell you that. Privacy laws. I’d be looking at a lawsuit if...” “Was they anybody with him? Another young white dude?” “Umm, yes, matter of fact, I believe there was. But that’s all I’m allowed to say about it, okay?” The man was walking before Charlie could finish, crossing in front of the car and heading to the passenger door. Charlie hit the locks but put his other hand over the can of pepper spray on his belt. He hadn’t really expected the guy to take him up on his offer for a ride, and now he had to be prepared for the unexpected. “I believe you right,” the man said and got in the car. “It is a bit warm and a bit late.”

FOURTEEN Paul opened his eyes and saw an unlit cigarette in his hand. The TV was on and he had no idea what time it was. The cordless was ringing beside him on the sofa, on top of a stack of unpaid bills and credit card applications. He didn’t so much hold onto it as lay it on his shoulder and talk at it. “Greely,” he said, quick and low, but then his jaw dropped open and he was snoring again. The phone barked something indecipherable and fuzzy, and Paul woke again. “Hello?” “Dad, wake up. I’m in the hospital.” It was Lip, his boy. He sat up again and stuffed the cigarette behind his ear. With care he stood up, stretched his back out, and headed for the television set. “What are you doing there, son?” It came out like he was asking about Lipton’s day, and he wiped his face with his hand. “Evan crashed his car. I need you to come pick me up and we’ll go get your car, although I may not be able to drive it due to the bruise on my elbow.” “Someone crashed my car?” “No, dad. Evan. Evan crashed his truck into a police car.” “Who?” “Evan! Eggs!” “Oh. Eggs, right.” He put his finger on one of the set’s small buttons and sent the volume reeling. “Please hurry, I’ve been...Dad? Dad!” “Sorry,” Paul cursed away from the phone and finally found the power button to shut the TV off. “Okay. I’m on my way.” “Ask for me in the emergency room, don’t go to the front desk.” “Will do.” Paul returned the phone to its place on the sofa and pulled the cigarette from behind his ear. It was a fine cigarette, firm and white, one from a pack of many just like it. Tobacco capital of the world, Paul thought. North Carolina. First in Flight. Home of the Panthers. Who shoulda won the Super Bowl, goddamit. Miserable Patriots. Northern bums. I’d trade ‘em all for one lousy cigarette...

Paul snapped his Zippo and came out of his trance as the smoke traced out of his mouth. He had to go get his boy. Oh, good. I can take his car. * * * Lipton’s keys were nowhere to be found. Neither was the phone book. It was in here somewhere, Paul knew, but that didn’t help him at the moment. Even if he found it, he had no cash for a cab, so there was really no point in messing with it. His son was at the hospital with Eggs, Bacon and Eggs needed his help, it was up to him. He dialed the only number he knew by heart, and when Linda’s daughter answered groggily he felt even worse. “Hello, Marnie,” Paul said smoothly, not wanting to startle her. “This is Paul Greely. I really need to talk to your mother.” She obliged immediately. That Teaks girl sure is a sweetheart, Paul thought and waited listening.

FIFTEEN Lipton watched as B.T. stopped at the emergency desk and the elderly woman behind the counter pointed in Lipton’s direction. He shook his head rapidly and turned his back to them, but B.T. had clearly spotted him. Lipton could hear the heavy clomp of B.T.’s boots and the swish of his pants legs brush across the spotless floor, and it was then that Lipton remembered Evan was supposed to have picked this B.T. up at one. Lipton’s watch showed it was pushing 1:30. “Goddamn! I knew it was you!” B.T. said and continued in Lipton’s direction, talking to his back. “Cop says one white boy shot himself and another white boy with him, I thought who else could it be?” Lipton turned around slowly. “Yep. You sure were right, T.B.” “It’s B.T.” He stopped walking just short of Lipton’s face. Lipton flinched and pulled his sling close to his body. “Evan alive?” B.T. asked. “Yes, though...” “We need to talk.” B.T. placed a dry hand on Lipton’s neck and led him into the men’s room. Once inside, he checked under the stalls and, satisfied that there was no one there, put his back up against the room’s door so no one would walk in. Lipton thought it was all a bit dramatic for someone who had been left waiting outside for barely thirty minutes. Clearly the circumstances warranted a measure of understanding on his part, though the look in his eyes suggested that this wasn’t likely. “Where’s the bag?” “What bag? And why are we in the men’s room? Surely you understand why we couldn’t pick you up at one.” “The bag, man. The paper bag.” “Oh, right. The marijuana.” B.T.’s arm flung out and his hand covered Lipton’s mouth. “You call it the bag, all right?” Lipton nodded, but wasn’t amused. He turned his eyes away briefly and the sterile walls sent his seahorse galloping into the open. “Where’s the bag?” B.T. questioned again, commanding his attention. “How should I know where the bag is? I nearly died.” “Does Evan have it?”

“He didn’t when I passed out. Maybe as he was writhing in pain with a bullet in his shin, he thought to grab it and roll himself a...” B.T.’s hand went back on Lipton’s mouth. “I don’t like you, man.” Lipton could smell Japanese food on B.T.’s fingers. He wondered where else those fingers had been, and he tried to pull back, but B.T. increased the pressure on his jaw. “Something about you makes me want to shut you up,” B.T. spoke. “Even though you haven’t really said that much. So, unless you want me to do that for you right now, which I guess would be less of a blow seeing how we in a hospital, though I really don’t think you want to find that out, then you need to stop being Mr. Fucking Smartypants and answer my question.” Lipton’s mind flashed to Nora, though he knew it wasn’t the time or place. “The reason,” B.T. continued, “that we need to find the bag is that the bag could send all of us, and let me assure your ass I would indeed be taking y’all fools with me, to jail. Now do you understand about the bag?” Lipton nodded. He tried to speak, but B.T. wasn’t granting permission just yet. “Since you don’t know where the bag is, and since Evan’s a dumb cracker who shot himself, then would I be right to assume that the bag might still be in the goddamn truck?” Lipton nodded again. “Now, be careful.” B.T. loosened his grip on Lipton’s jaw and finally removed his hand. Lipton took in a big breath of bathroom air. “Where’s the truck?” “In the Mr. Omelet parking lot. Unless it’s been towed already. If it has...” “Stop talking. Let’s just hope it hasn’t and leave it at that.” B.T. opened the door and held it for Lipton. Catching his reflection in the mirror, Lipton could see the outline of B.T.’s fingers across his face. It looked sort of like he had grown an extra set of lips. “You talk to Evan,” B.T. said. “Have him call my cell as soon as he’s able. If he knows something and he isn’t able, then you gotta do it. You’re in this too, man. Whether you like it or not don’t count for shit.”

SIXTEEN Charlie Doo-Doo Brown. Now, how was he supposed to bring a nice woman home with that hanging over his head? He could try to hide it all he wanted, but she’d find out eventually; this town was too small for those kinds of secrets, he knew. Of course, Charlie wondered where he was supposed to meet this nice woman in the first place. That was the downside to working nights, and it was a big one, but he could live with it. He was barely twenty-five years old. He had time and she’d find him. He just had to keep being himself, a good cop, and stay away from Hardbarf. And if anybody ever told his woman that his nickname was Charlie Doo-Doo Brown, then he’d say well at least it wasn’t Hardbarf, which technically was worse because Doo-Doo wasn’t even in the dictionary and barf was. He’d checked. Charlie listened as someone at the station used the police radio to ask a question about last week’s episode of DR. BARTER, and then rolled down his window as he saw B.T., the black man he’d taken to the hospital, walk out the emergency room doors. “How’s your friends?” Charlie asked. “Stupid.” B.T. leaned against the car door. “Doctor said they can’t cure it, neither.” “Keeping a firearm in your vehicle is playing with matches,” Charlie said shaking his head. “I’ve seen it happen before.” The truth was he hadn’t seen anything like it before. The truth was he’d never even heard his own weapon fire while on duty, never even taken it out of its holster. And now that he could connect B.T. to these two guys who were in the accident, he thought he might be able to find out exactly what they were doing with a gun in the first place. “So, need a lift home now?” “Nah, I tell you what I need,” B.T. said looking to the side as a car pulled into the parking lot. Charlie saw them too and wondered if it was another emergency or a friend or family member of someone already inside. “Name it,” Charlie said. “Omelet.” B.T. lightly slapped the inside panel of the door with his hand. “I need me an omelet, man.” * * *

It was a short drive from the hospital to the Mr. Omelet, and Charlie radioed in that he was going off-duty for a restroom break. The station operator asked about DR. BARTER, and Charlie told her not to do that. B.T. sat with his elbow out the window, a small but effective breeze cooling the patrol car. He seemed so relaxed to Charlie, the exact opposite of how most people acted in his car. Usually anybody he took for a “joyride” couldn’t help but to touch everything and ask about all the different buttons and the siren and lights. His brother, Keith, had nearly gotten him chewed out one time for turning the floodlight on an unmarked State Trooper. But B.T., whatever that stood for, sat there like he was Charlie’s partner. In a way, Charlie thought, he guessed B.T. was his partner for the moment, because he knew they could help each other. That is, if B.T. would talk. “So, tell me. What’s B.T. stand for anyway?” “Black and tan,” B.T. said, calm and cool. “My father’s from Cuba, mom’s as dark as the street.” “No kidding. That your real name?” “Nah, man. I ain’t telling you that.” “Why not? You worried I’m gonna run it in my computer here when you get out?” Charlie smiled. It hadn’t really occurred to him until then, but that was exactly what he would do if he could get B.T. to tell him his real name. “Nah, it ain’t that. Though I know you would, so stop lying.” He looked at Charlie with intense, dark eyes, and Charlie immediately turned his attention back to the road. “Shit’s embarrassing. You want my real name, you gonna have to take a fingerprint, because I ain’t giving it up. No, sir.” “All right,” Charlie said nodding. They hit the light at Smith Crossroads, buying him some more time for his unofficial interrogation. “Well, how about you tell me why your buddies are keeping firearms in their glove compartment.” “’Cause they stupid. I told you that.” “And you don’t know of any reason why these guys would feel threatened or scared enough to make them do something so stupid?” “Nope. Least not for Evan. I don’t know that other little dude, so I can’t speak for him.”

“Right, but this Evan was the driver right? The report says the weapon belonged to the driver.” “Yeah, it was his truck.” The light changed. Charlie crawled the patrol car into motion and through the intersection. The Mr. Omelet was in sight. “And you’re saying you don’t know this other guy? Maybe it’s possible Evan put the gun in there because he was afraid of this guy, the little dude?” “Nah, I ain’t said that, man. All I’m saying is, I don’t know that dude and I don’t like him.” B.T.’s shoulders moved as he spoke, suddenly animated. “If it’s me, I got no reason to be afraid of little man, no need for a gun even if he did try to pull something. But then I ain’t Evan, so who knows?” “Right. Who knows.” Charlie turned into the Mr. Omelet parking lot. There was some glass still on the ground where this Evan’s truck had collided with Officer Cooley’s cruiser, but both vehicles were long gone by now. If it were a coincidence, this kid B.T. wanting to go to the scene of a crime involving people he admittedly knew, then he would say his silent apology for judging the young man to who ever it was listening. But Charlie’s mind had been racing ever since B.T. brought up the omelet, and his gut was telling him this kid wanted something from that truck. This is it, he repeated to himself silently, a real investigation. And it was all his. “Well, here we are,” Charlie said, stopping the car at the front door. He watched B.T. carefully for any telling gestures, but the kid was good. “Thanks, man,” B.T. said and opened his door. “You a good cop.” Charlie nodded as B.T. stepped out of the car. “Enjoy your omelet,” he said but he was thinking of something far different. He watched the kid go into the restaurant and slowly drove off.

SEVENTEEN Though he understood completely that there was no chance they would be lovers, Paul was surprised and comforted when he and Linda had become good friends, just as she had suggested. He didn’t know anyone else in town who would’ve wanted to give him a ride to the hospital at half past one in the morning, but she had agreed and come immediately. She even brought her daughter Marnie with her, and both of them seemed genuinely concerned about Lip. The Teaks were good people. And, boy, were they both pretty. Any old fool could tell they were mother and daughter just by looking at them. They had red hair, curly like one of those Raggedywhatchamacallit dolls his Jenny used to make, but they were natural curls that didn’t look like they were stuck together with glue like some of the girls in town wore them. Paul had met Linda and Marnie at church, when they joined after Linda’s husband passed away from some cancer, and Linda had been in his Sunday school class. She was always baking things, good things too, and bringing them in for everybody to eat, even though her husband had just died. Paul thought she was just a real sweet lady, tall and fit, and really he didn’t know why she even bothered with him, but it seemed liked she was always going out of her way to talk to him in a way she didn’t do with anyone else. Maybe it was the fact that they were the only two people in the class without a spouse. Whatever it was, after five or six months he finally asked her out. Two dates later, she said she just couldn’t do it yet, wasn’t ready for that kind of thing, and he understood and didn’t give her a hard time about it, like he knew some guys would. She wasn’t ready and that was that. He felt lucky just to have the two dates. “I’m here for my son, Lipton Greely,” Paul said to the older lady at the reception desk in the emergency room. Linda and Marnie stood behind him, Marnie fishing in her pockets for change for the snack machine. She’d said in the car she was hungry, and he again felt like a numbskull for not even having a dime on him. There was probably a couple dollars worth of quarters in an ashtray he used to put other stuff in at home, but he hadn’t been smart enough to think of it. The old lady pointed to the waiting area just to their right, and sure enough there was Lip with the newspaper in front of his face, always reading. On second thought, it

seemed to Paul like his son was hiding behind the newspaper, and why on earth would he be doing a thing like that? “Lip?” Paul said, and finally his boy lowered the newspaper. He smiled and seemed surprised to see them, but there wasn’t another soul in that room and how would he have not noticed them come in? “Ah, there you are.” Lipton stood carefully and Paul saw the sling on his left arm made of bright blue cloth. That was good, he thought. Lip’s favorite color was blue. “How’s the wing?” Paul said and put his hand gingerly on his son’s opposite shoulder. It was something he’d seen a doctor do on TV once, and thought Linda might be impressed by the gesture. “Quite sore.” Lipton glanced briefly over Paul’s shoulder. “Might I have a word with you in private?” “Sure, but listen,” Paul said and turned his body towards the lovely Teaks women. “I want you to meet some people. This is Linda Teaks and her daughter Marnie. I couldn’t find your keys, so they gave me a ride. Isn’t that nice of them? They both wanted to make sure you were okay. Eggs too. Isn’t that real nice of them? At one o’clock in the morning?” Lipton agreed and said thank you, but then pulled Paul a few steps to the side. It seemed sort of a rude thing to do in Paul’s eyes, yet his boy had just been in an accident so maybe he was still a bit shook up. And Eggs had hit a cop car, no less! On second thought, Paul bet it was the cops who shook his boy up a bit, and he couldn’t keep himself from ginning slightly. “Evan’s prognosis isn’t good,” Lipton said quietly, Paul’s demeanor changing instantly. “I don’t want you to say anything to Mrs. Teaks and her–” Lipton paused, seemingly making an effort to swallow, “daughter.” Paul looked over his shoulder at the two red hairs, all those curls, and winked at Linda because he thought she looked concerned. “Just tell them I need to stay here awhile longer for some figment of a test, and have them take you to your car, and then send them on home.” “Where is my car?” “It’s in the Food Lion parking lot.” “Well, why did you go all the way over there? The Winn-Dixie is–”

“Never mind that,” Lipton interrupted, raising his voice slightly. “Just go and let them go back to sleep, and then come back directly here. And remember, speak nothing of Evan.” Hearing some other noise, Paul turned and saw a sort of squatty looking lady with short blond hair who obviously knew the Teaks. The woman was hugging Marnie and when she pulled away, Paul knew then who she was. It was Mrs. Eggs. The poor woman, he thought. Had she heard her son’s prognosis? He turned back to Lipton, but his own son was nowhere to be seen.

EIGHTEEN Rapturous gaze, it was her! Carnie Peaks! In a quick glance (guarded an unfit adjective, and never mind that dirty yarn), Lipton had seen the evolution of his cherished photograph alive and in the flesh. And oh, how she had evolved! In four years she was long and luxurious; her skin bore the tempered bronze sheen of precisely the right amount of sun; her crimson curls were more relaxed, loosened no doubt by the grace of maturity; her wardrobe, jeans and soft rouge tank top likely plucked from the floor in a moment’s rush, fitted against a body that was full of all the womanly things she had not yet acquired at the taking of the dear, dear photo. She stood here, Marnie Teaks, in the emergency room lobby of the Caldwell County Memorial Hospital, strikingly dazzling and all at once adult in so many ways Lipton, cowering in a stall of the men’s room, knew he was not. The question that plagued him then was simple yet complicated: had she come for him? Or had she come for Evan? It seemed unlikely that his father would remember Evan’s full name, and even so, there was no guarantee it would have even come up in the conversation between father and Teaks on the way to the hospital. On the other hand, surely one of the elegant women would have asked what happened, most likely Marnie since she and Evan had a sort of, it pained him to say, history together, and he had clearly told his father the nucleus of the events as they had unfolded. And now Evan’s mother was here and there appeared to be no hesitation, no stutter between the two parties in the moments before Lipton seized the opportunity to scurry away to his present foxhole. There was, he then supposed, another option altogether, where Marnie had come under the pretenses of seeing Evan, only to reveal then her true desire to see he, petit garcon Lipton. Of course, this then provoked yet another option of a situation entirely vice versa. Blast! Lipton thought. There was even another completely separate question that was perhaps the most curious of all: what was his father doing with the Teaks? The door opened. Lipton quickly stepped on the toilet, removing his feet from any line of sight. “Lip?” It was his father. “You in here?” His father’s heavy feet shuffled across the tiles. “Are you alone?” Lipton asked, his hands cupped over his mouth so his voice might not give away his position just yet.

“Yeah. You sick or something?” Hmm. It was not the most original excuse, but it could work. “Yes, I’m afraid I am.” “Where are you? I don’t see any feet.” Damn. “You know I won’t sit on any public facility.” That much was true, though the room was exceptionally clean. Still: airborne assassins. “You want me to get a nurse or something?” “No. Just go ahead and go on to your car, and I should be fine by the time you return. It’s nothing, really, dad.” “Well, everybody else went to go see Eggs.” Lipton stepped off the toilet. He was too late. The wheels were turning and Evan’s sympathy card was already in play. For just a moment, he wished the bullet had hit him instead. “Yeah, that was his mother that showed up,” Paul continued. “Remember her? Tina?” “Yes,” Lipton said dryly. Of course he remembered her. If ever there was a surrogate mother, it was Tina. When his own mother split, Tina was the first to actually ask him how he felt about it, something both of his parents had overlooked. “She said old Eggs is doing okay. Gonna be limping around for awhile, but it didn’t hit nothing major.” “Oh. Well it’s a miracle, then.” Lipton stared into the starch white toilet, the clear water calling his seahorse out for a swim. He moved his eye, closing the other, steering his steed in rapid figure eights and large ovals that gradually closed in towards the sinkhole that led to the sewers. “Sure is. Lucky, that Eggs. Problem is Tina’s got a three story house and she can’t get a lot of time off right now to keep an eye on him.” His father’s voice sped up, unreeling a story - his piece d’exposition - that Lipton intuitively could tell was coming to an altogether blasphemous resolution. He closed his open eye, effectively breaking the leg of his seahorse, and prepared for the worst. “So I told her Eggs could stay with us for awhile until he got back on his feet.” A musket load of powder to his face. “You know, since you’re not really doing anything during the day.” A cannonball to the knee.

“You guys’ll probably have a lot of fun, I bet.” A saber across the gut, spilling intestine. “I’ll just wait in the lobby.” The door opened and closed. Lipton turned, sat on the toilet, a thin layer of fabric his only protection against imminent and untold disease, and wondered of all the men ever slain in all the great battles of the world, if any were ever so desperately and unutterably misunderstood as he felt at that very moment. Yet, he was not slain, and having survived the tumult of the initial invasion, Lipton also knew that only a fool would remain in a bunker thought to be impenetrable; it was really a matter of where one wanted to be miserable. The door opened again. “Say–” Father once more. “Where were your car keys anyway? I looked all over.” Lipton chose not to answer. Naturally, like the stones of the suicidal swimmer, they were in his pocket even now. * * * Lipton’s elbow hurt. He sat beside his father, who was engulfed in a golf magazine, in the lobby and waited for nearly an hour before Evan was at last released. It was time not wasted, as he sought the solution to his impending predicament with great thought, starting brief conversations with his father whose refrain was always I already said we would, Lip, but ultimately he had nothing to show for his efforts. As the foursome of two Teaks, Tina, and Barnacle Breath, who was in a wheelchair by God, the crippled lead in their V formation of tired geese, Lipton decided his immediate strategy would be one of silence, the old standby. If he could just get home, alone and safe in the privacy of his room, then he could process this situation much more successfully. It had been a whopper of a day, one he wished to erase altogether. His father stood and Lipton did the same, with some embellishment. They were both hurt, after all, and he did not intend on letting the others forget this. Evan nodded at him, looking dim and clearly medicated, something Lipton was sure he was enjoying, no doubt. His mother, the hard-working Tina, now held her face with more disappointment than concern for her son, the realization that he had been shot by his own bullet working all manner of scolding arguments in her head for when he was of the proper mind to hear

them. The elder Teaks waved at his father, a polite smile bracing her lips, and this left only Marnie to be judged, though Lipton was incapable of letting his eyes linger on her for more than the briefest of instances. He noted she looked sleepy and nothing else. The group fully assembled, they headed to the door with the parents doing all the talking, save for a few indecipherable mutterings from Evan. Outside, under the great cement awning, arrangements were made and Lipton’s father somewhat awkwardly insisted on walking Linda to her car, while Tina went for her van, leaving the three of them, that dated triangle, alone for the first time in years. Evan was the first to speak. “Where’s she doing?” he said, his words a typographer’s nightmare. “It’s okay. She’s just going to get the car,” said Marnie softly, her voice a dead- on mimicry of all things Lipton understood as motherly (with the exception of his own, of course). “Potato?” Evan responded, the sedated buffoon. “Who old is eat?” “Relax,” Marnie said and yawned. “You’re not making any sense.” It was then that she turned her shoulder slightly and at long last spoke to Lipton, not with her mouth or starving eyes, but with that subtle shoulder. “How are you, Lip?” “Tremendous,” he said, the perfect tone of cynic hostility in his voice that he had rehearsed, but never had the chance to say directly to its intended listener, so many years ago. Lipton watched, waiting for her stubborn shoulder to falter, but Marnie held her ground. “Your father says you’ve just graduated and have a nice girlfriend,” her shoulder pressed on. “I’m happy for you.” Lipton kept quiet, adjusted the sling on his neck. At last, her shoulder gave and Marnie turned facing him, a faint smile in the middle of all those bloody curls that was neither meant to be an apology or an insult, merely recognition of things being the way they were, the way they had been for some time now, the way in which they came to be. “How the hell is that person?” Evan mumbled loudly as Linda pulled her car underneath the awning. “Call me,” Marnie said turning away once again. “I can help with him.” Lipton watched as his father got out, held the door for the young Mrs. Teaks, and then sent mother and daughter on their way home to get some sleep. He waited for her to turn

around, to wave, to anything before they pulled out of the parking lot, but he only saw the back of those two gorgeous red tops disappear into the quiet Lenoir night. As Tina pulled her van in for the crowd of remaining men, Lipton kept playing those two words over and over again in his mind: call me, call me, call me, call me, callme, callmecallmecallme... Well, maybe he would.

NINETEEN Shit. B.T. waved off the waitress with the coffee pot and set his cell phone on the table when he heard Evan’s message click on. The truck was gone and that dumbass didn’t have his phone turned on. For all he knew, the phone was in the truck with the bag of weed he’d sold, waiting for the cops to go through all of it and then they’d come after him. Dumbass. He knew better than to think those cops would give a damn about a white boy buying weed; they’d want the nigger who sold it to him and then things would really get hot. Yeah, then things would be real fun. They’d put him on the stand and then what was he supposed to do? Tell them his drug ring was nothing but three dumbass white boys he knew from going to parties? That his big brother Terry was the one who gave it to him in the first place? That he didn’t even smoke? That he’d heard somebody say half of it wasn’t even weed? Yeah, Officer Charlie would sure believe that one. Fool was probably on his way to wherever they towed that truck to right now. Soon as he finds the bag, he goes to Evan and the whole thing comes crashing down. Wasn’t nothing he could do about it now. Shit, he didn’t even know how he was gonna get home. B.T. took a sip of his coffee and looked up to see some old white dude staring at him again from another booth. B.T. put the mug down and stared back, done with being messed with for one night. The dude looked like he was sixty or something and had gray hairs and gray stubble. If he’d been dressed differently, B.T. would’ve thought he was a bum or one of them crazy God freaks who stand around all day holding a sign with some Bible verse on it. “Can I help you,” he said, the white guy refusing to turn away. “You Kizzy Maxwell’s boy?” the dude said, his twangy voice labeling him nothing but Grade A redneck in B.T.’s mind. “That’s right. You know my momma?” B.T. tried to talk without blinking. He wasn’t taking no shit from some old white man. “Worked right beside her for the past five years.” “Larry,” B.T. said, recognizing a man he’d never met before. His mom assembled fabric swatches for Kincaid and it seemed like everyday she had some story or

another about this Larry cat. If he’d done half the shit he’d told her, then this dude was a regular outlaw. “Your mom’s got your picture on a piece of cork in the break room. I thought it was you the moment you came in here.” Larry coughed loudly, violently. That was another thing B.T.’s mom had told him about. “Your momma know you out this late?” Shit. Now he had to worry about being told on. B.T. didn’t answer him. “Hell, don’t worry about me,” the old cat said drinking from his mug. “I ain’t gonna tell. Might not even make it to work tomorrow, seeing as how it’s pretty late and I ain’t been to bed since Friday.” B.T. cracked a smile. This dude was crazy as hell. “You in some kind of trouble with the cops? I seen you get out of one of them’s car.” “Nah,” B.T. said, thinking not yet at least. But he was going to be, he knew. Only hope he had now was to talk to Evan. And then convince him to put the blame of the skinny fool Lipton, whose name was just like the dumbass tea. “Well, good,” the old man said. “That’s the biggest bunch of organized idiots and assholes I ever seen in my life. I’d just as soon put my tax dollars in a hot air balloon and float the son of a bitch to fuckin’ Mexico and let them shoot it out of the goddamn sky.” His voice was loud and B.T. couldn’t help but look around to see if anyone else was listening. Only the waitress stared back, and the crazy old dude took that as his cue to get up form his booth. “Come on, kid,” Larry said leaving change on the table. “I’ll give you a lift home.” B.T. watched him carefully, still a little unsure whether or not it was such a good idea to be getting in a car with this man. His options though, he knew – as he had felt every long day of his life, every time he breathed practically – were limited.

TWENTY Charlie circled the station parking lot and saw what he was looking for: a big black truck with a dent in its bumper and a smashed taillight parked away from the other cars. He quickly put the cruiser in park, and got out. Please, please, he whispered in the humidity, but he let his head drop when he checked both doors and found the truck was locked. He would have to go inside. He didn’t like doing that. Dorsey winked at him as Charlie passed her circular desk. She was a little circular herself, four months pregnant, and more than happy to tell everyone about it, particularly the disgusting parts which made Charlie rethink the idea of having kids himself once he settled down with a nice woman. Dorsey was a nice woman all right, moderately attractive even now, but he just didn’t like how candid she was about her clam – that’s what she called it – always saying her clam had finally made a pearl. First of all, he thought oysters made pearls, and second of all, that was just unprofessional. “Charlie, sweetie! Keeping the streets safe?” Every time she called him sweetie, or cutie-patootie, or sahootie-sue, which he didn’t even know what the hell meant, and always that wink like she had a crush on him even though she was pregnant. “That’s me, Dorsey,” Charlie said, jovial-like as always, simply incapable of telling a woman how he saw things. “Good, good. Keep the bad guys from trying to steal this pearl from my clam and if it’s a boy, we’ll call him Charlie! I bet you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” She smiled a great big indecent smile and Charlie felt his stomach turn. “Sure,” he said. “Listen, do you know where the keys are to that black truck out there? The one that was involved in the accident with Officer Tuttle?” “Sure do, sahootie-sue,” she said and pushed back in her chair to reach another part of the desk. She tossed him a small envelope, the keys inside. “Going to take it out for a joyride? I hear it has quite the stereo system.” “No,” Charlie said, pulling the keys from the envelope. “Just looking.” “Oh, they’ve already done that. Didn’t find nothing but a bunch of spoiled groceries. Yeah, they had to throw them all out before the smell got too strong.” This news disappointed Charlie, but it didn’t change his plans. He didn’t know what he was looking for but, just like on all those detective shows, he knew there was

something to be found in that truck and it was up to him to find it. He was going on instinct and even Dorsey and her clam couldn’t ruin the rush he felt from it. * * * With the doors open, Charlie searched every inch of the black Ford truck for almost a half an hour. He was supposed to be out making his rounds, and every few minutes he would tell himself that he just had to stop and get back to the work he was assigned or else he was going to get chewed out by somebody, maybe Hardbarf, who would enjoy it to the fullest, but every new dark space held the promise of the almighty clue. There was blood still drying on the driver’s side floor mat and he had to be extra careful not to leave some artificial indentation in it. Part of the cab smelled like cantaloupe even with the air coming through, and Charlie noted that Dorsey had been right about the stereo system which looked pretty new and pretty cool to him. Finally, the batteries in his flashlight started to give out and the third time the light blinked, he decided to take it as an omen. And that’s when he came across a paper bag sticking out behind the hard plastic casing just below the steering wheel. That it was there, in that particular location, creased and forced, Charlie knew, was no accident. Someone had shoved it in there. As Charlie moved cautiously with baited breath, he thought of a golden pearl inside a paper clam, and opened the bag. It was empty.

TWENTY-ONE Paul drove the hatchback, his green Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, through the quiet night streets, wishing he could’ve just left it in the grocery store parking lot for good. Some sleeping person was liable to call the cops and complain of the noise, or just take aim at them with a shotgun or something. And he didn’t really blame them. Lip, his injured boy, sat beside him so quiet Paul thought for a moment he had drifted off to sleep, something he was wishing he could do himself as soon as possible. But first he had to get them home and get ready for Tina to bring Eggs over with a change of clothes. He didn’t exactly know where they were going to put the poor kid, but he knew it was the right thing to do. They’d figure something out. Lipton stirred, clearing his throat, and rolled up his window. Paul still thought that bit he pulled with the newspaper when those wonderful Teaks ladies came in was a little odd, and then Lip had ran off to the bathroom and said he was sick even though he was standing on the toilet, and Paul for the life of him didn’t know how that was supposed to work. Lip had really been shaken up, he guessed. “Are you feeling okay?” Paul asked as the car let out a vicious POMMT! scaring a bird from a power line. “If you must know, no I’m not feeling okay,” Lip said quietly. “If you must know, I have the unshakable suspicion that inviting Evan to stay with us was an act of impending doom. If you must know, I’m rather disappointed in you dad.” Paul turned and looked at his boy. His son was shaken up all right, but there was no call for saying something so hurtful, really. “Come on, Lip. It’s the right thing to do.” “Yes, but I only wish that I would be consulted every now and then on these decisions of what’s right and what’s not.” “But you were in the bathroom, son.” “I told you I was sick.” “You were standing on the toilet seat.” “Father, please!” Lipton said, raising his voice and slapping an imaginary fly on the dashboard with his good hand. “This whole scenario has so little to do with me it’s excruciating.”

Paul raised his hands from the wheel as if he were refusing a gift. They traveled in relative silence to the stoplight at the golf course where Chitty Chitty let out a BANG! BANG! as they came to a stop. The night was still warm and the moon was full. Paul thought it would be an excellent night to play a couple holes, though technically he’d be trespassing if he did so, and technically he didn’t own a set of clubs. Really, he just wanted to go to sleep and get to the stair factory, so he could come home and go to sleep again. He didn’t think Lipton could understand that. The light turned green and they GRRDLE-GRRDLE-GRRDLED into the intersection. “How do you know Mrs. Teaks?” Lip asked once the car quieted, catching Paul off guard a bit. Was this what was rubbing his boy the wrong way? The thought hadn’t even crossed his mind. “She joined our church,” Paul sighed. “You know her late husband had cancer? Her and Marnie joined after he passed away. They used to go to some other place but she said she couldn’t bring herself to go there anymore without him. Sad story, really.” Paul left it at that, but wasn’t the least bit surprised when Lipton didn’t. “So now that she’s a member of the congregation she makes herself available for all late night emergencies? Seems a bit forced, doesn’t it.” They were almost home. Paul could smell his bed, his pillow, his girls. “No,” Paul said defensively. “She started coming to my Sunday School class and me and hit her just hit it off real well. We have things in common and she’s a nice lady, so I asked her out for a date. We went out twice and nothing happened and now we’re just good friends. She’s a nice woman, Lip. You shouldn’t judge what we got.” “Well, I have my reasons,” Lip said and turned away. Boy was he acting like a teenager again. Paul was glad it wasn’t Lip who had taken a bullet, as he couldn’t imagine how his son would act if he were really hurt. And who did he thinking he was criticizing what he had with Linda? That was entirely uncalled for. He had a couple questions of his own he wanted to ask. “Hey, why don’t you tell me what you two knuckleheads are doing with a loaded gun? You know you could’ve gotten killed? And now we still have to buy groceries tomorrow.”

“I don’t know. You can ask your beloved Eggs when he wakes from his morphine high sometime tomorrow. It was his gun, his bullets, and rightfully so, his leg that took the hit, because it was his eyes that weren’t watching which car he was backing into. He has a gun because he thinks he needs one, which apparently is not an unfounded belief, though I’ll let him explain those reasons for fear of indicting myself in a situation I had absolutely no desire to be in whatsoever.” Paul liked to think of himself as a moderately smart man, (he was smart enough to be warehouse manager at the stair factory) but sometimes when his son talked he couldn’t help but tune it all out. Lip had a way of complicating things that didn’t, in Paul’s opinion, need to be complicated, and right now he was just too tired to try and filter out the complicated stuff to get to the heart of the matter. “Okay,” he said, and with one final POMMT! to announce their arrival they were home.

TWENTY-TWO Lipton entered the dreadfully hot house and went immediately to his room, the soldier returning at last to his humble tent after taking a load of shrapnel during the rigors of battle and spending an unkind eternity in the overwhelmed infirmary, rejoining his remaining men only to learn the war still wages in the morning. With the shuffle of his working arm, he cleared his father’s books off his bed and carefully splayed his body out in the outline of a snow angel with one wing shorter than the other. On second thought, he rose and uncovered that horrible excuse for literature, Upon Guarded Glance, from a pile of others and retrieved the photo within, young Marnie, devolved from the present image running through his mind of the woman whose shoulder he had come to know so well a short time ago. He returned to the bed, let the photo rest on his chest, and closed his eyes. With the light on above him, his seahorse (he really ought to think of a name for the thing) appeared instantly beneath his left lid, calmly enjoying the murky water, when the doorbell went ka-thud, yet another thing in the house his father had let lapse into a state of malfunction. “They’re here, Lip,” his father yelled from somewhere down the hall. Well, of course they were. Why would Tina waste any time looking after her dear Evan, when she had Nurse Lipton available for round-the-clock duty? With strength he didn’t know he had, or perhaps out of sheer resignation, Lipton rose from the bed once more and headed to the front of the swampy house. Like the fool who let in the vampire, Evan, his enemy, was now to be his guest. * * * At the door, Tina stood spherical like her son, the moon to his sun, pale faced and surprisingly alone. In his infinite wisdom, Lipton’s father had forgotten that despite the fact the house itself was but one story, there were four short steps outside the house that had to be climbed (or either sidestepped in favor of trekking through the uncut grass) in order to reach the front door. Lipton peered out to the curb, spotting Evan asleep in the van though the door was open, and knew immediately what the situation was going to require. Moments later, he was bearing half of Evan’s seemingly ballooning weight with his good shoulder, and together with his father, limped him up the steps. “Thank you so much,” Tina spoke, her voice still wrought with parental stress. “Tomorrow I’ll get him

some crutches as soon as I get off work.” Terrific, Lipton thought, and then they limped him down the hallway toward the three rooms. The doctors had cut the one leg off Evan’s jeans at the knee, and his pudgy foot was still bare, reminding Lipton of some crude character from a Mark Twain novel. His log-like arm was heavy on Lipton’s shoulder and he was just certain his poor battered elbow was going to be forced into the wall, or a doorframe, or some thing or the other, as they plodded through the narrow hallway. The decision that the brute was staying in his father’s room was made silently and quickly, most likely a result of the fact that the room was the first they reached, and when they were there Evan lifted his heavy arms from their shoulders and hopped like a spring to the unmade bed where he landed with a deep thud. “I can asleeeeeeep,” Evan said, low and wispy, the drugs still holding him in their debilitating grip. It was then Lipton remembered the other drugs that were of importance this evening. Where was that infernal bag? “It ain’t much of a mattress, but it’ll sleep okay,” his father surmised. Lipton watched Greely Sr. dot his eyes with his hairy knuckles. No wonder his father went to bed so early; being up at this hour clearly did not suit his complexion, made him age prematurely. “Do you want to brush your teeth?” Tina asked Evan, though Lipton thought it was something they all needed to do. He could still smell the smoke from Mr. Omelet on his clothes and was ready to shed them, collect them in a pile and incinerate them. Evan mumbled something else that very likely would not have made sense had they heard it, and Tina thanked Lipton and his father once again for their hospitality. Perfect southern gentlemen. She hugged them both, and as Paul walked her to the door Lipton could think only of drugs and drug dealers. He approached the bed, Evan on top of wildly tousled sheets, his body in the shape of an X, trying to gauge whether or not Evan was conscious of him even being in the room. There was no telling. “Evan,” Lipton said quietly, then repeated louder. He was standing at Evan’s burly shoulders, close enough now to smell the Mexican aroma in the stolen shirt which surprisingly overpowered the smoke from the Omelet. It was not an altogether pleasant odor though, and he knew he would have to remind his father to change the sheets once the lug was gone, which Lipton understood would not be soon enough to his own liking.

Just then Evan bent his chin into his chest and looked up at Lipton. “Cujo,” he said, his eyebrows confused wings. Lipton thought it was a sign of stability, but Evan relaxed and let his head drop back down to the pillow. “I mean Juco.” Lipton wanted to smack him across the cheek a few times in that age old tradition of revival, but he had not the strength. “Where’s the bag?” he said quickly, following Evan’s eyes with his own as they struggled to remain open. “Oh,” Evan said and sighed a great cloud of coma-inducing breath. “Cantaloupe.” “Wrong bag. The other one, the paper bag, the weed. Where was it last?” From the hallway Lipton could hear a tired goodbye. “Leg!” Evan said, his face turning sour as if annoyed. “Yes, I know you were shot in the leg.” As he said it, Lipton’s eyes instinctively turned to the wounded stilt, free of denim, and was surprised by how large the bandage was. “But I really must implore you to tell me right this instance where–” “Leg!” Evan said again louder, and Lipton looked again but saw nothing out of the ordinary (well, that wasn’t already) with the leg. Then, he realized Evan was shaking the other leg, the bejeaned one, the one free of bullet. The front door shut and echoed down the hall. With what can only be attributed to instinct and willingness to overcome his own discomfort, Lipton stuck his hand in the left pocket of Evan’s jeans and pulled out a tube of chapstick, one of those devilish laser pointers, and one Ziploc baggy containing the elusive marijuana Evan had so foolishly purchased at a time that seemed ages ago. Lipton stuck the bag in his sling and turned just in time to see his father enter the room. “I’ll just crash on the sofa,” his father said in mid-yawn. “You comfy Eggs? Need anything?” Evan responded on cue with a sinus-rattling snore and Lipton looked at his father with eyes that read what have you done? “Guess not,” his father said ignoring the accusatory look and Lipton watched as he rummaged through an already ransacked dresser for a pair of underwear and socks. “You got my number at work, Lip?” Bent over the bottom drawer, Lipton’s father reminded him of a hermit crab. When had he become so old?

“Yes,” Lipton said, adjusting the baggy in the sling. Something on it was wet and Lipton longed to have the thing away from his skin. But the baggy was it, he now understood. With Evan’s memory of the evening all but certain to be erased in the morning and B.T.’s search of the broken truck (assuming he found it in the first place) guaranteed to come up empty, there was more than pot in that bag for Lipton. As he saw it in those very early Monday moments, there was – please forgive the pun – potential in the bag as well. In his possession, the bag gave Lipton the upper hand and he had a feeling if that B.T. character showed up again that he would need it. If not, well there was the promise of the games to be had at Evan’s expense, and that was enough to give Lipton the hope of pleasant dreams. “Tina left his pills and stuff in a bag on the kitchen table.” Lipton’s father stood slowly, garments in tow, and looked at Lipton. “You’re gonna have to give them to him. If he takes the wrong dosage it could mess up his waterworks.” Now, there was a lovely thought: Evan hopping on one leg over the toilet as he sweated out a few spurs of stinging piss. “I’m serious, Lip,” his father continued. “You have to take care of him. I’ll do it when I get home. But I want you to promise me you’ll cut him some slack while he’s here.” As if he were listening, Evan’s snore came up a short gurgle and the two Greely’s turned to see the great ball roll to his side, wince slightly, and then fall back into his regulated slumber. “Eggs is all right,” spoke the father, tossing a pseudo-clean shirt over his shoulder. “He used to think you were the best thing on the planet, so treat him with some respect, okay?” It was pointless arguing and it was late. Lipton nodded. The elder Greely passed his son at the door of the room. “I’m sorry you busted up your elbow.” “I’ll live,” Lipton said, without thinking, and the air between him and his father was thick with sentiment for one fleeting second. His father rubbed at his old groggy eyes, nodded, and continued into the living room where Lipton knew he probably wouldn’t clear off the scattered mail from the sofa before hunkering down. I maybe shouldn’t have said that, Lipton thought and retreated to the bathroom. * * * Later, in the confines of his musty possessions, Lipton finally allowed the thirsty skin of his upper body to see the light. He started the white button up (one of many like

it that made up the bulk of his wardrobe) at the sleeves, releasing the fabric from his wrists and exposing the pinkish scars that rested on the left, the one the doctor had examined without questioning, focusing her attention only on the bruised elbow. The scars, not even a full inch below the base of the hand, still had hues of pink like worn out bubble gum and were slick beneath Lipton’s thumb as he felt their hairless marks. When it was very cold, the tissue would turn purple (the gum grape flavored) but there was no threat of that now. How stupid, Lipton thought, remembering still the moment he gave birth to the scars in that classic scenario of teen angst, dull razor, and running tap water. “How very stupid,” he said aloud quietly and at long last climbed into bed for the night, or what was left of it.

TWENTY-THREE In films, characters, particularly children, who are shown on screen in bed very often fall asleep quite soundly with ease and rapidity that could best be described as comically inaccurate. Lipton hated this. He always struggled to fall asleep and this night was only exceptional because it was so hot in the house that it took him even longer to get there. While it was rare for him to remember his dreams, Lipton made up for this lack by unspooling the cinema of his mind in these long quiet sessions before sleep arrived. Similar to the journey to Lenoir he’d made so earlier in the day, his thoughts wandered from topic to topic and event to event. The logic took on a circular pattern, and though he was simply tired of dwelling on it, there was, ultimately, a common thread: Marnie Teaks, she whose photo was just below Lipton returned to its place behind one of the legs of the headboard. The story was a simple one, embarrassingly so, yet Lipton had managed to complicate things the way Nora (dear Nora, who couldn’t arrive fast enough!) had claimed was his greatest flaw in one of their silly little fights. Marnie Teaks, Twin Peaks, Carnie Freaks, arrived at Hibriten High an adorable, if a little adolescently awkward, freshman in 1996 and Lipton had noticed her at lunch very early in the year, immediately staking his claim, if you will, to her among his small circle of friends. Within this circle it was the others – Wiedner, Watson, two Wilkies, “the W4” as they dubbed themselves – whom Lipton worried about encroaching upon his Marnie. Never Evan. That scenario just wasn’t plausible. Lipton spent weeks, months, fidgeting about the best possible way of approaching this delightful young girl, that flaming red hair visible from opposite ends of the school’s longest corridor, and even succumbed to that dumbfounded routine of attending football games, atrociously performed and produced plays, band concerts, talent shows, Earth club meetings, women’s soccer matches, fund raising car washes, all manner of things he would have otherwise chosen to avoid at all costs but simply couldn’t refuse in the dim hope of getting a glimpse of her. All this took time. And during this time, which Lipton can see clearly through the lens of hindsight, Evan was changing. Not just his body, which was sprouting up and out, but his personality too. No longer was he content in his role as Lipton’s sidekick. Evan began making friends from outside the circle. He talked

more and more of so and so’s party where so and so had passed out and yet another so and so thought that the unconscious was surely going to die or dead already. He cut his hair ridiculously short and similar to the great morons of the town. His parents got divorced during this same time period and Evan spoke of it as a good thing (Good for whom? Lipton wondered even now), universally unaffected by it. He developed an interest in weight-lifting and fitness competitions. He started listening to hip-hop. After one particularly stupefying conversation about boat engines, Lipton stated in plain listening distance of the W4 that Evan was “evaporating,” and understood the moment now as a pivotal turning point in his life as he had known it. What he thought was pivotal when it happened turned out to be only a blip. Making sure to get a seat behind Marnie at a Christmas performance by the school’s chorus, he made a loud joke during intermission about the lead tenor’s voice resembling Kermit the Frog’s, and she had turned and flashed him an utterly charming smile. It was a risky move, he knew, and he was so relieved by her apparent sense of humor that he introduced himself at that very moment and in a conversation following the performance secured her telephone number. He would not get a chance to use it. That very Friday, at the final home football game of the year, Lipton showed up alone, unable to make plans with Evan, though he wasn’t sure that was such a bad thing at that point in their declining friendship. He sat with the W4 for the duration of the game, though Lipton’s eyes were trained on the crowd more than the field and it was of no consequence to him that the home team won in dramatic fashion on a last second field goal. The wind was cold and there was no sight of Marnie. Or Evan. Walking back to his car, dejected and in no hurry to compete with the great mass of traffic, Lipton heard someone call his name. It came from the shadows of the parking lot by a line of trees that separated school grounds from private property. The voice said his name again, and this time he knew it was her, Marnie Wan Kenobi, Jedi mistress cloaked in a veil of darkness. She said it a third time and by then he could make out Evan’s black truck parked beside a tall conversion van. They were sitting on the hood of the truck, a blanket over their respective laps, not an inch of air separating shoulder from shoulder. Lipton felt his heart evacuate, vacate its premises, and he looked to his feet

afraid he might step on it or kick it as he struggled now to walk. “Hey,” she said, her breath making gray clouds against the black night. “Did we win?” Lipton brought himself to look at both of their faces again. They hadn’t even seen the game. Evan wouldn’t look at him but his face said enough. “Yes,” Lipton said and began walking again with a great stride toward his sedan. He wasn’t quite there when he vomited on the pavement. Over Christmas break, Lipton ate as little as possible and refused to feign excitement when exchanging gifts with his father, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. They asked if he was sick and he simply said “yes” each time. On New Year’s Day he gathered the strength and conviction to call Evan and confront what he had seen in the parking lot that dreadful night. He spoke calmly and directly, and when Evan confirmed that he and Marnie were dating, Lipton hung up the phone and tried to kill himself, alone in the bathroom unafraid and full of vigor. That he survived struck Lipton as evidence of fate’s sharp wit, and it was thus his war between states began with great gravity and zest. Did he hold a grudge? Oh yes. * * * Seven years later, nowhere near the edge of sleep, Lipton held his scars with his thumb thinking: pathetic, pathetic, pathetic, pathetic, pathetic, pathetic, pathetic, pathetic, pathetic, pathetic, pathetic, pathetic, pathetic, pathetic, pathetic, pathetic, pathetic, pathetic, pathetic, pathetic, pathetic, pathetic.

PART TWO

ONE

There was sunshine and Nora was awake before her alarm went off. The first thing she heard instead was the sound of Jim and Jeff’s TV still coming through the electrical outlets, as it had done the entire night, but at least now they weren’t yelling back at it. In her dreams, the doctor from DR. BARTER had tried to talk her into getting liposuction and she had desperately wanted to refuse any and all surgery but found she was only capable of saying the word boobs! every time she spoke. In the shower, she let out a small sigh of relief that everything was the same size as she remembered it. Having breakfast at the table, Nora remembered what she had done with Lipton on it and wondered how he was. It was too early to call, she knew, but she had hardly got to talk to him the night before and felt like she knew next to nothing about what had happened. It sounded so crazy, with guns and drug dealers and the police! She was anxious to see him, but the drive would make for such a long day, and she was already nervous about work so much that she could barely eat. She left early and arrived even earlier at the university’s large rectangular library. Nora had worked there during the year, checking out materials and sorting through the shelves, but now she was in a different department, with real archiving duties, and didn’t know how she was supposed to bring the subject of Lipton up with her new supervisors. Much of the library staff knew him by name, his never-ending request for obscure titles and his massive late fees that weren’t paid in full until the day before graduation, and only then because of the threat of having his diploma withheld. The people in archives didn’t have a lot of interaction with the students, but there was no guarantee that the word on Lipton hadn’t spread to the bottom floor staff. At one point during the year Nora had overheard one of the full-time ladies call Lipton “the biggest nuisance since mosquitoes.” She hadn’t said anything to the woman, but didn’t even know what it was she should’ve said. It was her job and she couldn’t afford to lose it.

After meeting her supervisor, an anonymous looking man named John who was far more interested in his own computer screen than helping Nora get acquainted, she decided she wouldn’t say anything about Lipton until after her lunch break. She was left to scour through an overwhelming stack of papers published by University professors, each to be scanned, printed, and bound, and thought it was a job Lipton would love. She had no interest, really, in the longwinded theories of people she felt were more consumed with understanding life than living it, and would only glance at the equally longwinded titles before getting on with the work. This respect towards the use and thirst for knowledge was a big difference between her and Lip, but she couldn’t help but admire his passion. Of course, he was pretty passionate about most everything and that too had its ups and downs. After lunch, Nora knocked lightly on John’s door and found him again staring at his computer screen, licking mustard from a sandwich off his fingers. “Enter dot com,” he said without looking at her. (She would learn later that this was one of John’s many annoying habits, adding dot com to everything – Yes dot com, No dot com, Let’s speed it up there, okay dot com?, etc.) She saw a picture, a portrait made at a department store, of John and his family framed in brass sitting atop his desk: two kids, boys; a wife with pretty yellow hair; John smiling in that awkward frozen moment those types of photographers seem to have a knack for capturing; all that was missing was a dog. Nora thought it was a nice photo, a nice life. But she knew it wasn’t hers. “Yes dot com?” John said, finally glancing at her without turning his head. “Hi,” Nora started, breaking away from the photo and remembering her purpose, the speech she had rehearsed in her head throughout the day. “I hate to ask this on my first day –“ “Then don’t,” John said matter-of-factly. Nora was taken aback and stood there, knowing her mouth was hanging open and that if anyone saw her they would think she was the very picture of assumed female stupidity. She closed her mouth quickly, just as John turned to her (completely this time) with a goofy smile. “I’m just messing with you,” he said. “Got you good too, didn’t I?” She agreed that yes, he had. “Go on, go on. Ask away.” He turned back to his sandwich.

“Well, my boyfriend called late last night and told me he was in some kind of accident. He’s not hurt badly, but I really need to go see him tonight and he lives over an hour and a half away from here, so –“ “You want tomorrow off?” John said, stopping her again. She was about to answer that no, she didn’t, when he spoke once more, this time interrupting her inner speech as well. “Done deal. No problem. What you’re doing’s not that important, anyway.” Nora now officially hated this man and she had only worked for him for less than five hours. “I don’t actually need the whole day off, I was thinking more along the lines of coming in around –“ “Eh, suit yourself.” John’s eyes were fixed again on the computer screen; Nora wondered if his wife could see a reflection of it burnt in his pupils when he came home, if he came home. She swallowed her dislike for the man and thanked him politely, and as she was walking out he let out a rather loud “Later dot com!” leaving Nora with the unmistakable feeling that this would be a very long summer. In the meantime though, she had gotten what she wanted and could focus her thoughts again on her sweet, fragile Lipton. She wondered what he was doing that very instant.

TWO Lipton, at one end of the couch, bowl of cereal all but eaten, thought if Evan’s head lolled back in sleep one more time he might jump the length of the couch and rip it off cleanly from the neck. Evan’s great round head a cautious bungee plunger approaching the fall, eyes and mouth stubbornly fighting to stay open, but losing just as the boulder tumbles down the slope only to be jerked back in place and force eyes, mouth, nostrils all into a state of unwanted readiness. Has there ever been a more annoying habit? Lipton didn’t think so, and when Evan’s head bobbed again he decided to toss his bowl of milk on the spasmodic animal instead, covering the beast’s face in cold white liquid. “Hey!” Evan shouted, sitting up for good now Lipton suspected. “What the hell???” Lipton stood and took his bowl into the adjacent kitchen. The TV was on one of those trash talk shows and the audience was cheering wildly, making a nice soundtrack to the image of Evan’s wet head, Lipton noticed. “You were falling asleep,” he said. “Well, Jesus! You didn’t have to wake me like that!” Evan said, his deep voice even sillier when it was animated. “Your mother said you’re not to sleep sitting up, else you slip from that chair you have your leg propped on now and hurt it even further.” “Well, what if I had let it slip because I had milk thrown all over me?” “I hadn’t thought of that. Sorry.” Lipton turned his back to Evan and forced out a wicked little smile. If he was to tolerate this particular living arrangement, he would have to be creative in his systematic torture of his enemy. The milk, he knew, was a good start. “I’ll get you a towel then,” he said and when he returned from the bathroom Evan was hopping into the kitchen, taking breaks as he did so to lean on a bookshelf, chair, refrigerator, in order to balance himself and catch his breath. “What are you doing now, then?” Lipton asked, this time tossing the towel on Evan’s head. “I’m still hungry,” Evan said and hopped in place, making a loud thud against the linoleum. “Well, had you not shot yourself in the leg there would be more food in this house.”

“You were the last one to touch the gun!” Evan said raising his voice, truly livid it seemed. “You probably didn’t close the glove compartment right and that’s why it fell out!” “Yes, but if you had not backed into a police officer that wouldn’t have mattered.” “Yeah, well, if I hadn’t done any of that then I wouldn’t be here in the first place!” “And there you have it.” Lipton gave one final look before walking off. “Help yourself,” he said and closed himself in his bedroom. * * * Whoever said “War is hell,” Lipton thought, must have been drafted. How ludicrously immature he’d been to nearly end it all before things really got started! The joy of revenge held a sweeter taste in his mouth now than the bitterness of heartbreak ever had. And his recovery from that fateful day had taken monumental steps. Graduate school was on his immediate horizon, the path to professordom paved and well lit, and he had a bountiful relationship with a beautiful young woman who didn’t believe in the rigid confines of marriage. Life was grand! That Evan and Marnie had returned for a sequel only provided him with opportunity to rewrite the plot. They would get what they deserved because they deserved it, not because he was incapable of letting go of something that was so old. He had already let go. Now he was just having fun. But there could only be so much fun, Lipton knew. The summer was to be time devoted to his historical/anthropological theory and Evan would surely be healed well enough in a few days time. It was with this in mind that he sat down with an old course packet from one of his 200-level history classes taught by his favorite professor, Professor Shantz, an old Mercedes of a man, and began going over passages he’d previously highlighted to inspect them for quotes useful to his current endeavor. To his own amusement, he’d highlighted nearly every word, in deep green, amateurishly thinking it was all of importance, yet seeing clearly now that much of the author’s argument was rehashed from other superior texts. So, it did not take more than a few pages for Lipton to become distracted by another, slightly more intriguing book, flopped carelessly on the floor. Like a deer to a fallen apple, he found he could not refuse the

scent of it. He tossed the course packet aside and swooped up that dated pornography, Upon Guarded Glance, starting this time at the beginning: It was but days after the death of her husband, the noble Barrister, that her infant son Joseph lost his battle with infection while sleeping, sending Madame Stephanie into a state of depression that would last three years. However, once woken from this terrible bout, she would be more awake than she had ever been in her life in mind, spirit, and most notably, body. Such a subtle opening amused and aroused Lipton at the same time. He crossed his legs on the bed and continued reading: This transformation began in earnest with one simple glance. (Has the author no shame!) One day while promenading the grounds, still dressed in her widowed black all this time, Madame Stephanie happened upon a boy gardener who was using the edge of his shirt to wipe sweat from his forehead, exposing a rippled abdomen damp with the glistening dew of his pores. Something grew warm in Stephanie’s, who was still not 20 years old, stomach and when the boy withdrew his makeshift sweat cloth, she immediately turned away. Recognizing the error of this discourteousness the boy quickly spoke in apology: “Hey, have you seen my pants?” What’s that? A knock at the door and the sound of one legged hopping pulled Lipton back into the present and the realization that Evan was speaking to him. “Come on, Cujo. Open up.” He put the book beneath his pillow and went to the door. Evan was wearing only boxers, his sizeable waist all but glowing beneath the fluorescents like a neon sign welcoming all onlookers, all the while hopping up and down on that one good leg. “Is that entirely necessary?” Lipton asked, wondering why Evan didn’t just prop himself against the wall. “Doctor said I have to exercise the healthy parts so physical therapy will be easier,” said Evan, thud, thud, thud. “And which parts are those?” “Har har. Just tell me where my pants are.”

“Why in the world should I know where your pants are? Were you not wearing them fifteen minutes ago?” “Yeah, but I took a bath and now I can’t find them.” Evan slowed his hopping, clearly growing tired: thud...thud...thud... “Well, perhaps they hopped off in search of a real one legged man.” “Forget it.” Evan sighed and shook his head, hopping his body in a turn towards Lipton’s father’s room. Lipton followed him, half out of pity and half out of a desire to merely watch what would happen. “Are you going to help?” Evan asked, his breath short from all the sudden exercise. With a final hop, he collapsed on the bed, landing on his back and lying there for a moment like a great tanning walrus. “This sucks,” he added and it dawned then on Lipton that perhaps he wasn’t the only one who didn’t want Evan staying here. High from the medicine, Evan hadn’t even had the chance to complain about it until just then. It was an arrangement made and agreed upon by their parents only, once more in the deluded interest of what they incorrectly thought was “best.” “Where did you take your pants off?” Lipton asked and began walking the length of the room. “In the bathroom,” Evan responded without lifting his head. “I think.” Lipton walked into his father’s attached bathroom unsurprised to find it already covered in clothes and towels and newspapers and candy wrappers to name but a few. Unless Evan had buried them, Lipton saw no denim. He checked the toilet just because. “Maybe I took them off before I went in the bathroom,” Evan added from the bed. Lipton walked out of the bathroom and thought through the rather repulsive scenario for a moment. “Did you close the bathroom door when you took your bath?” “Yeah,” Evan said. “I think.” He was unsure of anything apparently. Lipton checked behind the door which opened into the bedroom and found a pair of jeans, one leg shorter than the other, crumpled against the wall, dropped on the floor as Evan entered the bathroom then swept aside as he exited. “Ta da,” Lipton said and held up the pants. He tossed them on the bed expecting Evan to put them on, but instead watched as he immediately dug into the pockets. Ahh yes, Lipton thought, the precious baggy! A visible sense of panic made itself known on

Evan’s face, and finally after checking each and every pocket twice he set the pants down and looked up at Lipton with clearly defeated eyes. “Uh oh,” Evan said and Lipton did his best to perform a role of the utmost concerned, when really he was thinking simply: Gotcha.

THREE B.T. got up when his older brother told him to for the third and final time. After the third time, he knew Terry would bounce a basketball off his head or do something else like that because his brother could be a real prick when he wanted to. He wished his brother would move out already so he wouldn’t have to put up with this shit. In the meantime, he had his own shit to deal with. It didn’t take him long to remember the night before, the missing truck, the weed Evan had better not left in the truck, that skinny fool who talked funny, the cop he didn’t trust, and crazy Larry who he thought he could trust but couldn’t be sure. B.T. pulled his cell phone from the charger on his nightstand and hit the number that automatically dialed Evan’s phone. The message came on without ringing, just as Terry walked into the room with an air horn. “I’m awake, dammit,” B.T. said, but Terry shrugged and fired the horn anyway. B.T. slept on the school bus and again in his first two classes. During the break between second and third periods, he checked a phone book and tried Evan at home, but still got no answer. By fourth period he was starving because he hadn’t had time to eat breakfast, and finally when lunch came around he ate quickly and made his way to the library, making up some excuse for his friends so they wouldn’t think he was some damn nerd. At the counter, he asked the wrinkled old white lady where the yearbooks were and she looked at him like she suspected something, just like they all did, but finally pointed him to a shelf near the front that housed a yearbook for every year all the way back to 1967. B.T. wasn’t sure how much older Evan was than he, but it only took him two tries before finding his senior picture in the class of 1999. Damn, B.T. thought, just like the Prince song. A few pages over and there was the skinny white fool: Lipton Greely. B.T. was starting to feel like a damn detective. Back to the phone book again, and finally, as the bell for fifth period was ringing, he was talking to somebody. “This Lipton?” he said, cutting off the fool’s hello, knowing damn well from his voice that it was him. “Yes, this is Professor Greely. Who’s calling?” “Man, cut that bullshit out. This B.T. and I know you ain’t no professor.” A teacher walked past the far end of the corridor, but didn’t look his way. He needed to hide. “Where’s Evan?”

“Here, unfortunately,” came that whiny voice. “He was just searching for his pants when you –“ “Put him on.” The fool didn’t say anything, but B.T. could hear him walking away from the phone. “Hello?” It was Evan. His low voice reminded B.T. of some actor whose name he couldn’t then remember. “Evan,” B.T. said quickly, looking in all directions as he walked swiftly towards the bathroom. “Please tell me you got that fucking bag on you. Because your truck ain’t where you crashed it and I’ve been checking my shoulder all day for cops, man.” “Uh, well,” Evan said and B.T. had to resist his urge to smash his cell phone against the wall of lockers right then and there. “It’s a little weird.” “What you mean?” Someone coughed from inside the bathroom, so B.T. kept walking. He stuck his head in the women’s room and, hearing nothing, slipped inside. “Well, I stuck it in my pocket before they lifted me out.” “And?” B.T. looked under the stall doors even though by then he would’ve already been busted had someone been silently hiding. All four were empty and he pushed inside the last. “And I took them off to take a bath this morning, and then I checked the pockets just a little while ago and it wasn’t there.” “Shit!” B.T. said in a loud whisper. He had to be careful, if anyone so much as heard him he’d be sent to the office. “Could it have fallen out when you took them off?” “I thought of that, but I don’t see it anywhere around here.” “Are you sure you had it when you left the hospital?” “Not really. I was pretty out of it. But I don’t think they would’ve let me leave like that if they had found it.” B.T. thought he was right. Doctors were about as trustworthy as cops, and they were all working together. “Then I think you gonna have to do something,” he said, a picture coming to mind of how this little scene had no doubt unraveled. “You gonna have to talk to your little friend there.” “Lipton? I already asked. He doesn’t even smoke.”

“Then you ain’t talking to him the right way.” B.T. traced his finger over a line about somebody Pearson’s cock written on the stall in magic marker. He didn’t know girls did that, and the discovery made him relax, smile almost. Evan told him where the skinny fool lived and why he was staying there in the first place, and B.T. promised he would pay a visit as soon as school let out. He’d get a ride from somebody, maybe that dumbass Pat who owed him anyway for turning off the lights on him last night. And he’d make that skinny fool come clean. He didn’t know what angle the boy was trying to pull, but he had no doubts the fool had taken the bag, just as he had no doubts now that he was going to get it back. Holding onto the top of the stall door, B.T. lifted his upper body so he could see into the bathroom and double check the exit. It was clear. He made his move and walked right into Mrs. Perry, his chemistry teacher, just as he opened the outer door.

FOUR Paul took lunch later than anybody else in the warehouse at the stair factory, but he understood that as part of the deal being a supervisor. Today though he was so tired, he didn’t care as much about eating as he did just having a second to stop and relax a bit, and he didn’t think the morning was ever going to die. There were only thirteen of them in the warehouse, two guys who bundled the rails, two on the shrink-wrap machine, six who did nothing but box newels, one forklift driver, and two floaters, but everyday there was some new kind of drama, as Pearly, the forklift driver, liked to call it. The shrink- wrap machine never seemed to run more than two hours at a time, and this morning they had been sent a load of twelve hundred newels with nearly half of them cracked at some place and wanted them primed and out the door in two days. What the hell were they supposed to do? Ship 600 broken pieces so they could be shipped back and take up more space in his already crowded warehouse? He’d had a fifteen minute phone call with Risa up in the main office and she’d had the nerve to ask if they could be fixed with some wood glue. That’s the kind of operation they ran here sometimes. Then he’d caught one of the boys shrink-wrapping the other’s pack of cigarettes, which he admitted was pretty funny, but they just didn’t have the time for it. So, when Paul sat down in his office, the air conditioner going full blast (the reason everybody was always coming to talk to him about some thing or another), his microwavable hamburger hot on a napkin, he didn’t intend on getting up again until it was damn well time. The phone rang. He told himself he was a schmuck for answering it, but Paul knew it was his job and somebody around here had to do their job the way they was supposed to. When he heard Lip’s voice, he relaxed a bit and leaned back in his chair. “How’s bacon and eggs?” Boy, he loved that joke. “Eggs has eaten everything in the house,” Lip said and Paul chuckled imagining an egg with a mouth, chomping away at a sandwich or something. Lip wanted him to stop at the store on the way home, the thought of which just made Paul ache. “Why don’t you just go get them now?” Paul asked. “And what about the baby?” “Huh?” “Evan. What about Evan? Who will watch him?”

“He’ll be all right for a half hour.” “And suppose he goes through my things?” “Then take him with you.” There was Lip again being paranoid. Paul yawned and touched the spongy bun of his hamburger to see if it was cool enough to eat. “Yeah, you can put him in one of those motorized wheelchair thingies and he can help you pick out what to eat.” “And what is the real reason keeping you from doing all of this on your way home?” “Oh, gotta go, someone just stepped in.” Someone had stepped in, but Paul imagined that he would’ve said the same thing and hung up on Lip even if it weren’t true. Pearly, short and stocky like a garbage pail but with the whitest hair Paul had ever seen on someone so young, held up an ink pen, grinning all the while, and handed it across the desk to Paul. He looked at Pearly’s pen and saw a drawing of a blonde beauty behind a little thing of clear plastic with water in it at the fat end of the pen. “Turn it rightside up,” Pearly said with a cheek full of something unseen. Paul did as he was told and watched the clothes float off of the beauty, revealing a pair of grapefruits and peach-colored thighs crossed tightly at the groin. “How about that,” Paul said and handed the pen back to Pearly. You just never knew what the day might bring next. Pearly laughed like a pirate and after standing with his face in front of the window unit for a few quick seconds, finally left. Hearing from Lip got Paul thinking about the evening again, and those nice Teaks women. He should call Linda and see how they were doing, thank them again for all their help. Or maybe he should get some flowers or something, a teddy bear with a little wizard’s hat like he’d seen on TV, and send it to them with just a nice card attached that said something simple and polite. Women liked men who did a lot for them, but not too much, Paul knew. Like Jenny, she’d want him once a year or so to take her out and get all dressed up and eat some real good food. But if he suggested they go for a drink afterwards, or go walk the golf course after it was closed, or play a little game in the backseat in some abandoned parking lot, well that was just too much she’d say. It was a balancing act you had to perform, like loading a hundred odd rails on a dolly. Sometimes you might tip over and

he didn’t want to do that with Linda. Heck, being friends was almost harder than dating, Paul thought. He pulled the phone book from a drawer and looked for a florist.

FIVE The phone rang and Charlie answered it before the third ring. Good afternoon Sir. I’m calling to talk to you just a little bit and let you know that you are probably paying too much for your long distance service. Charlie didn’t have long distance, so he figured he wasn’t. That was one of the problems with working at night, the rest of the world assumed you were awake during the day. He’d tried turning off the ringer early into the job, but then the answering machine woke him up, and he couldn’t just turn off the answering machine. What if there was an emergency? So, he slept as much as he could, often an uneven interrupted collection of hours he sometimes spread out as little as two at a time, staying up for an hour or so to do laundry or pay bills, and then going back to bed to try again. He knew some of the guys on the force did drastic things like hanging black curtains over the blinds of their windows to keep those little cracks of daylight out. Some took sleeping pills. Others wore ear plugs. He didn’t know how anyone could sleep with some foamy thing sticking in their ear, but he understood that you did whatever you had to. The clock showed it was almost two in the afternoon. If he went back to sleep right then he could still get six hours of sleep before he had to be up, so that wasn’t too bad. But he knew he couldn’t get back to sleep. Charlie got on the computer and pretty soon found what he wanted. He spit into his hand a couple times and watched a blurry video of a girl who reminded him of someone he’d arrested once outside a gas station, while he masturbated. After he finished, he couldn’t help but think about Dorsey and her clam, which made him feel a little weird and guilty at the same time, but thankfully the phone rang again and he happily let the telemarketer deliver her whole speech on decreasing his mortgage before politely telling her he rented an apartment. They’d get it right eventually, he thought and dug out a box from the bottom of a storage closet. Before he left work he’d gotten the names of B.T.’s friends who’d backed into Officer Tuttle from the accident report, and they both sounded awfully familiar though he wasn’t sure why. It was just a hunch, and he knew he probably should have just run a search for them on the internet before he’d been distracted, but the two names, Evan Barnes and Lipton Greely (just like the tea!), drew Charlie to the black and red nostalgia of his yearbook. He opened the book and read some of the inscriptions on the inside cover. One of his buddies, he’d never found

out who, had drawn a gigantic penis coming from the skirt of the cheerleader on the front page that wrapped in coils around her leg. Another had written G.L.O.T.S., or Get Laid Over the Summer! in fat letters that took up the entire bottom of one page, and sure enough he had that year, 1997, the week after graduation, at Myrtle Beach with a girl he’d never seen since. High school had been fun. He flipped through the familiar faces of his senior class, toward the back and the pictures that got progressively smaller, until he found two pimply, awkward sophomores, one skinny and one fat, whose names matched those he’d been looking for. The question remained though and he couldn’t put it out of his mind: why did he remember these geeks? He looked closer at the picture of Evan, the kid’s round cheeks overdeveloped by the photo lab so that they looked like two small balls of bright white dough, and still couldn’t recall ever having talked to or even about the guy. He flipped the page to Lipton Greely, the skinny one with glasses and messy hair. He wore a collared shirt and a tie that to Charlie pretty much spelled out a certain fate as he understood it at their high school. He looked closer and saw that someone had drawn little twig arms that hung down into the portrait below Lipton’s, some equally unattractive girl. On the one arm was a small X at the wrist, and little black droplets of liquid running down the length of the page. Charlie remembered: this was the guy who tried to off himself! Then, like cerebral dominoes, he added: Evan was the guy they said who led him to it! The “they” in that thought was sketchy, Charlie knew, an unreliable wall of teenage gossip, but a motive was a motive was a motive. He’d never get back to sleep now.

SIX Lipton refused to take Evan with him to the grocery store, and didn’t dare allow the brute to stay at the house by himself, thus producing a stalemate which left both of them hungry after a very late lunch of nothing but equally stale saltines. He could deal with hunger, as all soldiers must at some point in battle, but he was quickly beginning to tire of Evan’s utter inability to entertain himself. Had he no intellectual pursuits? He had requested magazines and Lipton had begrudgingly handed over a few from his back catalog of National Geographic, which promptly sent Evan into a tailspin of sleep, a response that would have satisfied Lipton’s desire to be left alone were it not such an insult to the text that he felt compelled to snatch the magazine from Evan’s sleeping hand and whack him upon the head with it. Once awake, Evan had quickly gathered the other thick issues and, while whining loudly about this or that insult, hurled them at Lipton just as he escaped through the door of his father’s bedroom pulling it tight behind him. He had the distinct advantage of mobility in this phase of their conflict, and he looked at his running as a tactically brilliant strategy rather than any form of retreat. If he wanted him, Evan would have to come to Lipton and with that leg he would not be able to do so with any amount of speed or effective surprise. Let the dope rot in boredom, Lipton thought and understood this as perhaps his most potent methodology in regards to forcing the beast from his unwanted habitat as soon as possible. It was a strategy that worked. Within minutes, Lipton heard the muffled hopscotch of Evan’s leg thumping out into the bedroom and down the hall, and then he was there, pounding on the door, yelling about this and that until finally the racket crescendoed into a perfectly noisy collapse. Lipton couldn’t resist the bait and opened his door to find Evan sprung about on the floor writhing in pain. It took great effort not to laugh, but once Lipton noticed the blood seeping into the bandage on Evan’s leg all thoughts of taunting were replaced with frustration and the fear of having to further help the helpless. “Dear God,” Lipton sighed and kneeled over the wriggling mass before him. “Your ability to hurt yourself is rather remarkable.” “Don’t touch it!” Evan yelled, his mouth hidden in the sea of winces that were overtaking his fleshy face.

“I assure you I have no intentions to. But we must get you up. You can’t lie here and bleed on the floor.” Lipton reached for the ankle of Evan’s wounded timber, seeking only to stretch the leg flat, and instead was swiftly kicked in the chest, Evan’s wide heel narrowly missing his sore elbow. “What did I say? You never listen to me! I said don’t touch it and I mean it.” “You kicked me!” Lipton said, reaching for breath. “Yeah, well, you deserved it.” “I most certainly did not! And if you feel that way about me trying to help you from bleeding to death, then perhaps I won’t help at all.” “I didn’t ask for your help.” “Not verbally, but physically I have never seen a more obvious plea for assistance.” “Then stop looking at me. Go back in your room and read your National Geographics.” “Yes, that’s right, mock me.” Lipton stood up. Evan’s bandage was nearly solid red now, and at any moment now the blood would begin to spill from the edges and drip down his leg. Lipton adjusted the sling against his neck. “But I would bet a small fortune there’s an article in one of those issues that describes how to perfectly handle an injury scenario exactly like this.” He ran a hand across his beard, wiping away the sweat captured on his face. “Maybe, in fact, I’ve read it. Who knows?” “Bullshit.” Evan hid his face behind his hands and his good leg moved back and forth as if he were doing some exercise or trying to mark a line in the carpet. “You don’t read them, you never have. You just got them to look smart, Cujo.” “Don’t call me that,” Lipton said and watched the good leg go back and forth, back and forth. He didn’t have to listen to such a maliciously untrue attack against his intellect. Yes, okay, he’d bought the magazines in a box at a yard sale when he was merely thirteen years old, and only made it through the pictures in half of them. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t read them. And that didn’t mean he hadn’t read plenty since then, plenty. Plenty.

“Whatever.” Evan finally made an effort to sit up, pinching his lips together as his body came to a right angle. “Do you even know why I’ve called you that for these years? Do you even care, Lip?” “Well, no, honestly. Have you ever thought of asking whether or not I actually like that nickname?” “And I’m supposed to like barnacle breath?” “It has its charms.” “I call you Cujo because you can be a real vicious son of a bitch sometimes, Lip.” “Yes, well, I’m glad you and Marnie continue to be able to pay me back for my vast viciousness, as you say.” “We didn’t do anything because of you. We did what we did because –“ The doorbell rang. Lipton jumped into motion. “Hey, speak of the angel! I bet that’s her! Yeah, maybe you guys can enjoy some cautious naked frolicking on my bed while I catch up on my reading in the front room!” Evan started to say something that came out only as a bleat before he gave up, and Lipton didn’t bother asking him to continue. To think that he was the vicious one when he’d been the one nearly driven to suicide by the entirely remorseless acts of the accuser! Had he ever stolen love and blatantly displayed it in the face of the victimized? Never! There was only one reason to join or abandon war and that was love. It was love that could not be interfered with by man if the repercussions of doing so were not well-known, and it was love, even in its most primitive stages, that only a fool would dare say meant little in retrospect. To Lipton, all love has volumes of meaning and in loves past a man could be bound in misery or joy for the duration of life. Lives were ended because of love, but life was worthless without it. This particular duplicity wasn’t quite what he was thinking about as he unchained the front door. He was thinking instead that lost love is a personal thing that can only be understood by an individual while the entire world continues their idiotic game of tag as if to spite the bereaved all in the name of healing; he was thinking that if Marnie and Evan were both in his house he might resort to throwing things at them, boxes, pencils, refrigerator magnets, junk mail, the television, an apple, a bomb, a crouton, a dresser, whatever. Instead, Lipton opened the door, the hot sky calling out his

seahorse for a quick peek into the open without really letting go of the kelp it clung onto with its tail, and B.T. slapped him across the face. * * * The bag! The world for a Ziploc of weed. There was nothing gentlemanly, Lipton quickly realized, in the war on drugs. B.T. crossed the threshold in the same manner he approached it, by beating Lipton about the face and repeatedly demanding to know where his marijuana was. While the blows were mostly open-handed, Lipton’s face quickly began to sting and bruise, and with his arm in a sling there was little he could do to protect himself. Nonetheless, he remained steadfast in his loyalty to purpose and gave up nothing about the bag hidden safely in his room. Finally, B.T. stopped long enough to notice Evan sitting in the floor of the hallway. The two exchanged profanity laced pleasantries and Lipton rushed to the sink as a wave of nausea suddenly took force. “Do you have the weed, Lip?” Evan said from the hall, sounding like he had been coaxed into asking. “I didn’t touch it,” Lipton said running water into his hand. The sink was too overrun with dirty dishes for him to fit his head and mouth beneath the tap. He drank from his hand and tried not to gag. He wondered how far he could take this. Evan and B.T. talked quietly but lividly in the hallway and then Lipton heard another crash. Moving cautiously, Lipton walked far enough into the kitchen to see down the hall and into his own open bedroom where B.T. appeared to be using the search method most often employed by angry television cops, toss and scatter, toss and scatter. Evan looked up at him from the floor, leg now hosting a line of blood from shin to ankle, and shrugged his shoulders. Lipton shrugged back; his room was already a mess. B.T. wasn’t going to find the bag. “He doesn’t have it,” Evan said and they both watched as B.T. continued his business anyway. Finally satisfied with his search or dissatisfied enough with the results, B.T. came from the room and stood in the doorway, nostrils flaring. He was scared, Lipton thought, and rightfully so; he had half a mind to just turn B.T. in to the cops with the evidence and concoct some story sparing Evan as having taken part in the deal. “Somebody talk,” B.T. said. He put his hands behind his head and stood solemnly. With his arms stretched, the hem of B.T.’s shirt lifted to reveal pants that were

all but falling off his hips. What a categorically ridiculous trend, Lipton thought. How absurd it would be to simply yank B.T.’s trousers down to the floor at that moment. If only he could get Evan to do it. Instead, Evan was lightly picking at his nose, no doubt deep in thought. “Might I suggest something radical?” Lipton offered while rubbing at his face. The nausea was passing, but his cheeks were still sore. B.T. looked at him, waiting. Evan took his finger from his nose. “Go on the lam. Get out of town for awhile, wear disguises, assign code names, take up in a hotel, etcetera, etcetera. When the coast is clear, I’ll send word and you two can come back as if nothing ever happened. Call it a vacation.” “Wrong, professor,” B.T. said, removing his hands from his head and causing Lipton to flinch slightly. “First of all, I don’t trust you. Second, if we go somewhere you coming with us. Third, why you trying to get rid of us?” “Please, these childish conspiracy theories of yours are just exhausting! If we all went then how would we know when it was safe to come back? Honestly, think about it.” “I am,” B.T. said and stood right in Lipton’s face. “And that’s why I don’t trust you.” “Evan, please, could you call off your hound?” Lipton asked, trying to peer around B.T. but with little luck. Evan tugged on B.T.’s jeans (outward, not downward alas) and he backed off slightly. “Look, the bag’s not in the truck, so I don’t see why this is such a big deal.” Evan wiped the blood from his with his finger. “The cops won’t find it.” B.T. turned his deep eyes to Evan and Lipton exhaled for the first time in what seemed like forever. “Do you know where it is? Do you know for sure there’s not even a strand of it on the floor board of your truck right now? Do you know for sure some doctor didn’t pick it up when it fell out your pocket while you was walking out the hospital? Do you know for sure his daddy or your momma don’t have it right now, waiting to grill you as soon as they get off work? Do you know for sure the cops haven’t already called my momma at work and she ain’t at home right now waiting to ship my ass off to an orphanage? Do you know any of this?”

“No,” Evan responded looking at the blood on his finger as if it were special. “Then it’s a fucking big deal.” The phone rang and Lipton was relieved beyond words to escape this scene which he found so hard to keep quiet during. He was a child with a secret he desperately wanted to tell, yet knew not how best to release it. He had so many options it was hard to cipher the potential outcomes to determine what was most promising (though he was quite fond of the going on the lam spiel, even it didn’t seem as if it were going to be accepted). And B.T. had such a dramatic flair! Clearly a teenager and perhaps he was a stage actor in his school’s theater, a thespian in over his head with this whole drug business. Lipton could see him in the role of a stern alcoholic father, or a villain in some relentless musical, something with gusto and hyper-imposed morals. Regardless, B.T. could yell all he wanted, for he had the bag! * * * Oh, Nora. Lipton was in love with the name as well as the person. Her voice came through the phone and he said her name twice, then a third time with effects, rolling the ‘r’: Norrrrrr-uhhhhhhhh. He did so quietly, though; already a scheme was hatching. Nora spoke and explained she was leaving shortly and could possibly stay the night, then leave the following morning. Naturally, this was no good considering the present company he was keeping, and it would take him a solid two hours just to return his room back to its previous chaotic state before B.T. had redecorated. Oh, but Nora, his dove. Her visit was the only source of delight Lipton could see as a conclusion to what had been yet another abysmal day. “I wish you were here already,” he said carefully, tucked into a corner of the kitchen, not wanting to provide the two cavemen in the hall with any sort of ammunition or inspiration. “You should meet my boss, Lippypants,” Nora spoke, her voice changing registers slightly the way it did when she talked ill of someone. “He tries to be nice by pretending to be nice. As if it were the same thing.” Lipton laughed. “Just get here, my sweet. And I’ll hear all about him. But I must go now, really. An opportunity has presented itself.” “What’s going on there?” Nora said, her voice again changing pitch ever so slightly. It was not a question Lipton could begin to answer over the phone, and in fact

the plan was far too young to be verbalized just yet. Speaking it too soon could ruin it, like the long distance runner too eager to lead after the report of the gun. Lipton brushed her off with compliments and lovey-dovey speak, and then set about making the expression of his face reflect the tone of the teleplay he was about to perform. Settle, he instructed himself. Settle. Lipton made his eyes wide behind his glasses as he entered the hallway again, making a point also to keep his lips partially open for effect. He thought of trying to call upon the powerful lip-quiver, but deemed it too melodramatic. Evan and B.T. looked up at him and immediately their faces told Lipton he was being stellar in his role as the receiver and messenger of bad news. B.T.’s nostrils flared and he reached to adjust his pants hanging from his thighs. “What?” Evan said, the blood drying on his finger now. “The police,” Lipton said, thinking short phrases, short phrases. Now was not the time to be long-winded. “They want to talk to you.” He looked at Evan and internally cackled as Evan’s Adam’s apple tumbled in his throat. “Tell them he ain’t here,” B.T. said, his voice laced with the adrenaline of fright despite his attempts to sound imposing. “They’re already on their way,” Lipton said and B.T. immediately rushed past him, bumping his shoulder rather forcefully on his way. Evan cursed and wiped the blood on his shirt before trying to raise himself off the floor, a pathetic looking endeavor at best. Lipton turned and watched B.T. open the front door and then stop. “If he tells them anything,” he said, speaking to Evan but pointing at Lipton, “I’ll take both of you dumb crackers down. Don’t fucking test me.” B.T. slammed the door behind him and the house rang with the echo of his absence. Lipton raced to the window, and after looking out quickly turned the deadbolt on the door. Behind him, Evan’s efforts to upright himself sent him careening face first into the doorframe of Evan’s bedroom, nearly falling into the sea of strewn objects which threatened to devour him even so. “Settle!” Lipton directed aloud this time. “Don’t make matters worse.” Evan’s face peeled from the molding, his previous look of concern now mixed with the now constant expression of pain. “It’s a ruse, a fabrication, an invention of spirit.” Lipton smiled, showing teeth, as he sunk his good arm underneath the weight of Evan’s

shoulder. “I thought the threat of law enforcement might frighten that indecent thug, but I had no idea it would be so successful. Did you see how he fled?” Lipton was clearly ecstatic with himself, but Evan did not yet share his enthusiasm. “What do you mean?” he asked, using Lipton as a crutch and hopping slowly across the hall into the other bedroom. “The cops aren’t coming?” “Not at all. It was my Nora who phoned!” “That’s pretty slick, Cujo.” “Yes, I’m quite pleased actually.” Together they hobbled to the bed and at last Evan was able to lie down properly. His wound appeared to Lipton to be bleeding again, so he went to his father’s bathroom for a washcloth. Because of his father’s poor habits, determining the clean from the unclean was a bit tricky and finally Lipton settled on one that merely looked cleaner than the rest but was in no way spotless. “So, what do we do when he comes back?” “Well, I suppose we’ll have to decide from a number of possible stories and simply stick to it without deviation.” Lipton dampened the cloth. “I suggest we choose something that will perhaps rid us of him for good. But he’s your friend, so that decision I suppose is ultimately up to you.” Lipton stepped from the bathroom, washcloth in hand. “He’s not really my friend,” Evan said, his low voice lower when his mouth is pointed at his feet. “I just know the guy.” “Then it will be easy to forget him.” Lipton tossed the washcloth on the bed beside Evan, just as the front door opened from down the hall. Before he could panic, the sound of his father came through the room and he knew his shift as nurse was over. Yet, there was still so much to do.

SEVEN Nora forgot nothing. It was something she prided herself on, not to mention how could she claim to be an archivist if she couldn’t remember to pack a toothbrush in an overnight bag? She didn’t consider herself a neat freak, she wasn’t obsessive about any little speck of untidiness. But she was organized to a point of making others uneasy. And that seemed so odd to her. Imagine being alive in the 21st century and looked down upon because one chose to alphabetize their cereal boxes! Did this create any harm to anyone? Did it mean she was incapable of enjoying her life because she was busy slaving over the unevenness of framed pictures hanging on the wall? No, no, no. In fact, she had more time to do the things she wanted because she spent less time trying to find her keys, or wallet, or a recipe, or a birthday card from seven years ago. Everything had a specific place. She merely applied the ideas of Darwin to her tchotchkies. Was that so awful? In the middle of her mental tirade, Nora realized she was pushing 50 in a 35. Slowing down, she took the time to notice from the comfort of her new Volkswagen Beetle (a very well-arranged car in itself) the way the bright summer sun made the street sparkle as she went up a slight hill. It looked like foil, she thought, in a microwave oven, which was not a very good idea she knew. In the south, the streets could burn at any moment. Nora drove past a grocery store and a bicycle shop to a larger road that led to the interstate. There were other observations she had made about the place she now thought of as her home. For example, she continued to be amazed by the seemingly casual abandoning of buildings and the way churches popped up in warehouses and strip malls and any number of architecture which looked nothing like traditional churches. There were car washes on every corner and the names of towns and rivers were comparatively simple to those she knew in New York: Welcome to Oneonta, Whitnel to Schaghticoke, Deep to Tioughnioga. Small children could be heard singing country songs in fast food establishments, while their parents thought nothing of it. Toboggans were hats. And look! there was a man on a moped with no shirt on. These were just generalizations, she knew, but they were the details she told her friends still in New York or Connecticut or Vermont. They had joked of being anxious to meet Lipton and see if he was missing any teeth. Wouldn’t they be in for a surprise? Nora thought.

Traffic wasn’t too heavy and was even less so once on the interstate, where she comfortably set the cruise control at 70 and sang her made up song: “Darple diggle, diggle-do-dee.” She wished she had a sister or brother to share her language of gibberish with then wondered if she wouldn’t be too embarrassed to do so even if she did have a sibling. Perhaps she wouldn’t have even come up with the language at all, because she would have been too busy talking normally with her sibling. That would be a loss. “Look at my dweedle and scriggle-go-pee.” Goodness, she was tired. Lipton would want to have sex she knew, regardless of how badly he was hurt and maybe even because of it, and Nora wasn’t sure she was up for it tonight. It’s not the she didn’t want to, but that was how he would read it. She wished he would shave. The beard was part of his persona, though, something he needed in order to fit into that silly club of academicians. Since when did a beard suggest intelligence instead of laziness? She didn’t understand that desire; there was nothing orderly about beards. And with the sun setting in her rear view mirror it would be half an hour before Nora realized she was traveling in the wrong direction.

EIGHT He couldn’t watch any more T.V. Charlie got dressed and put his sunglasses on before opening the garage door. He felt like Dracula or somebody who has just been to the eye doctor, the day was so bright. His truck was a finely waxed pearl white too, which didn’t really help the matter, but it sure did look good. After driving most of the night, he didn’t do a whole lot of it during the day. Inside the truck, he turned the key and tuned the radio. He needed something with movement, something with pep, something that could keep up with his mind which had been racing all day long. He’d pored over the yearbooks until he knew every page number that had a photo of Evan or Lipton on it, and one or two where he suspected they were in the background, unfocused and unwanted. He had a piece of paper from a legal pad with two addresses on it, and a print-out from the internet where he’d found the Lipton guy’s name in a list of those graduating from a good college in Winston-Salem. In short, he had everything he wanted except for one crucial piece of information. He couldn’t remember the girl’s name, the one who’d been discovered with the fat one which sent the skinny one over the edge. He’d wanted to call up one of his buddies from the class of ’97, but he knew they’d all want the details of why he was asking in the first place, and though his entire suspicion was based on rumors he wasn’t prepared to start creating new ones just yet. That and it wasn’t really his case to be messing with. Lenoir was alive and crawling. The factories were out with the first shift and cars were spilled into intersections where the lights overlapped. He counted three drivers at one stoplight without their seatbelts on, but what could he do? He had bigger matters to focus on, and he was in uncharted territory. His training had not yet extended to interrogation or really anything that involved any kind of follow-up. He was a cop for the moment, an incident officer, and rarely did he ever see any of the people he dealt with on his shift afterwards unless it was a separate incident. There was very little actual investigating in his duties, and beyond setting up a stakeout, Charlie didn’t know what else he could legally do. Again though, it was intuition which called him out. He knew these kids, after all. Charlie started at the Barnes house, a decent looking couple story box with vinyl siding in the Lower Creek neighborhood, not far from a house he’d been called to on a

burglary suspicion that turned out to be a broken drinking glass courtesy of cat’s aimless tail. Hardbarf had given him grief when he’d heard about that one, started asking him about the pussycrooks for awhile until the Chief put an end to it for fear of a sexual harassment suit. That was always his luck. No matter what he did, there was always something funny about it to Hardbarf. There wasn’t a car at the Barnes house, and if they owned a cat he wouldn’t be seeing it today probably. He rolled down the window, took a picture of the house, the mailbox, and the adjacent houses then moved on. He had to go across town to get to the Greely house and it took nearly fifteen minutes because of the traffic. He cut through Freedman, the bad part of town where most of the black people in Lenoir lived and where he spent many an evening sorting out some disturbance or another. He wound his way past corners where he knew people were gathered to sell and buy drugs and on downtown, just shy of the station and near the post office where Charlie could see customers illegally parked trying to get in and out before it closed. This was one of the hardest things about being a cop, turning it off. The laws were always the laws, but those who enforced them only worked eight to twelve hours a day. Charlie went past the library and down Norwood Street with all the nice little old houses where their little old owners lived. He’d buy one of those houses if the right one was for sale, and then he could walk to the library or Rite-Aid. At the end of Norwood he saw a man watering his lawn and walking a big gray dog at the same time. Maybe he’d get a dog too, name it Hooch like in that movie. He went through the light across 18 and past the golf course, where some of the guys from work played once a week. Up a hill and down a street to the left, he came finally to the Greely house, the one where this Lipton guy apparently tried to hack his hand off in the bathroom with a razor blade from his father’s medicine cabinet. The house sort of fit the scene too, Charlie thought. It was small, squatty and wide but disproportionately short, as if a tall man wouldn’t be able to stand up straight inside. The grass needed mowing weeks ago and spider weeds broke through spots on the driveway. At one side of the house was a fence that led to a backyard, though the gate was hanging from one hinge and the entire thing was rusted a deep speckled brown. There were cars, two in fact. One blue sedan parked on the curb and a green hatchback that looked as if it were dying in the driveway. There were three windows on the front of the house, but all were covered in drapes and offered no view

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inside. Still, he wished he’d remembered his binoculars because you never knew. Charlie took pictures of everything, parked the car at a safe distance, and turned the radio down to a fairly low volume. He could run the plates on the two cars when his shift started, but now he would wait. Something would happen. Something always happened.

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NINE B.T. walked, as he was beginning to get damn well accustomed to. That numbnuts Pat didn’t wait for him like he said he would, and he didn’t have any other choice but to hoof it if the cops were on their way. If he went back in the house he was liable to kill somebody, he knew that for certain. He cut through a few yards and wedged himself in and out of a dense line of shrubs. On the other side was the golf course where he met two old men sitting in a golf cart waiting for the group in front of them to advance. Oh well, B.T. thought. He brushed off the junk from the shrubs that was clinging to his shirt and walked on. B.T. had never been on the golf course before. It wasn’t nothing but a waste of grass to him, but the whole damn town seemed to be golf crazy all the sudden and there was even a course right beside his school now in what used to be cow pastures. The rednecks were moving on up, for sure, and who knew what they’d think of next. He was sweating good, the air hot and wet like it would be until October probably, and he could see the clubhouse was at least two hundred yards away, offering the only shade in sight. He dug into his pocket for his cell phone, tried a number but got only a message. A ball whizzed by a few feet from him as he was pressing buttons, and B.T. swore loudly. He wasn’t about to get killed by no goddamn golf ball, and didn’t those motherfuckers see him walking across the grass? He knew he was the only black thing out there, he couldn’t be that hard to miss. Moments later, another ball zinged right above B.T.’s head. He shoved his cell phone back in his pocket and walked fiercely in the direction of the target shooters who were stepping into a golf cart. Were they laughing at him? They better hope to God not because he was in no mood to put up with this shit. Soon, the golf cart was on him and B.T. could see their fuzzy features turn into distinct faces and he realized he knew both of them. It was Shane and Troy, two big sons of bitches who played on the football team and were crazy as all hell. B.T. was relieved it was them, yet anxious at the same time. There was no telling what these boys might do. The first thing they tried was running his ass over with the golf cart. “Mother–“ B.T. yelled as he dove out of the way. The two boys laughed wildly, and slammed on the brakes while trying to spin the back end around. If the grass had

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been wet they would have succeeded, but instead they just made a sort of pathetic arch. B.T. dusted himself off again and stood up, afraid they’d take another run at him. “What the hell you doing out here, man? Looking for balls?” Shane, the wider of the two, though they were both wide as washing machines as it was, laughed as soon as he delivered the joke and Troy followed suit. Shane had on a t-shirt that he’d cut the sleeves off of, and his arms were working on a sunburn, same as his face and the top of his scalp which B.T. could see through the short tines of hair he wore spiked up at the front. He reminded B.T. of a picnic table: red and dumb as shit. “Yeah, where’s your balls?” Troy asked and laughed harder than before, though Shane didn’t exactly join in. B.T. had half a mind to whip them out right then just to see what they’d do. Troy, in his matching sunburn and haircut, would probably fall out of his skin. Something was off about Troy’s face, too. His eyes were too close together or something, made him look like a dog of some kind, something with a long nose. “I’m just cutting through,” B.T. said. He wiped sweat from his brow. He didn’t feel like talking to these two goons any longer than he had to. “Well, that’s dumb,” Shane said, the pot calling the kettle black, which B.T. guessed was correct in his case. Stupid ass sayings. “Yeah, dumb,” dipshit number two chimed in. “Don’t you got a car?” “Nah, man.” “Why not?” Shane asked. He pulled some club out of a bag on the cart and took practice swings at the ground, intentionally digging up huge chunks of turf. “I thought everybody in this town had a car. Even if it’s a piece of shit, it don’t matter, at least it’s a car. Too hot to be walking anywhere.” “Yeah, that’s why we got a cart,” Troy added. Shane took a swing at his ball and cracked it off the tee. B.T. couldn’t tell where the ball went but then he didn’t really care either. As long as it went far away and took the muscle twins with it he was happy. “I’m getting one for graduation.” It was a lie, but the non-reaction from Shane and Troy told B.T. they bought it or had either forgotten what it was they were talking about. He wasn’t expecting shit for graduation, wasn’t sure he was graduating at all even. If he did his

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mom would hug him, take a picture, and then ask “now what?” before he could even take his cap off. That’s what he was expecting. Troy swung at his golf ball and shanked it into the shrub. Shane apparently had seen enough. “Okay, fuck it. We’re done. We’ll give you a ride.” B.T. wiped the sweat again from his forehead and thought he was on the verge of melting and maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. * * * In Lenoir, it seemed to B.T. that there were two types of white dudes: those who hated black people and those who tried their hardest to be as black as possible. Shane and Troy, as evident by Shane’s ride, a low-rider Maxima wagon with rims and neon and a sub that rattled the back windshield, fit into the latter category though they were too stupid to really pull it off. They had their Jay-Z cds, Nelly, Ja Rule, P Diddy, Nas, DMX, and all of that, but B.T. bet a million dollars there was a Lynrd Skynrd disc somewhere in the car that they played when they weren’t trying to put on a show for nobody. It was all an act with these white boys. They didn’t have a clue who they really were. Shane peeled out of the golf course parking lot and then did the same at the intersection. B.T. watched Troy’s face, but it didn’t even register, like he was so used to rubber being laid that he didn’t even notice it when it happened. B.T. told them just to drop him off at the middle school and he’d walk the rest of the way. He didn’t want these fools pulling into his driveway, especially since he wasn’t sure his momma wouldn’t be waiting on him. As they rode past the Mexican joint where Evan had worked, B.T. cringed as Shane suddenly turned left and wheeled the car into a gas station lot. He could see the tank gauge read three-fourths, and knew the fools were up to something. Shane pulled into a spot beside a piece of shit Escort (though B.T. wouldn’t turn it down if it were given to him) and Troy rolled down his window. A moment later, two blondes in denim shorts that damn near gave a glimpse of ass cheek walked out of the store, the taller of the two smacking a pack of cigarettes against her hand. “What the hell you bitches doing?” Troy said and B.T. watched the tall girl laugh and remove the cellophane from the cigarette pack. The way the words came out of Troy’s mouth made B.T. feel as if he’d been robbed of something personal, the language

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of his hip hop idols desecrated by some dumbass hick. But they were all doing it, hell it was on TV now too. Nobody cared. “Nothing, what you doing?” the girl said and finally had a cigarette in between her fingers with the nails painted pink. The shorter girl opened the passenger door on the Escort like she wasn’t aware anyone else in the world existed. B.T. knew a lot of girls in this town, but he didn’t know these two. They looked older, probably worked at the Pizza Hut or some place. “Going to the ghetto,” Shane said. He nodded in B.T.’s direction. “Taking a friend home. Wanna come?” B.T. stared at his hands. He knew he shouldn’t have gotten in that goddamn car and now he was just getting what he had coming to him for being so stupid. “Don’t go to the ghetto. Come drinking with us.” The tall girl pulled car keys from a little maroon purse as she exhaled smoke. B.T. could see through his poorly tinted window a tattoo of a cross on her ankle. On another day he might be attracted to her, but he didn’t need any more headaches at the moment. “You can bring your friend,” she said and suddenly put her face up against his window, peering into the layer of dark film that was peeling and cracking, and planted a kiss on the glass. B.T. didn’t think she could see him, but he turned away from her nonetheless. “You gonna wash that window?” Troy said and the blond gave him a look that loosely translated to fuck off. “Where’s the party?” Shane asked and finally the tall girl turned to acknowledge the other girl’s presence. She opened her car door, said something to the short one, and then turned back to the boys. “Out towards West Caldwell. One of her cousins has a pool. You can follow us.” She took a drag on the cigarette and B.T. watched as Shane and Troy looked at each other and waited for the gravel to stir around in their heads as they considered, and naturally accepted the offer. “Let’s do it,” Shane said and the girl got in her shitty Escort and backed out to lead the way. From the front seat, Troy turned around and looked at B.T. with a big jackass looking grin on his face. “Now, aren’t you glad we tried to kill you?” he said and

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together he and Shane laughed as the car bolted backward and then jerked into drive. B.T. turned and looked out his crusty window thinking they were just getting started killing him. The laughter was dampened by the thunderous return of the stereo and B.T. knew every single word to a song Shane and Troy couldn’t possibly understand.

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TEN Paul stepped out of the shower and found his towel was missing from where he had left it on the floor the day before. Maybe Eggs had used it. He found another one near the toilet and it worked just as well. There was nothing better than a shower after work, it was like washing off everything and starting over. He knew most people took their showers in the morning so they would smell nice and be clean for the day, but Paul didn’t understand what it was about sleeping that would make a person get all dirty. He took his shower, fixed a dinner, paid some bills, maybe watched a game on TV or something, and then went to bed. He smelled fine in the morning and always put on deodorant and ran water through his hair to make it look neat. After work, he could shower long as he wanted too, though today he’d been interrupted by two separate bouts of scalding hot water from Lip or Eggs flushing the other toilet, even though he’d asked them not to before he got in. Kids just didn’t listen sometimes, what could he do? Dressed in his favorite jeans and a green golf shirt he’d bought at the clubhouse, Paul opened his bedroom door to find Lipton leaning against the opposite wall reading from some book, which he quickly closed and hid behind his back. His boy was always on edge, it seemed, ever since that awful, awful day some years ago when Paul had found him bleeding in the bathroom. But he thought it was time Lip moved on because he didn’t want his son to live his life acting like that, it just wasn’t healthy. He should say something to Lip about it, but how was he supposed to talk to somebody on the edge about them being on the edge without them being on the edge? Instead, he asked, “How do I look?” “Like a million lire,” Lipton said, drumming the fingers of his bruised arm against his ribs. “Is that good?” “Depends on the market.” “Well, I’ll pretend its good. A million anything has to be worth something.” “Yes, though–” The sound of Evan’s leg distracted them temporarily as he thudded from the living room into the kitchen, briefly coming in and out of sight from where the two Greelys stood in the hallway. “He does this all day.”

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“Eggs is a strong boy,” Paul said, running his hand through his still damp hair. He liked his hair. It was going gray, but at least he still had most of it. “What’s for supper?” “Actually, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Lipton said, his good arm still carefully crooked behind his book. Paul tried to peer behind him, but Lip just turned his body. “Are you listening?” “What’s that behind your back, Lip?” Again he heard the combination: backlip. Hell, it was kind of fun though. “Nothing. A book you would have no interest in.” Lipton continued to turn his body against Paul’s slight advances. “Oh yeah? What’s it called?” “Advanced Mechanisms of Social Injustice in the Modern South.” Evan hopped back to the living room, a bouncing blurry blip. “Well,” Paul said eyeing his son carefully. He didn’t understand why anyone would feel so protective of a book with that title. Sounded like a real snoozer to him. “I can tell you about injustice, you want to know about injustice.” Lipton followed him down the hall and into the living room. “Yes, the fact that we have no groceries is indeed a grave social injustice.” “I thought the Bacon and Eggs express was going out earlier?” Paul patted Eggs’ shoulder as he passed behind him sitting on the couch. “Unfortunately we had a visitor who delayed our leave, and now that you’re here and feeling refreshed, I’ve made a list for you of the things we need.” Lipton quickly tucked the book, spine down, into his sling and retrieved the list from his pocket. “Evan here had a few requests of his own, which he offered to pay for and which I’ve put on a separate list.” “I don’t want to go the store now, Lip. I’m tired.” Paul moved a box from the blue recliner and sat down. Eggs was watching a dating show that Paul was prepared to act like he had never seen. “Why don’t you boys go and get out of the house for awhile?” “Because I’m expecting Nora and Evan’s expecting his mother.”

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Paul had forgotten about Tina coming with the crutches for Eggs and of course he was happy that sweet Nora was coming, but to him it was all the more reason Lip should’ve taken care of the groceries before now. “Maybe your old man is expecting somebody too. How’s that sound, Lip?” Paul said it like he meant it, but the truth was far from it. Still, that didn’t mean he couldn’t say it if he wanted to. He could say anything he wanted to and Lip couldn’t stop him. “Are you?” Lip asked. “Seriously?” “No,” Paul admitted and sank further in the recliner. On TV a girl with big boobs was kissing a guy in a hot tub. Paul couldn’t believe any of that would ever happen on a first date. A first date! He couldn’t imagine, but then people did all kinds of stuff on TV now. Maybe this was how a guy was supposed to act on a first date these days, maybe he had it all wrong. “This show is utterly reprehensible,” Lipton said, standing behind both of them his eyes glued on the set. “Then why are you watching?” Eggs asked and Paul thought it was funny how Eggs didn’t have to turn around to know that Lip was watching the show. “What I’m watching is two primates drool at the mouth over very badly staged soft-core pornography.” “You think it’s not real, Lip?” Paul perked up a bit in the chair. He had different feelings about the situation if it weren’t real, but he didn’t know how anybody could tell. “Please, father. It’s all smoke and mirrors, marketed as the truth in an attempt to appeal to a wider demographic. I can assure you this sort of thing never happens in real life.” “Well, not in yours obviously,” Eggs said and Paul burst out laughing. That Eggs was a sharp pencil, all right. Paul was glad to have him around to keep Lip on his toes. They spoke the same language, Paul thought, him and Eggs. He tried to picture Eggs in that hot tub with the big-chested girl, and then thought of a real egg in a hot tub, swimming in the bubbles, ready to be peeled and crumbled over a nice salad. “I’ll choose to disregard that statement,” Lipton said, his face slightly sour, “For I seem to be the only one remotely occupied with the fact that there is nothing whatsoever to eat in this house that would not result in hospitalization and/or death the minute is

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ingested.” “Here, take my car.” Paul tossed the keys to Lipton. He couldn’t take his eyes off that hot tub. “I’ll watch for Nora.” “Do I have to point out that of the three men in this room you are the most physically able to do this task?” “Look at that,” Eggs said and on TV the girl was removing her bikini top just as casually as anything. Paul thought she probably took off her socks the same way, though if she did that on TV they wouldn’t blur out her toes and all. The girl dipped back into the water and turned her fuzzed out chest away from the lucky man who then began a shoulder massage. Paul had never seen an episode like this one that was for sure. He almost started to tell Eggs about this other time where one of the boys got slapped for doing what the hot tub guy was doing, but then remembered he didn’t want to do that just as the doorbell rang. * * * Paul sprang from the recliner to change the channel, but instead got the volume button before finally turning the whole thing off. Lipton opened the door and Tina stuck her head in. “Come in, come in!” Paul said, interrupting Lipton before he had the chance to say something that would make Tina feel awkward. Lip had a way of doing that around people, especially adults. It was like he was a robot programmed to discomfort. Evan turned his head and, catching sight of two shiny metal crutches, began the process of getting off the couch, an act which sort of looked robotic too. Maybe they were out to get him, Paul thought. Fleshy metallic monsters. “How are we feeling?” Tina had a brown paper bag in one arm which Paul offered to take and couldn’t help but feel joy peeking inside and eyeing the makings of a nice spaghetti dinner. Evan was up now and hopped to Tina and the crutches. “They’re adjustable,” she said and Evan took a practice walk through the kitchen, his single solid hop replaced by the clacking noise of the crutches and the muted thud of his now supported foot.

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“Looky there,” Paul said, setting the bag on top of some magazines on the kitchen counter. “He’s a pro just like that!” Tina smiled and from the corner of his eye, Paul caught Lipton shaking his head. “Well, he’s lucky he still has a foot to hop on,” Tina said, shutting the door behind her. “You’re both lucky one of you didn’t get killed.” “That’s right,” Paul added though the prospect of death hadn’t really occurred to him. As far as he was concerned, the boys had done something stupid but it was all over with now. Sometimes you had to learn about life from being a bonehead, that’s just the way it worked. It happened at the stair factory on a daily basis, pretty much. “You just missed getting to see a naked chick on TV,” said Evan tripoding down the hallway. Now why would he go and say a thing like that? His mother didn’t need to know about that, it was embarrassing. “So that’s what you boys have been up to then?” Tina asked. “Not all of us,” Lipton said, finally speaking and acknowledging the fact that someone else was there. He removed the book from his sling and tucked it safe in the opposite armpit. “Yeah right, Cujo,” said Evan. “Why don’t you sit down?” Paul said to Tina, pointing to the recliner that was still jiggling slightly from his sudden departure, like one of those vibrating beds some of the hotels had. “Lip here was just going to the store to get things for a nice dinner. Why don’t you stay and eat with Eggs and us?” The smell from the bag all but made his mouth water. He was goading her into mentioning the food, he knew, but they might as well get it out in the open. What if there was something that needed to go in the fridge? “He means he is going to the store,” Lip countered. “No, he means you,” Evan said his new shiny metal arms swinging back into the room. “Give your dad a break, dude.” Lipton’s mouth opened, but nothing came out. He scratched his beard instead, his elbows tight against his ribs in a way that made him look cold even though Paul had to admit it did feel pretty warm in the house. He hoped he wouldn’t start sweating and get all smelly, what with Tina here and Nora on her way. “There’s things for spaghetti in that bag,” Tina said sitting down. “You boys want spaghetti?”

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“Sure,” Evan said lifting one of his crutches above his head and touching the ceiling with it for some reason, probably just to see if he could. Small pieces of white popcorn floated down, disturbed by the crutch, and Evan turned his head to avoid getting the ceiling fragments in his eyes. “Mom’s spaghetti’s the best.” “Lipton what about you?” Paul did a bit of a double-take hearing Tina say his boy’s name. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard a woman his age, a real woman, talk to Lip like that, like a mother. It hadn’t happened in his house in ten years. Kooky, lovely Jenny, Paul thought instantly. Why’d you go honey? Why’d you leave? What about your boy? “If for no other reason than convenience I would say yes.” Lipton’s ever-moving hand was now focused on the adjustment of his blue sling. “And also, I do remember your spaghetti as being quite delectable.” Was that a compliment? Paul wondered, surprised by the possibility. Tina stood from the recliner which jiggled in her absence and Paul quickly threw up his hands in protest. “No, no, no, you sit right back down. I’m not letting you cook in my kitchen. You’re a guest. Lip turn on the TV and find something nice that Tina wants to watch so she can relax a bit.” “Really, Paul,” Tina said, waving her own hand in protest of Paul’s protest, “I don’t mind a bit.” “Mom’s spaghetti’s the best,” said Evan clomping to the couch, bored now by the crutches. “Sure, sure,” Paul said knowing damn well that he hadn’t attempted spaghetti in months, mainly because it required the use of three or four dishes, pots and strainers and spoons, whereas a frozen dinner required none. Oh hell, the dishes! “But Eggs, your mom, she needs –“ “Father, I mean you no grave insult but your spaghetti is simply inferior in comparison,” Lipton said, still fighting with that sling. “We live in a society based upon the sole pursuit of obtaining and/or achieving the quote/unquote best of any particular object, good, or idea even, and here you have someone offering to hand you the best of something, in this case spaghetti, on a plate, no pun intended, and you insist on refusing not because you don’t want the best spaghetti that we could possibly have tonight, but

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merely because you retain a stubbornness to such outdated systems as a brand of etiquette, or –“ “Paul,” Tina said moving into the kitchen. “Really, I’m happy to do it. You can help and these knucklehead can set the table.” “Well,” Paul stumbled. Of course he wanted her to cook the spaghetti, but what kind of man wouldn’t at least offer when he had company? Were the rules changing that much? If Jenny had been there she wouldn’t have dreamt to let Tina cook a meal in their, (well, her) kitchen. Now he was the bad guy for trying to be polite? It didn’t make any sense. “At least let me clean up these dishes first.” Tina smiled and nodded, while the two knuckleheads were quickly lost in the return of the television. That’s a good momma, Paul thought and he couldn’t help himself but think that his Jenny was not and in fact never had been.

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ELEVEN A knock at the window. Charlie stirred, his hand intuitively going to his belt where a nightstick should be and instead found the buckle of a seatbelt. His eyes struggled to focus behind sunglasses he quickly then removed and his mouth held the stale taste of sleep. He had drifted off during a stakeout and now he’d been caught. What a pathetic lump. At the window was a young girl, pretty with red curly hair, and a face he vaguely remembered from somewhere. He pressed the button sending the window down into the panel of the door, and became even more acutely aware of how badly the air in his truck smelled. There were fast food remainders in the tiny space behind the seats, just cups and wrappers, but they had long overstayed their welcome. “Charlie Pritchard?” the girl said. She had on a tight shirt that was as nearly white as his truck and Charlie thought her shoulders looked exceptionally round, like baseballs atop the practice tees of her arms. “That’s right,” he said and immediately thought it was the dumbest possible thing to say at that moment. He was supposed to know her name, not confirm his own. “You don’t remember me.” She busted him again, two to zero. “No, I do. I do.” “Not my name.” “Guess I’m bad with names.” He looked now for the first time beyond his visitor, back at the Greely house and saw movement. Someone was going inside, a woman about his mother’s age, maybe a little younger. Red hair. Dammit, he should be taking pictures. The girl turned to see what he was looking at. He wasn’t going to get away with anything it appeared. “She’s the one who gave me my name.” “Mother?” he said and the girl nodded. “Yeah, I can see the resemblance.” “So what are you doing sleeping out here? You didn’t pass out or anything did you?” “No, no,” he said and his mind just collapsed. He was a cop, it was his job to uphold and protect the truth, and instead of creating lies he couldn’t stop trying to think of the girl’s name. He looked away, back at the Greely house where the girl’s mother

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had disappeared inside, and then Charlie turned back to her and just shrugged his shoulders. He shook his head as if he had a tic and opened his mouth knowing full well it was best to keep it closed. He said nothing. It was the best he could do. “Do you need help or anything?” the girl asked, her eyebrows now slightly tilted inward toward her nose. “Do you want me to call a cab or something?” Oh great. She thinks I’m drunk. “No, I’m fine,” he said trying to concentrate on her dark eyes without feeling intimidated by them. “Thanks though.” “Oh my gosh,” she said and he realized in an instant that she was staring at the camera in the seat beside him. “Are you trying to catch a criminal or something?” There was excitement in her voice and nails in his head: 3-0. “What?” “I’m so sorry!” She put her hands on top of all that red hair and he could see her round shoulders flatten a bit. “I didn’t mean to bother you I just thought you might need help!” Her hands moved from her head to her mouth. “No, wait,” he said, picking up the camera. “I just have this for me. You know, you keep it around just in case you see something that’ll make a good picture. See?” He pointed the camera at her and without looking through the eyepiece snapped off a shot. He then laughed an entirely fake laugh. “I promise. No spying. I know what it looks like, but it’s,” he stopped to use his hands as assistance. “It’s just not.” “Okay,” she said and took her hands away from her mouth. There was still blush in her cheeks. “I should go now.” She waved and started backward. “Wait a second,” Charlie said surprising even himself a bit. He wiped sweat from his brow and longed to be back on the road or in the safety of his house, the air on full blast either way. But not right yet. “I don’t remember your name, I’m sorry. I just feel like a real jerk, a real grade A jackass. And you found me sleeping in my truck and I appreciate you waking me up and all and I can’t even give you a good reason for why I was doing it. I’m an officer of the law and I should project a more inspiring image. I don’t really know what to –” “I won’t tell,” she said stopping him. “Tell what?”

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She smiled politely and turned her head toward the Greely house. He shouldn’t have said that, didn’t understand that she knew what he was thinking better than he did: 4-0. “What’s your name?” he asked again. “I won’t forget it this time, swear.” She turned back and looked at him with those cola-brown eyes. There was something oddly unique about the ways in which she was pretty: her skin not quite tan and overrun with freckles, her frame wide but in no way thick, her voice deeper than the ladies who called his house trying to sell him cable TV he already had. Charlie understood that she was the kind of girl who a guy like Hardbarf would make fun of him for dating, but one who would be worth the torment all the same. He didn’t know how he knew that, but it was there in his peripheral like a driver with a busted tail light. “Marnie Teaks,” she said and the name launched a thousand brain cell ships in the sea of Charlie’s head. “You helped us one night when we got a flat, right by the old bowling alley. My father and me.” “Oh right,” he said. That was maybe a year or two ago but, yeah, he remembered the short man with a few strands of hair on top struggling to loosen the lug nuts on some old little British car. “You went to Hibriten but after I graduated, right?” “Mhmm.” Her lips were clinched together, a coat of clear gloss giving them just a hint of sheen. “And your dad works for the newspaper? Or am I thinking of somebody else?” “No, he did,” she said and Charlie noticed a slight change in her face, a loosening around the eyes. “He actually passed away recently to cancer.” Oh, nice one Charlie Doo Doo Brown. Real nice. “Jesus,” he said. “I’m real sorry to hear that.” She shrugged her shoulders and said nothing, as unable to lie as he had been earlier. “Thanks,” she muttered finally and then said, “I ought to be going.” Charlie nodded and watched her wave once again and move at last in the direction away from him. Marnie Teaks. He watched her go, legs long and athletic, and played the name again in his head. Then: bingo. “Say,” Charlie positioned his head slightly out the window, “You live here?”

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She turned around in the middle of the street like the road belonged to her. “No. We’re visiting friends who were in an accident.” She moved a strand of that red hair from her face. “Actually, I think you might have gone to school with both of them. Do you want to come with me?” There were a million places Charlie Pritchard would like to go with Marnie Teaks, he thought, but that particular house at that particular moment was not meant to be one of those places. “Sorry,” he said. “I have to go to work.” She nodded, scrunching up her nose in the process, and turned back across the road. Charlie’s mind raced with the knowledge that this was his girl, the one who had caused an attempted suicide, the one who no doubt had her hooks in them yet. It was Marnie Teaks. Four to one.

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TWELVE Lipton’s stomach churned and his breath shortened. He had to place one hand on the couch to situate himself, his father’s worn copy of Upon Guarded Glance falling from his armpit and then woozily kicked beneath the furniture. The doorbell rang again and he could not move. He could, however, see the beginnings of a bald spot atop Evan’s head and this amused him briefly, but again he was overcome by the physical ailments of love. It had been but a day, yet he was anxious to the point of sickness for the sight of his dear Nora. There simply was no other remedy for the tumultuous twenty-four hours that had transpired, no amount of spaghetti which could soothe his particular type of starvation. Imagine the complete disappointment he felt when Tina opened the door revealing Linda Teaks and the news that her daughter was trailing behind. Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? SHERMAN’S WIFE, MOTHER, AND MISTRESS. Lipton bolted to his room claiming to have been struck with a brilliant idea for his theory that needed instant transcription, and flung headfirst into cleaning the various stacks of assorted garbage, hoping to produce enough noise as to drown out the sound of Carnie’s eventual entrance. The noise was no help for his mind, though and he could see her enter in a flood of red hair and revealing wardrobe, sliding like a hockey puck across the room to her mound of Evan on the couch where she would climb atop his lap and cuddle him back to health. Lipton nearly gagged at the thought of it, then realized this reaction was more likely a result of the molded comic books he was now holding in his hands. He tossed the pile back to the floor and when the scent lifted from disturbance like a gathering of the dead following an especially heavy day of combat, Lipton simply opened the window and threw the lot into the yard. He would give the heap a proper burial, a flaming pyre perhaps, at a later date, but now he was in no state to be dealing with matches or the like. The results could be devastating. In the ensuing chaos, Lipton crammed as much junk as possible into his closet, beneath the white, hideously outdated dresser, into the drawers of the nightstand, in the cubbyhole of his headboard, and lastly turned his attention to the crawlspace between box spring and carpet where he knew he must be careful. At the corner furthest from the door was a small but notable difference in the way in which the thin cover of fibers attached to

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the bottom of the box springs. Specifically, instead of a staple was a clear plastic thumbtack, the same as those which held Lipton’s map of the ante-bellum United States to the wall above his headboard. Lipton removed the tack quickly and effortlessly, pulled back the translucent sheet, and inserted his hand. Pushing aside the XXX rated videotape Bone With the Wind, which he had purchased online strictly as a potentially humorous footnote in his project, Lipton retrieved the baggy of weed and clinched it tight within his fist. Let them toy with the past! Lipton thought, And I will produce the incriminating evidence like the head of Medusa by Perseus! Lipton brought his head back into the light out from beneath the bed and exhaled as a collection of stringy fibers again hung from his glasses like vines, as if his eyebrows had grown fast and old. He heard the door open and close. High pitch chatting. Laughter. She was inside. * * * Lipton kept still and quiet. He could hear things without really discerning what was being said. He had ideas about what they were saying – this and that about the healing process, further accolades about Tina’s spaghetti, admiration for Evan’s quickness to the crutches – but at the moment Lipton was more or less paralyzed by the thought that at any minute Nora could and likely would arrive, and the only two women he’d ever truly loved would be face to face in the same room. How ever would he introduce Nora to Marnie? She knew of the scars that were protruding now from the sleeve of his ruffled shirt, on the arm that was hurt once more because of something Evan had done. Nora knew the details, but in their two years together Lipton had always withheld the names. Why? Because he couldn’t stand the thought of them on his lips. Now they were much more than a thought or a taste, they were both – Barnbuster and Marnie Wan Kenobi - loose flesh, carbon based, somewhat mobile, unapologetic, and in this very house. Even if he didn’t tell her, Nora would figure it out. She was an archivist for God’s sake; she put things in their place. Lipton heard the shuffle of feet in the hallway and stood up immediately, briefly considering taking a dive out the window but then remembering the nauseating pile of

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mold that was now out there. Instead, he stood with his back against the wall facing the door, an escaped prisoner making himself as flat as possible to avoid the search lights, hoping for the best. “Lip?” It was his father. The knob rattled, locked by Lipton much earlier. “Supper’s almost done. Don’t you wanna come out and say hello to the nice Teaks ladies?” Lipton stayed as flat to the wall as he could with one arm in a sling. “I’m working, father. It’s very important that I get this down.” “Oh.” The knob rattled again. Had his memory disappeared with his tact? Lipton wondered. “Well, how come you got the door locked?” “So as not to be disturbed, though clearly I should have done something more drastic.” “Yeah, but the Teaks ladies are here, Lip. You went off and hid from them at the hospital and now you’re doing it again. They’re going to start thinking that something’s wrong with you, son.” Here his father paused. “Is something wrong with you?” Lipton let his head drop while the rest of him clung to the wall like an injured spider. Why must this question always be asked of those who see the wrong in everyone else? “The only thing wrong is that I have been unable to find a moment’s peace in this house today. Now please, if you will give me but just a moment–“ “What about your spaghetti?” his father asked from behind the door. “Give it to the Teaks.” “But Tina made enough for everybody.” “Then give it to the neighbors.” “Say,” the door rattled yet again. His father’s voice dropped. “You’re not pleasuring yourself in ther–“ “Father, please!” Lipton raised his voice and regretted doing so, for as soon as the words finished echoing off the walls of his tiny room, he heard more foot shuffling just outside the door.

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“Lipton?” It was her. Lipton moved from the wall and threw open the window. He would retreat. It was the only option. “Hey, I really need to talk to you about something. Can you open up?” The smell of the comic book mold forced him to turn his head into his shoulder. She sounded serious. He closed the window. “Just a moment.” Lipton opened the door just wide enough to see both of Marnie’s umber eyes. “Seriously,” she said, her lips gleaming from the application of some artificial highlight. He would make sure to see if Evan’s lips had any of the same, he thought briefly. “There’s a cop outside. Can I come in?” He stood back from the door and Marnie entered the room, immediately turning up her nose at the odor in the air. “The smell came from outside. In case you were wondering, which how could you not?” She walked to the other side of the dresser taking in his room and then stopped and turned back to him, their eyes meeting again. “Do you know Charlie Pritchard? He graduated a few years ahead of you and Evan, and now works for the police department. Short black hair? About your height, but much more muscular?” “Thank you,” Lipton said and watched as Marnie offered no sign of an apology. There weren’t a lot of people he remembered from Hibriten High and even more he had been trying to forget. “No, the description doesn’t strike a chord.” “When we got here I found him asleep in his truck on the other side of the road, with a camera in his passenger seat. He’s gone now, but I think he was watching your house.” “Well, that’s fantastic.” Lipton sat down on the bed and to his surprise and discomfort, Marnie sat down beside him. She smelled heavenly, some fruit-based concoction designed strictly to torment the nerves of a well-tempered man, and God, her legs were tan! “Can you think of a reason why he’d be doing that?” “Yes, and he’s no doubt sitting on the couch right now wondering what you’re telling me.” “Evan?” Her eyes narrowed. She scratched at the skin beneath the shiny little watch on her wrist. “I don’t understand. Why him?”

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Lipton sighed. In seven years he’d wanted to tell Marnie everything that was wrong with Evan, all the reasons why he, Lipton, could have been so much better for her, but he would not allow himself to ignore the simple fact that she chose him. They were both guilty of his heartache. This was his opportunity to remove with a swift kick (the bag of weed was in his pocket!) the pedestal from which Evan had stood on in Marnie’s eyes, yet Lipton didn’t even know where to begin. He was a corporal, dammit, not a common soldier, he needed time to orchestrate his revenge and he had done nothing but answer the whims of the enemies all day long. “He did have a firearm,” Lipton said finally. Perhaps Marnie knew about Evan’s drug habits already, and certainly he remembered B.T.’s casual declaration that he knew of Miss Marnie the night of the accident. If she didn’t, she would find out in time, but not right now, not from him. “Yeah, but if there was some problem with the gun then why didn’t they just arrest him last night? Evan doesn’t even have his truck back. It doesn’t make sense that they would be doing a stakeout over a gun they already have.” “Perhaps you should talk to him.” It was as polite as Lipton could be to both of them. Marnie looked at him with reading eyes, but he didn’t flinch. Lipton gave away nothing, implied little, and criticized none. There would be time to do all three later, of course, but he needed the proper forum, enough with the small stage antics. “Cujo,” Evan’s seismographic voice came from down the hall, and then he plodded into sight, crutches first, body second. “Food’s on, let’s go. You too, Red.” How cute, Lipton thought. A new nickname. He stood and brushed his hands together carefully. “Uggh. What’s that smell?” “Nothing,” Lipton answered, adjusting the sling against his neck, and then treaded off to his own personal version of the Last Supper complete with frozen garlic bread and imitation soda.

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THIRTEEN A ninety mile drive had taken Nora nearly three hours, but she was in Lenoir. In a way she was relieved, because the traffic was much lighter now that it was later. Mostly though, she was frustrated with herself for doing something so stupid. She considered her internal compass to be in excellent working order and this just wasn’t like her. Lipton never paid attention to where he was going, had to get out a map when traveling alone to places they’d been to together numerous times before, but she was the one with the sense of direction. And now it was failing. Perhaps it was an extremely early sign of Alzheimer’s? Or menopause? She was being paranoid, she knew, and at the major intersection by the Mr. Omelet Nora made herself pay attention to her breathing, controlled and relaxed. A car pulled up beside her and she could practically feel the young male driver staring at her. She was beginning to wish she had just stayed in Winston; Lipton hadn’t even called her cell phone to see why she was running so late. Of course, she hadn’t called him to admit her goof, but still, wasn’t he the least bit concerned? The light turned green and she waited for the car beside her to pull ahead and distance himself. The license plate read VNTYPL8 and Nora couldn’t help but chuckle. That’s so Lenoir, she thought. If she could remember, she had to tell Lipton about the license plate. He was enthralled by the contradictions of his hometown, constantly telling her statistics and analysis relating the median wage of a furniture worker to the steep profits of the companies themselves, the general dislike of the Mexican immigrants to the burgeoning success of the Mexican restaurants, the desire to be more than just a string of fast food places to the inability to support an independent bookstore. She suggested once that Lip should run for some city office, but he scoffed at the idea saying he had more global ambitions. She refrained from suggesting that this was another contradiction, but she certainly thought it. What she liked about Lenoir was the way the mountains really did look blue in the distance when the day was clear, the fact that there was no real shopping mall (one existed in name only, as there were more vacant stores than occupied and thriving), the walking park near Lipton’s house and the golf course, and the giant Christmas tree she had seen lit up downtown this past winter. She wouldn’t call it a quaint town, not like some of the New York spots she visited when shopping with her

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mother, but it was nice. Whatever its faults, Lenoir had produced Lipton and whether this was yet another contradiction or not Nora didn’t care. He could figure that one out himself. She pulled onto Lipton’s street surprised to find more cars than normal. Most of the houses were like Mr. Greely’s, with a one car garage making it necessary for so many to park on the street, but she’d never seen it like this in the two years she and Lip had been dating. She pulled behind a van on the side opposite the house and got out. The night was still humid and Nora wished she had taken the time to change. Her slacks would surely have a wet bottom if she stayed outdoors for any given time, she thought; Swamp-ass, Lipton had called it. He could be so gross sometimes for someone who took so much pride in being intellectual. She wondered if all professors were like that, and she figured probably so. At the door, Paul was the first one to greet her. He gave her a hug, squishing the napkin tucked into the neck of his shirt against her, and Nora noticed that his hands smelled of garlic. Inside, a table full of people she didn’t know, three women and one young man, smiled at her like polite southerners, and as Paul offered her a plate of spaghetti she could think of only one thing: Who is that redhead sitting beside Lipton? * * * In Lipton’s room, which was surprisingly clean though smelled horrible, Nora sat her overnight bag on the bed and gave Lipton’s sling-hidden elbow a cautious squeeze. “Does it hurt?” “Not terribly,” he said and kissed her forehead. His breath was obliterated by the smells of what he’d been eating. She squeezed harder. “Okay, yes.” She smiled and kissed his cheek. “What took you so long? I expected you an hour ago.” “I went the wrong way on I-40.” “No. You’re teasing.” Nora shook her head. “That’s brilliant!” he said and kissed her on the lips. Now she was hungry, starving in fact. “Lippy, who are all those people?” “What do you mean? My father introduced you.”

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“Yes, but who are they?” She stepped away from him just enough to glance over the dresser, looking for a clue as to what was causing the odor that was quickly replacing the scent of spaghetti. “And what is that awful smell?” “It’s something outside. I had the window open.” He moved close to her again. “Come here.” She let his one capable arm pull her into him. “Is Evan the one you punched?” “Yes. He’s the one who shot himself and the reason I’m in this infernal sling. Oh, and because of my father, he’s also staying here for an undisclosed period of time.” “Tonight too?” “Yes, alas.” “Oh good.” “No, not quite,” he said, his hand tracing down the back of her shirt along her spine, where she knew he could feel the sweat that was seeping through. “And the redhead? Marnie, isn’t it?” She looked up at Lipton for a reaction, but his face suggested nothing unusual. “She’s his girlfriend.” She watched him pause, his tongue seemingly fidgeting with something inside his closed mouth. “The other crimson is her mother, and the other woman is Evan’s mother.” “How long have you known her?” It was an innocent question and she made sure it sounded that way coming out of her mouth. A slip of inflection and it would be a long evening. “Marnie? Long enough,” Lipton said. “Listen, let me get you a plate of food and we can finish our meals in here and not bother with those dullards.” “No, I want to meet your friends.” She stepped away before he could put his hand on her ass. “All the more reason why we need not go out there.” “Those aren’t your friends? I thought you grew up together?” “Yes, but certain things happen and the next thing you–“ “So, tell me what happened.” Nora looked at him sharply, but Lipton avoided her gaze. “Tell me what happened or take me back out there. Your choice.”

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Nora watched as Lipton scratched his beard. Finally, he pulled the door open again. “Thank you,” Nora said and walked through.

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FOURTEEN The tall girl was named Kristi and the short girl Nicole. B.T. found this out by listening to Shane and Troy call dibs as they followed Kristi’s little car out to a house off a cul de sac about a mile past West Caldwell High. Shane wanted the quiet one because she was a challenge and Troy wanted the other because he’d heard some nasty stories about her, shit B.T. doubted was even remotely true. To him, the two fools had it backwards, as it was obvious to him that Kristi didn’t give a fuck about fat Troy and all they was doing was fixing to make a bad situation worse. At the house, he watched Shane and Troy bumble inside, eager with the scent of an impossible lay, and didn’t follow them claiming he had to make a call as an excuse. The truth was he had nobody else to call. He’d already called everybody he could think of that wouldn’t give him shit and found only dial tones and in one case, a flat out rejection. He was stuck, and in the meantime thoughts of that skinny professor fool blabbing to the police about his weed ran through B.T.’s mind. He couldn’t even call Evan because the cops might still be there, he just didn’t know. B.T. ventured inside into the air conditioning, where a room full of white people, guys mostly, stood crowded in a kitchen smoking cigarettes and laughing in between sips from red cups. The house was big, open. B.T. saw little statues and shit hanging on the wall he knew was expensive. Somebody’s parents were out of town, same old story. His mom never went out of town. In the corner Shane was already inching closer to Nicole who unsurprisingly didn’t seem to give a damn, and it was Troy who saw B.T. first. He held his hands up high like he was wanting B.T. to slap them, but B.T. wasn’t about to do that. Realizing this, Troy put his big meaty hands on Evan’s shoulders and yelled for everyone’s attention. “This is my boy B.T., everybody. He don’t have a car, so he definitely needs a beer.” B.T. listened as people screamed and cheered like a bunch of damn idiots and then he felt another, smaller set of hands on his shoulders and turned around. Kristi handed him a cup, her blond hair now in a ponytail, and whispered into B.T.’s ear. “I’m glad you came.” Her breath smelled like cigarettes and beer, the hint of some kind of chewing gum. She looked at him with eyes he knew suggested possession if he wanted her. He didn’t. She wanted him so she could tell her friends about the black

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guy she fucked, he knew, and right now he wasn’t interested. She turned away quickly and brought her voice up. “Let’s fucking swim, y’all.” B.T. watched them trickle out in groups through sliding glass doors to the kidney shaped pool. Some of the guys took their shirts off inside, exposing pimpled backs and cheap generic tattoos, and a tribe of three girls wandered off in search of a bathroom. Alone, B.T. looked into the cup at the foamy beer, thought it smelled horrible, and threw the whole thing into the sink. * * * Outside, B.T. sat alone at a table beneath an umbrella, unconcerned with the fools in the pool trying to splash the girls like it was going to get them anywhere. Half the girls weren’t even in the pool, and were lying on chairs with their belly rings reflecting the sun like they could get tanner than they already were, like they could make the transition and finally be as black as he was. Shane rubbed sunblock on Nicole’s back, and B.T. shook as head as the fool just kept talking even when she laid on her stomach and turned her head away from him. Kristi was in the water trying not to spill her cup. Troy was there to make sure she did. Kids, B.T. thought. Nothing but a bunch of dumb ass kids. Some time later, when B.T.’s forehead was fully moist with sweat and just before he thought it would be safe to try Evan again, Kristi got out of the water and found him. Troy’s eyes followed her but his thick body stayed in the pool. She sat down without a towel, water running off of her through the slats of the chair and turning the pavement gray. She slid her hair straight back on her head, the soggy remnants of mascara slightly noticeable around her eyes. Her tits were all but busting out of a bikini B.T. knew was at least one size too small. She smiled big dumb white teeth. B.T. wished she’d just leave him the hell alone, and could tell Troy was thinking the same exact thing. “So, what’s B.T. stand for?” she said quickly, her tongue thick and undoubtedly southern. “I heard it stood for Big Thing.” B.T. let a smile slip. He’d thought of that one in third grade. “Nah.” “Then what?” “It don’t stand for nothing. That’s my name,” he said straight as an arrow.

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“Bullshit. I don’t believe you. What’s it stand for?” Her smile grew bigger. She was playing some game, B.T. knew, but she was playing by herself. “You don’t gotta believe me,” he said. “But it is what it is.” “Fuck you,” she said and laughed. Suddenly, she was up again. “I know how to get guys like you to talk.” B.T. watched as Kristi hid her arms behind her back and undid her bikini top, letting it fall to the ground. She then lifted one leg and helped the bottom to the same place, revealing a small, groomed strip of hair and a tattoo of a blue butterfly. “I’m naked!” she yelled and then turned and jumped into the pool. B.T. didn’t watch the other heads turn, but he saw Troy’s eyes damn near fall out of his thick skull. The spectacle lasted but a few moments, and then she was out and wrapped in a towel, dripping her way across the pavement back to where B.T. was seated, leaving a wet trail for anyone to follow. Naturally, no one did. They were afraid of him, not her. “Now will you tell me your name?” Kristi sat down and hugged the towel tight into her armpits. “Or do I have to something else?” “You drunk?” he asked and she smiled still, not quite registering where he was taking her. “Not yet,” she replied proudly. “Then listen to me.” B.T. leaned in close. “You see that fool Troy there?” He pointed with his head, eyes. She turned. Troy was doing some little dance number, acting retarded. “He’s gonna try his hardest to get with you.” She blew air out her lips, rejecting the notion. “Good luck.” “Hey,” he said and she turned away from the dancing numbskull and looked at B.T. “You know why he’s gonna try and get with you? Because he thinks he can. And you know why he thinks he can? Because he’s heard shit about you that would make your daddy rise up and kill somebody.” “What shit?” she said, her eyes suddenly serious, defensive. “Like what? I don’t even know him hardly.” “Like you the kind of girl drop her bikini in front of everybody because you think you in control of something.” “So what? It was fun.”

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“Then you can have fun with him flapping around in between your legs.” “That’s a fine way to talk about your friend.” She turned away. He didn’t want to make her cry, but whatever. “Motherfucker ain’t my friend.” B.T. nodded in Shane’s direction. “His twin over there putting the moves on your sister was supposed to take me home. Now, do I look like I’m at home?” Kristi stood up. “Yeah, well, nothing’s stopping you.” She pushed the chair away with a harsh metallic grind and dropped the towel. In the sunlight, B.T. thought she looked a little like she belonged in a magazine. At least there she’d be safe. She screamed and took a running leap into the pool. When she surfaced, she flipped her hair back, stood in the water with her breasts covered by nothing, and walked directly to Troy’s spot in the shallow end. She looked back at B.T. briefly, then planted Troy with a kiss intended to sting. It didn’t. Girl’s gone, B.T. thought. Gone. * * * Evan didn’t have his goddamn cell turned on. B.T. tried again just to make sure, but it was pointless. He couldn’t remember the skinny fool’s number and he had made too many calls to bring it up in his phone’s list of recent attempts. Lipton, B.T. thought. Shit. What the fuck was his last name? So much for the phone book. He was hungry and inside the house was cold and quiet. He searched the fridge for something real, something in foil or cardboard, or just barely visible through tupperware. White people never ate leftovers, he’d noticed, but they always had some as if they might. This fridge was no exception, and he’d hit gold with half a steak, slaw, and French fries tucked neatly in a Styrofoam container. When he stood erect, closed the fridge, and turned around, he saw Nicole lighting a cigarette on the other side of the counter. “What are you doing?” she said, her voice raspy with the new smoke. “There’s food outside.” Her bikini didn’t fit as snugly as Kristi’s but B.T. thought she wasn’t hurting for looks. Her hair was brown, ordinary, and she had left the make-up off today, but he knew if she wanted to she could be the prettiest one there. He had a feeling she knew this too, the way she didn’t smile like the others, the way she pretended not to care. This was a girl who was worth something, surrounded by a bunch of assholes.

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“I didn’t see it,” he said and set about finding a plate he could stick in the microwave. “Well, go look. It’s out there. That’s not yours.” She looked at him hard and inhaled the smoke. “I see,” he said and closed the cabinet, plate in hand. “You wanna share it then?” “Put it back.” B.T. looked at her just as hard and didn’t move. He knew this little routine too, but at least this one took some balls. Regardless, he wanted that damn steak. “Now,” she said. He opened the cabinet. “Not the plate, the food. Put it back in the fridge where you got it.” B.T. closed the Styrofoam lid slowly. He turned to the fridge and did what she said. “You yelling at me like I want to be here right now taking food from this fucking fridge in the first place.” “Then go. I didn’t invite you.” “No, but that’s the real problem ain’t it? One of those girls was in here with that steak you wouldn’t think nothing of it. But me, a black man, invited by your friend who likes to go skinny dipping, then all of a sudden it’s a crisis and poor Nicole is the only one responsible enough to do something about it. That sound right to you?” “Kristi can do what she wants. That’s why I like her, because she does.” “Then I should just take the fucking steak, because that’s what Kristi would do, isn’t it? And that’s what you like about her, right?” “No. Kristi wouldn’t take the steak.” “Fuck she wouldn’t.” “She’s a vegetarian.” Nicole reached across the counter to ash into the sink. B.T. laughed for the first time in days. “No shit?” Nicole nodded and brought the cigarette back to her mouth. This chick is all right, he thought. She turned around and headed to the big glass doors. “Come on, I’ll show you that food you missed.” * * * Outside again and it was still hot. Kristi had her clothes on talking to some other guy now, and B.T. couldn’t see Troy but figured it was his dumbass legs sticking out of

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the water, and then he surfaced looking alone and clueless. Nicole sat with B.T. after he’d filled a plate with the food she’d talked about, broccoli, carrots, chips and the like, and he’d learned that was she studying interior design at the community college. “I want the fuck out of this town,” she said and B.T. thought so what? They all did, but didn’t say anything. Maybe she’d do it, but he didn’t see where anyplace was going to be so much better. There were stupid people everywhere, he reckoned and from what he’d seen on television or in books and magazines it was only the scenery that changed. “What do you wanna do?” she asked, another cigarette going. “Play tight end for the Atlanta Falcons,” he said as if he’d thought about it before. “You play football?” “Nah.” He ate a carrot smothered in something ranch. “But I can kick some ass in the video game.” Nicole smiled sarcastically. “Come on. You gotta want something.” The truth was he didn’t want something, he wanted everything. B.T. wanted money and things and respect and love and significance and family and identity and isolation and empires and a shack and a kingdom. But he didn’t know how to get any of it. As far as he could see his options were limited. It was like trying to fit the entire sky into a single photo. What was the point? The effort wasn’t worth the fucking energy. He’d do what he’d do, sell weed, grow old, see what happens. Shane had a megaphone and the distraction saved B.T. from answering. Nicole had her back to the noise and when she saw who it was her posture shifted entirely. Suddenly she was hiding in her own skin, B.T. noticed. “Oh God.” She turned and B.T. could see red in her cheeks. “Why do you hang out with those fuckers?” B.T. was ready to defend himself when Shane spoke. “Yo. Listen up.” His voice sounded tinny, fast food drive-thru. “I have an announcement to make.” He held the megaphone away from his mouth until he was sure everyone was watching him as he stood on the pool’s diving board. “I’m drucking funk.” He laughed and then released the trigger on the megaphone as the guys in the pool hollered their approval. “One more thing,” Shane continued, “and then I’m gonna jump in this pool and drown to death.” Nicole rolled her eyes. If only, B.T. thought.

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“I just want to say, Kristi, where’s Kristi?” Shane’s eyes searched until he found her in one of the patio recliners. “Kristi thanks for having us and thanks for your incredible tiddies and beautiful gash.” Shane wobbled on the board as the chorus again echoed their support. Maybe he was drunk, B.T. wondered, though he sure had gotten there quickly. “And Nicole,” Shane shouted. Nicole turned and looked at the fool on the diving board, ready for her insult. “Well, obviously if you want a nigger dick then I’m glad I didn’t waste my fucking time.” B.T. was up immediately, taking his chair with him and walking as quickly as he could toward the water. “Wait,” Nicole said but he wouldn’t. Shane’s face went from drunken smile to sober fear as B.T. lifted the chair and slung it as hard as he could through the air, but Shane dove out of the way and safely into the water. Someone yelled. There was blood in the water. Shane surfaced, but other than looking like a fucking redneck, he appeared fine. One of the girls said something about a fucking ambulance, and then B.T. finally saw Troy with his head split open, blood gushing in his mouth, him stumbling in circles in the water like a dragonfly in a creek. B.T. stopped, his desire to jump in and pound Shane an inch within his life temporarily squashed. He turned to Nicole and her face was one he knew he would not soon forget. She looked disgusted. As if he’d done it for himself. B.T. walked past her, into the house, and out the front door. He started running.

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FIFTEEN Paul swallowed a burp. He had never had four women in his house at the same time and he had to watch his manners. No relatives, no friends of Jenny’s, no birthday parties, nothing. He had never thought of it until now, but maybe Jenny was embarrassed of him or the house and that’s why she never had anyone over. That was a lousy thing for her to do. Why didn’t she just say something? Fourteen years of marriage and not once had he seen four pretty faces in his own house like the ones that were here now. The concept frustrated him, but he was also mildly aroused. Darn dating show. Paul watched Nora eat the spaghetti, a little bird pecking at a plate of worms. He passed her the basket of bread, then realized he’d eaten the last piece. “Lip, give her some of your bread, she doesn’t have any.” “I should have bought another loaf,” Tina said, stopping her work-related conversation with Linda. “Bah,” Paul uttered waving her off. “He has plenty extra. Right, Lip?” “You know, Jesus only had one loaf,” Eggs said, his plate clear for awhile now. Paul chuckled. Boy, was Eggs on fire tonight! “You believe in Jesus, Cujo?” Lipton looked up from his plate just as Tina said, “Evan Matthew Barnes,” in a way that only a mother can. Eggs looked at her and shrugged. Lip still hadn’t given Nora the bread. “I believe that there was a man named Jesus, yes.” Lipton wiped the corners of his mouth with a napkin. “Yeah, but do you believe the bit about the bread?” “No. Frankly Evan, I think only the truly moronic would even suggest that we are to take the Bible, its floods and giants and phenomena, etcetera, as something other than metaphor and moral.” “So you don’t believe.” “Evan,” Tina said again, her face an unmistakable scold. Lip handed Nora the bread. But wait a second, what was he saying? “You don’t believe in Jesus, Lip?” He looked at his boy with utmost concern. Making people feel awkward was one thing, but now Lip’s soul was on the line.

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“I didn’t say that, Dad.” Lip’s eyes were calm behind his glasses. “Evan’s putting monosyllabic words in my mouth.” “I’m what?” Eggs asked, sitting up. “Maybe we should just change the subject,” Linda Teaks offered. Her hands were clasped together on the table, and Paul noticed Marnie’s were in the exact same position. Maybe they were praying for Lipton, he wondered, which was more than he could say for himself. He wanted to shake the boy silly and tell him what was right, but knew they were both too old for that. “That would be delightful,” Lip said. “Chickens.” Eggs slouched in his chair. Tina said his full name again. “What are you studying in school, Nora?” Marnie asked. Her hands hadn’t moved. “History.” Nora sipped from a glass. Paul thought her plate looked as if she hadn’t touched a thing. “She wants to work in a museum for some reason,” Lipton added. “So you don’t believe in museums either?” “One more time, Mr. Barnes,” Tina scolded. “Actually, I think they’re quite wonderful as I’m sure you’ve no doubt discovered on your repeated visits to the great ones of the world.” “Lip,” Paul said. What was going on with these two boneheads? “I simply feel like once history is taken indoors and put under a glass case, it often ceases being history and begins being a collectible.” “Which is totally ridiculous,” Nora said. “Hey.” An idea was suddenly rampant in Paul’s mind. “Speaking of history, let me show you something. I’ll go get it, don’t anybody move.” Paul trampled down the hallway and into the extra room where his girls sat quietly on the desk. The desk was actually a slab of plywood plopped on two file cabinets and it was the left file cabinet, the gray one, that Paul dove into quickly. What he was looking for was in the front. Or was it the back? He found it in the middle. Back at the table, Tina and Linda were chatting again while the kids remained mostly quiet. Paul didn’t say anything, just slid up behind Nora and held the piece of

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paper in front of her. He pointed at the fading typeface. “Looky here. Didn’t I tell you?” Nora smiled then put a hand over her mouth. “Father–“ Lip started but Paul cut him off. “Don’t poop on the party, Lip. It’s funny. Let everybody see it.” “Are you mad?” “What is it?” Eggs leaned over in his chair to see. “It’s Lip’s birth certificate.” Paul pointed again at the type. “Look closely.” Evan crinkled his nose and then laughed a big deep laugh. He knew Eggs would get a kick out of seeing that! It was a real conversation piece, as the saying went, and he was glad he’d kept it all these years. Jenny had told him to throw it away, but he’d said no and now look at the fun they were having. If Lip was getting upset, then that was tough – he shouldn’t have said that mess about Jesus in front of all these nice ladies. Paul continued around the table to Marnie. “No!” Lip stood up now, his arm flailing. “Not her!” “Lipton,” Nora said as Evan made a mocking noise that sounded like a ghost howling in the attic. Paul reacted too slowly, his age catching up with him he thought, and Lip tore the birth certificate from his hand and stormed off down the hallway. “Well, sheesh!” Paul watched as Lipton disappeared into his room and slammed the door behind him. Nora followed after him and soon she was gone too. A quiet hush settled on the house. The four remaining guests seemed to be avoiding eye contact with Paul as he walked back around the table to his chair. He sat. “It’s just a typo.” “I thought it was hilarious, Mr. Greely.” “Evan,” Tina said one more time. “If you don’t stop I’m going to shoot you in your other leg.” “We should go,” Linda said turning to Marnie. “Well, don’t run off,” Paul said, sounding a tad desperate. Lipton had messed things up again, he thought. A perfect evening ruined. Linda smiled. “Thanks. But I think we better.” She stood and Paul stood and then everyone stood except Evan. Marnie mumbled something and then ran off down the hall, and Linda sighed and shook her head. “Come on, Paul,” Tina said. “I’ll help you clean up.”

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Ruined, Paul thought. Ruined. * * * At the sink Paul stood in a type of haze. The lack of sleep from the previous night was catching up to him and he was grateful he was only drying the dishes because he didn’t think he had the energy to wash them. In fact, before everybody had showed up he hadn’t had the energy to wash the dishes even once in about a week. Tina’s thick little arms were lost in a pool of water the color of sick, and Paul had to force himself not to stare into it. Behind him Marnie and Nora were talking at the table, and Linda and Evan sat on the couch watching some television show. Lipton was still in his room, refusing to come out or even speak to Paul through the door. “Can I tell you something?” Tina asked and broke Paul from his stupor. He noticed for the first time that she was wearing a shirt the color of bananas with one little American flag, red, white, and blue, dead center on the front. That was nice of her, Paul thought. “Is it about Lip?” He was certain she wanted to tell him he was doing a bad job as a father. He didn’t need any confirmation of that, and really, Lip was old enough now to take care of himself. And what about Eggs? He’d shot himself in the leg! “No.” She turned suddenly and wiped her chin on her shoulder. “It’s about Jenny.” “Oh,” he said. He’d talked about Jenny with Linda before, but then Linda hadn’t known Jenny. Tina did, though. She’d grown up with her right here in Lenoir. “If you don’t want me to I won’t, but really Paul there’s something I’ve wanted to tell you for a long time and I just haven’t for whatever reasons.” She handed him a plate. That shirt sort of matched her hair, he realized. Her face was round like a tea kettle and her lips were full and pink. “No, go ahead. I want you to.” At least, he thought he did. At least, if she wanted to say it that badly he ought to be nice enough to listen. He rubbed the plate with the towel and the friction made a small squeaking noise. “I always thought she was better than you. I did, I know that must sound a little cold, but I did. Honestly, I thought you were a bum because you always wore that stinky jacket with the holes in it.”

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That was my favorite coat, he thought. The holes were what made it cool. Paul still had it somewhere, in fact. “I don’t feel that way now, of course. But I think I’ve always resented you a little bit for stealing something from Jenny.” “Are you–“ He looked at her confused. The plate went in the cabinet. “Are you talking about her virginity?” He whispered the word. “Because she always told me–“ “No, Paul,” Tina said quickly and laughed a plucky staccato ha! “Gracious, no. I’m talking about her spirit, her vibrancy. She was one way before you and afterwards she was something else, something less I always thought. In my eyes, you drained her. You zapped her like one of those bug lanterns. That’s what I always thought.” “Is that what you think now?” He draped the towel over his shoulder, a little miffed. “That I’m some bug killer?” “No, Paul. Here.” Another plate. Her eyes spoke kindness but her mouth seemed to him to be doing something else. He’d always liked Tina, always. And now he knew she’d always hated him. Well, she had done a good job of faking it, that’s for sure. “I think you’re a good man and a decent father. But listen to me. You need to throw that birth certificate in the garbage.” “I dunno,” Paul said. “Yes, you do.” “Well, I don’t have it now anyway. Lip’s probably shredded it to pieces in his room back there.” “Then good for him.” She pulled the plug on the sink and it gurgled and swallowed. The fluorescent above them made Tina’s wet arms appear to glow. “What’s this got to do with Jenny?” He was still reeling over the bug zapper bit. “Jenny didn’t grow up, Paul. She had the teenage dream of a husband and a kid, but there’s a reason teenagers shouldn’t have husbands and kids. They can’t handle it, and that’s what stole her spirit. It had nothing to do with you. You gave her exactly what she thought she wanted, but she was too dumb to see that she wasn’t ready for it. Heck, she probably never will be. You know she was still talking to me about someday being a stewardess less than a year before she walked out on you and Lipton?”

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“Huh-uh,” Paul mumbled. He didn’t even know she’d ever wanted to be a stewardess. Why hadn’t she told him? “The bad part is,” she paused to take the hand towel from Paul’s shoulder. “I’m fifty-one years old and now I envy her just a little. I know it’s been a rotten situation for you and Lip, but I bet she got her spark back, Paul. I think she had to leave. She shouldn’t have, but I think she had to.” Paul watched Tina dry her arms down. They looked soft and warm, her fingers slightly wrinkled from the water. He should have had rubber gloves for this kind of situation, he thought, but didn’t imagine they would get used all that often. “I’m not mad at her,” he said. “I know, but you gotta watch out for Lipton. He’s a lot like her.” “He’s crazy as a loon. I don’t understand half a word of what he says.” “He’s a very smart young man, Paul.” “But he doesn’t even believe in Jesus.” “Then don’t buy him anything for Christmas.” Paul let his mouth hang open for a moment and stared at this woman across from him. The smell of thick pasta sauce washed down the drain and into a full disposal had been enough to nearly make him gag, but it seemed to disappear as he looked into Tina’s eyes. They were blue, like the blue in her flag. She moved and returned the towel back to Paul’s shoulder, letting her hand linger for just a moment. He kissed her cheek and felt the sudden warmth of parts coming to life in his underpants. Tina smiled and leaned in close to Paul’s ear. She whispered: I know.

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SIXTEEN Charlie had just enough time to swing back by the one hour photo before going to work. The pear-shaped lady at the cash register had looked at him as if he was some kind of weirdo for developing a total of seven shots, but at least she hadn’t charged him full price. He was a cop, in uniform, and this was official police business he was doing. Except that there was one picture, the only one he wanted to look at, really, the one that he would put it in his shirt pocket for the remainder of the night right on top of his wallet, that wasn’t entirely so. Marnie Teaks. Red hair, white shirt, hand over her mouth, as if she’d just seen a car crash. Gorgeous. Was she involved in the accidental shooting of Evan Barnes? Was she involved with someone? The station was abuzz with teenage girls in bathing suits and yellow POLICE windbreakers. The girls still looked like they were freezing, and from the looks on their faces as he passed them, Charlie assumed that they were in trouble, had done something wrong. No one was crying, so that pretty much ruled out a drowning or a fatal car crash. Unless they had cried themselves out for the time being, but that usually took awhile and these girls, four of them total, were missing that red eye glare. He then thought alcohol or drugs, but that all changed as he entered the supplies room and saw Dorsey making copies of a pencil sketched face he recognized immediately. It was B.T. “Morning patootie,” Dorsey said, her hands on her pregnant belly standing back from the copier as it did its flashy business. “What’s this?” Charlie grabbed a copy of the sketch, the paper still a little warm, and scanned it for vitals. “Kid, just turned eighteen, threw a patio chair at another kid who called him the N word. Kid’s black, by the way.” Dorsey looked at Charlie, as if, he thought, he wasn’t competent enough to make that assumption. He nodded. “Problem is, he missed the racist one and the chair hit a perfectly innocent one, and now that kid, who’s white, is getting stitches in his head and may have permanent loss of sight in one eye.” She paused. He nodded again. Would she just tell it already? “So the injured kid’s parents are furious, the black kid’s mother is frantic, and in the meantime no one has a clue where he, the black one, is. He just took off.”

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“And the one who called him the N word?” Charlie let his eyes drift from the sketch. The artist had done a decent job. He remembered there was a prominent curve to B.T.’s forehead, and the drawing nailed it. How anyone did something like that with just a pencil was a mystery to him. “Is he here? I only saw girls out front.” “Eyewitnesses. And every single one of them had alcohol on their breath, and ain’t a one of them older than nineteen.” The copier stopped. Dorsey removed the original from the lid. “But yeah, the racist is in a cell. Chief wants to scare him a bit, kid was the drunkest of the lot.” Charlie walked away without saying a word, without letting Dorsey say more words, words about her clam and her pearl, and it wasn’t until later that he realized how good he felt having done so. * * * Charlie checked the tiny station cells and found no one who fit Dorsey’s description. He learned from another officer that the kid, the racist, was in one of their two interrogation rooms. With confidence he wasn’t aware existed, Charlie stormed into the room he heard voices coming from and saw the kid, a beefy looking boy with sunburn everywhere and sorry red eyes, and got right up in his face. “Where’s B.T. you little shit?” The kid’s face twisted into an odd shape of confusion and fear. He was still drunk. As much as he had scared him, Charlie had no idea he was about to experience a similar fright. “Officer Pritchard!” It was the Chief. Charlie turned around and saw that he wasn’t alone either. There, in a chair with his elbows on his knees, a look of irritation evolving into a full-on ass-grinding grin, was Hardbarf. “What in the name of Christ do you think you’re doing, Pritchard?” Hardbarf stood, the grin still visible despite his harsh words. “We are in the middle of an investigation here, Officer Pritchard, and we do not conduct investigations by throwing ourselves into the faces of witnesses and screaming like the god damn building is on fire. Do you understand me?” “Jesus, Charile.” Hardbarf shook his head in mock disappointment.

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“Now, I want you to apologize to this witness, and then I want you to get the hell out of here and get in your patrol car and do your job the way you have been trained to do it.” “I mean, Jesus, Charlie,” Hardbarf said again. The Chief’s eyes were fixed. He was gray and refined, a model of authority. Charlie nodded. He turned to the kid, the racist. “I apologize,” he mumbled. “I couldn’t hear that,” said the Chief. “Louder, Pritchard.” Hardbarf’s hands were on his hips. “I apologize,” Charlie said again. “I hope I did not distract you too much from the information we appreciate you’re providing us.” “Now, get out of here.” The Chief’s eyes were old and unwavering. Charlie stepped through the door and Hardbarf moved a few paces back. Charlie pinched his lips together, the degree of embarrassment beginning to set in when Hardbarf whispered, “Hey!” Charlie turned and looked at him, his stupid dumb face and ridiculous tough guy pose. Hardbarf whispered again, “Doo Doo Brown!” and then shut the door tight, closing himself in the room with the Chief, and the kid, and where Charlie had made his biggest mistake yet as a cop. He had no choice but to do something to redeem himself, and fortunately the opportunity was there and the way he saw it, he had a slight advantage on the rest. He had to find B.T. first. * * * Charlie listened to the chatter on the scanner and knew the strategy: suspect flees the scene, the first place he goes is typically somewhere close to home and then takes off for someplace a little more distant. B.T. was on foot, so the thought was he’d take his time, dipping in and out of yards to hide from headlights, coming home to his neighborhood, but he’d eventually get there, most likely in the wee hours of the morning. So, more than usual even, they had units circling through Freedman near the house where B.T.’s mother waited any sight or news. The word on the scanner was nothing yet. Good. Charlie had a different strategy. The kid he’d met the night before seemed to him smarter than the rest of the force was giving him credit for. B.T. was a young man who’d

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walked down the streets of Lenoir at one in the morning on a school night, as if he owned the entire town. Charlie had clearly been more afraid of B.T. than B.T. was of him, and he had little doubt that B.T. was aware of this reversal. To think that B.T. would go running home to mother just because he’d hurt some drunken white kid, seemed to Charlie a mistake. The B.T. he knew, even if his judgment was based on a relationship less than twenty-four hours old, would find someone to do for him exactly what he needed them to do, just as he had done with Charlie the night before. The question was, would Evan Barnes or Lipton Greely be that person? There was one other person who kept Charlie from running on this suspicion and going straight to the Greely house. He pulled the picture of Marnie Teaks from his pocket, licked the back of it, and got it to stick to his steering wheel. When she caught him spying on the Greely house, she’d said she wouldn’t tell. But what did that mean? She wouldn’t tell the Chief that he was sleeping on a job he wasn’t even supposed to be doing, or that she wouldn’t tell the Greely’s they were being watched? Marnie’s head tilted to the left as Charlie turned onto Church Row, and then she was back upright as he obeyed the posted twenty-five and crept along, looking. She was divine. But she was young and had said that Barnes and Greely were her friends. She’d tell them, how could she not? She’d tell them and maybe they were gone already. If they weren’t and he showed up under the pretenses of looking for B.T., he knew he wouldn’t get the truth from them unless he showed up with a search warrant. He had to think, had to stay one step ahead of them. He knew they were all connected somehow, he just needed to figure out the link. At a stoplight, a corner of the picture came unstuck from the steering wheel and Charlie returned it to his pocket. He learned early to retrace his steps and that’s what Charlie was doing. He drove slowly beside the massive Methodist dome and remembered B.T.’s pants falling off his hips as he screamed about racial profiling. The church was a long walk from B.T.’s house, not one he was likely making by choice, Charlie knew. It was too hot for that, hot even then as the sun was finally setting and the Monday traffic was scarce. A light was on in the sanctuary. Choir rehearsal, probably. What Charlie needed to know was where B.T. was coming from. What had he been doing over here in the first place? At the

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intersection between the end of the Methodist and the beginning of the Presbyterian, Charlie saw the line of houses a block down and thought well, maybe. Again, he didn’t know what he was looking for but he looked nonetheless. A candy wrapper, a cigarette butt, the remnants of a ball of hacked-up phlegm – anything could be a legitimate clue these days what with all the new DNA technology. What finally caught Charlie’s eye, though, was something much larger. In front of a fairly nice cape cod was a souped-up little Honda, the only thing remotely flashy on the block, with a license plate that read: VNTYPL8. He was age profiling now, Charlie knew, but if that car didn’t belong to a teenager then he would leave this business with B.T. to the rest of the force and go look for loiterers and jaywalkers until all of Caldwell County was safe from criminals of inappropriate movement. * * * At the door, a small birdy looking girl answered. Her face turned from smile to serious in less than a blink. Charlie played the part, and if he scared her then oh well. Was this who B.T. had been to see? “Evening, ma’am. I was wondering if that was your automobile parked out front?” “No,” she said, her face relaxing and even smiling a little. “I’m only fourteen.” Idiot, Charlie thought. She didn’t look old enough to drive a golf cart. “It’s my brother’s. Hold on, I’ll get him.” Off she flew, into the house and out of sight, but Charlie could hear her yelling something that sounded like bat throughout. Maybe it was a nickname. Bat appeared, a young male with spiky hair and spiky pimples, who shared his sister’s frail stature, but was far less cute with a cigarette in his hand and braces on his teeth. Clearly the parents weren’t home. “Hi,” Charlie offered when it was obvious that Bat wasn’t going to speak first. “That’s your car out front, I understand?” “Yeah, did something happen to it?” Bat peered beneath Charlie’s arm out into the driveway. Charlie moved in front of Bat to refocus his attention. “No, the car’s fine. I’m Officer Pritchard. Will you tell me your name, please?” “Pat Spindler.” Oh, right. Pat.

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“Mr. Spindler are your parents home?” “No, they’re at Hilton Head. They won’t be back until tomorrow.” Pat’s eyes again became anxious to see his vehicle. The news of the parents struck Charlie as a positive sign, increasing the odds that B.T. had been there. “Is this about the light outside? I turned it off, like, so close to one it was practically one anyway, but this guy was here waiting for a ride so I couldn’t be precise. Did the Nillsons call? Are they going to take my car again?” “I don’t know,” Charlie said truly. He didn’t know the Nillsons from the Addams Family, but he had a feeling he knew exactly who the guy was that had caused Pat to mess up whatever it was he had messed up. “Let’s go take a look at it, though.” Charlie held the door and Pat quickly stepped outside, inhaling on his cigarette as he did so. “I really like that license plate.”

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SEVENTEEN

Lipton, alone in his pungent room, scratched his beard until he feared he would draw blood. He could shave it, right then, an act of spontaneity that no one would attribute as characteristically him, though he would have to leave his room to do so and that was not yet an option. The bathroom was down the hall, where the world got hotter and the flames got higher, and Lipton’s ears were already red with the knowledge that Nora, his beautiful traitor, was perched somewhere in the kitchen talking to Marnie, semi-professional femme fatale, about him. By now his dear innocent Nora knew everything, the (wince) suicide attempt, the feud, the utter crush of a crush, everything. So, he sat on his bed and scratched. The birth certificate, his father’s favorite grenade, was now confetti, Hollywood snow, collected in a cute pile at the foot of the bed and atop a book which was not Upon Guarded Glance, which Lipton admittedly regretted was still under the couch and Evan. He had not the heart or energy to work on his theorem, or even think about the South as anything other than a horrific rodeo of the politely insane. He had not a soldier on his side, not even a horse or mutt, not even a drummer boy or carrier of the dead. All he had was a seahorse on his eye, an imperfection that galloped with every fluttering gaze across the ceiling, reminding him of a desperately needed appointment with an optician so much so that the only comfort Lipton could bring himself in those long minutes – how incredibly insensitive of her to abandon him then! – was to simply close the eye and lay there. With the seahorse caged, it dawned on Lipton that he no doubt looked a little like a pirate, sans eye patch. He could very likely procure an eye patch (though it would probably look rather ridiculous hidden behind a pair of glasses) and perhaps form a new identity as a rogue intellectual madman. He would live in secrecy, his only appearances being the required teaching load, and the forced isolation would result in a great period of productivity with the end result being an encyclopedia-length volume of work. He could print his own money, with his face and great eye patch adorning each differently valued note, and ultimately secede from this blasted Union of States, which clearly existed for no other purpose than to slowly annoy him to the point of repeated suicide. He would christen his land Liptonia and watch the masses flock.

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Lipton’s testicles itched. He scratched them with the same intensity as he took to his beard, only Nora did not enter the room when he was doing that, as she did now. Lipton was beyond the point of shame and rested his hand only briefly before continuing once she had fully come into the room and closed the door behind her. She was grinning, and Lipton did not believe it was because he was scratching himself with one eye open. “I know a secret about you,” she said and plopped onto the bed beside him, her nose nestled gently against his sling. “You know I don’t believe in secrets.” He stopped scratching. “Then why didn’t you tell me about you and Marnie?” “Because,” he said and turned to face her, both eyes open again. “I didn’t want to. How can it be a secret, Nora, if an entire town knows what happened?” “Yes, but I didn’t know. There’s a difference. You kept it from me, hence a secret.” “I told you everything but the names of people you didn’t know, people I never intended for you to meet.” “Right, the names were the secret.” “Well, they’re not a secret to me. They’re history, and some history, as you should know, is best left in the past.” “You don’t honestly believe what you’re saying, do you?” “No, not really.” Lipton took off his glasses and tossed them onto the headboard. “If I did, it would be an admitted waste of the past four years of my life. But it sounded nice, didn’t it?” She kissed his cheek, then earlobe. He felt warm, even more so than the un-air conditioned house guaranteed. It made no sense to him that she should be turned on by such a thing, was a little offended in fact, but decided not to question it just then. Nora spoke quietly in his ear. “You can tell me anything, you don’t have to be afraid.” She kissed him again. “I wasn’t afraid of anything!” He sat up, retrieved his glasses. “Then why didn’t you tell me everything?” “Because I was embarrassed!” “See, you were afraid of being embarrassed.”

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“Have you not had ample proof in this one evening alone that I am extremely well accustomed to being embarrassed? It’s my great mission in life, in fact!” “Then why are you hiding in here?” “Because I don’t like those people out there! Marnie, Evan, neither one of them has ever made the tiniest effort in seven years to apologize to me for what they did!” “But slingypants, have you ever given them the chance?” “Don’t slingypants me!” He stood up, livid. One minute she was turned on by the circumstances of a suicide attempt, and the next she was playing psychologist finding fault in the manner in which he recuperated from the complete shattering of his young heart. She didn’t go through it. She had no right to pretend to know what’s best. He stormed to the door. “Consortingwiththeenemypants!” And stormed out. In the hallway Lipton walked with great stride and furor, ready to at last put the matter to rest, to describe to Carnie Geeks and Barnacle Balls in exacting details the pain which they had caused, and continued to cause him, the lack of remorse or concern on their part which had wedged in his soul for years now and manifested itself in petty and frivolous revenge. It was time to step to the big stage, to lay it all out on the table, bag of weed included, and to kick the both of them, literally if necessary, far far out of his house. He was ready. This was it. Walking into the living room, with views of the kitchen and dining area all, Lipton found his father and Evan, alone, watching DR. BARTER. His father was barely awake in the recliner. Evan turned, looked at Lipton, then turned back, no emotion or sign that he wasn’t a robot programmed to do that exact head turn whatsoever. Nora came into the room, quickly on his heels. She stood beside Lipton and for a moment there was quiet between the four of them while the television doctor (if you could call him that) did his thing behind a blue drop-cloth. At the first commercial break Lipton broke the silence. “You should go to bed.” The elder Greely nodded and yawned. “I’ll go brush my chompers.” He stood, with a little difficulty, and walked in his sock feet around the couch. “You just keep watching your show Eggs. I’ll sleep in the recliner until you’re ready to go to the bed.” “Dad,” Lipton said, afraid to imagine what shape his father’s body would be molded into if he slept in that dumpy old recliner all night.

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“No, that’s okay. I think I’m gonna read some of this book.” Lipton cringed as Evan lifted Upon Guarded Glance off of the crowded coffee table. He’d kicked it too hard, apparently. “Well, if you’re sure.” His father walked behind Lipton and Nora and on down the hall. As he was about to enter his bedroom, Paul stopped and yawned like a child. “Lip, you keep that birth certificate if you want. I shouldn’t have done that, I guess. Sorry, buddy.” “I already tore it up.” Lipton watched his father rummage his hands through gray hair. “Well, that sounds about right.” Paul looked up and gave a polite nod. “Goodnight, you two.” “Goodnight, Mr. Greely,” Nora said and Lipton watched as his father disappeared into the bedroom. Behind them the television cut off, and Lipton turned to find Evan examining the back cover of the book. “This yours Cujo?” “Yes,” Lipton said. “Any good?” “You’ll love it.” “Well, all right then.” Nora tugged at Lipton’s good arm and motioned to the bedroom. From halfway down the hall she said, “Goodnight, Evan. Nice meeting you.” “Yeah,” Evan mumbled, his eyes already on the first page. “See you.” Lipton lingered a moment, feeling the need to say something though he had no idea what. Finally, he decided against words. He pulled the bag of weed from his pocket and dropped it in Evan’s lap. “Sleep tight, Barnesy.” Evan laughed low and little, and Lipton entered his bedroom thinking that what had transpired wasn’t much, but it was, without question, civil.

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PART THREE

ONE B.T. woke to the sound of what seemed like a million birds chirping, rapping. He was mad at the stupid things for having to be so damn noisy, but he was glad at the same time. The sun was up. He needed to move. It had been one hell of a long ass night. He’d walked and ran halfway across the county, through cow pastures and brown fields, into thick woods without a clue as to what direction he was heading, and finally sat down to rest against a tall magnolia when he saw a sign in the distance that told him he was close to Hudson. When he’d stopped, it had been hours since he’d checked the ID screen on his cell and taken the call from Pat. The kid was frantic, trying to save his own ass by telling B.T. that he’d “accidentally” told a police officer that B.T. sold weed to some guy named Evan. The cop was looking for B.T., somehow knew he had been there to Pat’s house, and Pat had sent him on the trail of the only other person, beside his own sister, that he’d ever really seen B.T. with. B.T. knew who the cop was. He also knew that if he’d been close enough to Pat to throw a lawn chair at him, he would’ve repeated his crime twice in one evening. Instead, he told the little bitch that if he ever saw him again he was going to kill him, and hung up. B.T. tried Evan’s cell and left a message, explaining that they were all fucked now and that he’d be wise to leave town. Evan was anything but wise, couldn’t even remember to turn his goddamn phone on, so B.T. was preparing for the worst. B.T. ignored the mounting number of messages left on his own phone, the constant vibration of the device against his thigh, not ready yet to hear the disappointment in his mother’s voice until he had at least made it through the night. Now it was daylight, a little after six o’clock, and B.T. knew his mom would be awake, going through the motions to get ready for work. He could hear cars in the distance and figured it was time to take a risk, hitch a ride, trust someone not to squeal and see if he could get as far as Hickory, where he could reasonably get lost in the larger population. He dialed the number and a man answered who wasn’t his brother.

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“Hello,” the man said with a drawl that sounded unmistakably white to B.T. He figured it was a cop, but knew they couldn’t trace his cell phone to whoever’s backyard he was in. “Who the hell is this?” “You called me, buddy. Who the hell is this?” “I called my momma, and you obviously ain’t it. So you fucking tell me first, or I’m hanging up.” “B.T. shut up right now and listen to me.” The guy knew his name. “Is this–“ B.T. said, ignoring the man’s request. “Crazy Larry?” “Speaking. Now close your mouth.” As if he could see him, B.T. did. “I’m crazy but I’m not stupid, and I don’t mind telling you that this running away horseshit is one stupid ass stunt to pull. You know what cops do to little black kids who run? They shoot them, B.T. If they find you and you make one wrong move, somebody will shoot you to the fucking ground, kid.” “Where’s my momma?” “She’s at your aunt’s house with your brother. The entire block is being watched and since your mom didn’t want to see you thrown into the back of a cop car, she split for the night. She’s none too happy with you right now, you understand?” “It was an accident.” “Yeah, but nobody’s making you run, kid. An accident don’t last half a day.” B.T. walked. The signal was fading, or the battery was dying, or maybe both. “Why are you in my house?” “Because your mom called me and asked me to.” “Did you tell her you gave me a ride the other night?” For some reason, this mattered to B.T. “No.” The line cackled and went silent for a moment. When it returned, it came back mid-word, “–urn yourself in, man. You’re breaking your mother’s heart.” “So, I should just come home, huh.” “I don’t care where you do it, just do it. Stop running.” “You know about the guy I hit?” “I know he’s in the hospital. Might lose an eye, last I heard.”

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“Shit.” B.T. imagined Troy with his eyeball dangling from the socket down onto that stupid sunburned face. He wasn’t proud and his stomach felt sick. “You want me to come get you? Tell me where you’re at?” B.T. hung up and turned the phone off. He knew it might not come on again, but he did it anyway. His mother would try calling just as soon as Larry told her he’d called, and the entire situation was too fresh in his head to mess with. Of all the people she knew, why in the hell had she asked that crazy old white dude to stay at their house? Through the yard, B.T. realized he was farther from the road than he thought. He walked on and eventually reached the main two lane drag that cut through the heart of Hudson. The traffic was thick, people piling in line to make it to the plants early so they could get a decent parking spot and get home a little sooner. These weren’t people just passing through and if one of them didn’t recognize B.T., then surely a cop car would pass by at some point surveying the flow of traffic, and then he’d be spotted. This wouldn’t do. With the traffic stopped at a light, B.T. crossed the road quickly with his head down and eyes peeking up only to make sure he wasn’t going to be hit, and cut through a gas station parking lot. There was a pay phone, empty and available, but he gave it only a second’s glance. He had to keep moving. He had to get to 321, the highway safe and large, and it would take him all the way to Hickory. B.T. stood out and he knew it.

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TWO Nora shut off Lipton’s alarm clock, an old thing with monstrously loud bells, and then remembered why she’d set it in the first place. She had to get to Winston and get to work. She yawned, rolled onto her back and let her arms extend to their fullest. When they did so without obstruction, she realized that Lipton wasn’t in the bed. Outside of his room, which still smelled vaguely terrible, the house was quiet. Nora called Lip’s name as she walked down the hallway and peeked into the bathroom. Finding it vacant, she made use of the facility, and once out called his name again. Nothing. Into the living room, she saw the couch and the recliner were empty and the television uncharacteristically silent. The kitchen was bare of life, a dirty bowl, spoon, and glass the only signs that it had recently existed there. The dining area was a table and chairs, salt and pepper shakers, and a few crumbs of the previous night’s meal. Outisde, a cat stalked precariously through the tall grass. Lip’s car was gone, as was the green hatchback and most others on the street. Nora wondered briefly if she weren’t dreaming some post-apocalyptic nightmare, but knew she really wasn’t. Back down the hallway, the veneer paneling giving credence to another notion that maybe she had traveled back in time to a period where the house sat empty waiting to be bought after the previous owners had left many years ago when such paneling would have been more in style, if in fact it ever had been. But there were all the piles of records in the floor cornered beside a tiny bookshelf, and the door to Mr. Greely’s office was open and Nora could see stacks of things she knew belonged to Lipton’s father. The door to his room however, was closed. Evan might be sleeping inside it, as she knew he was supposed to be since they were worried he would roll off the couch and hurt his leg if he slept there. Nora wrapped gently on the door and opened it. The room was a mess, but there was no one there. She was decidedly alone in a house that was so disorganized it threatened to swallow the young archivist in a sea of unimaginable junk. She and Lipton had made love the night before and he had been calm and determined, but now he had gone out without telling her, without leaving a note or Evan. She would need to leave soon. It was her second day on the job. Where the hell was he? Nora picked up the phone.

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THREE Paul’s name came tinny over the loudspeakers strung high on the warehouse rafters, and he couldn’t help but think I knew it. It had been a quiet morning so far, and he and Pearly had made real progress in sorting through a load of primed newels that had been ordered, prepared, cancelled, and were now requested to ship again. Paul wasn’t surprised that the calm wouldn’t last. It was probably Risa with news of some damn emergency meeting that would leave Paul in a bored stupor wondering what any of it had to do with him. Pearly laughed silently, pointed a finger-pistol at the loudspeaker and pulled the imaginary trigger. If only, Paul thought. Inside his office, the air conditioner blasted and Paul spoke into the phone louder than he should have. “Paul Greely.” He didn’t sit down because he didn’t want to be on the phone long enough to warrant doing so. “Hi, this is Nora.” Her sleepy little voice was the exact opposite of what he was expecting, and Paul found himself grinning. “Well, hey Nora. How goes it?” He sat down. “Umm, okay, I suppose.” “Good, good!” Paul swiveled in his chair, propping his feet on one of the drawer handles on his desk. “Find anything to eat?” “Actually, I can’t find Lipton. Or Evan. Do you know where they went?” “No, sorry.” On his desk sat the morning edition of the Lenoir News Topic. Some eighteen year old black kid was wanted for hitting another kid in the head with a chair. The black kids were always getting in to trouble in this town, it seemed to Paul, and here was just one more example. Tomorrow it would be some other headline and by the end of the week nobody would be talking about this Thomas kid. “They probably went out to get some food to make you breakfast with.” “Maybe,” she said. “He saw me set the alarm though. Perhaps they’re just taking longer than Lip expected.” “I bet that’s it.” He flipped through the newspaper. “You know Eggs can’t exactly go full speed.” “Right.” She paused. He wondered if he should say anything when she spoke again. “So you saw Lip’s car this morning when you left for work then?”

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“Sure did.” As soon as he said it Paul thought that maybe it wasn’t exactly true. He thought he’d seen Lipton’s car parked there on the curb, but he hadn’t specifically looked for it. The car was supposed to be there and maybe he’d really just assumed it was. Either way, there was no sense in worrying Nora about it. Whatever those two knuckleheads were up to, they’d probably be back before too long. “Well, I’ll just wait around awhile longer then.” “You know,” Paul said, suddenly thinking of alternative options and scenarios now that he was beginning to convince himself that he hadn’t seen Lip’s car when he left because it wasn’t there. “Eggs has a cell phone. Have you tried calling it?” “No, I don’t have the number. Do you?” “Uhh, no.” Now he just felt stupid. He had to think this through a bit. “Oh, but I know someone who should.” “Okay, who?” “His mother.”

* * * Paul had spent a good portion of the early night lying on his stomach, suppressing an erection into the cushions of the couch. He relived the subtle moment at the sink with Tina as if he were a schoolboy and was amazed by how alive he felt from the potential of it all. The truth, he knew, was that what had happened might be the only thing that ever happened between them. On the other hand, though, it might not. You never knew, after all. If Jenny had been out of his league and Linda out of his solar system, Tina was an apple from the same tree. She was his kind of people and Paul understood how to some that might not seem like a compliment, but it didn’t mean he thought any less of her than the other women in his life. It was time he finally found someone who was right for him, and maybe just maybe Tina was it. Maybe they deserved each other. Something had already happened between them last night. They’d had a moment, by God. While he waited to hear back from Nora (he wasn’t ready yet to actually talk to Tina again), Paul scooped up the phone and quickly dialed the florist. He spoke in a

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hushed tone, worried that someone somewhere might be listening though it was highly unlikely, if not altogether impossible due to the noise of the air conditioner. “Yeah, I ordered some flowers that you guys were going to deliver today. I was wondering,” he paused, creasing his brow, “is there any way I can have it delivered to somebody else instead?” Was it too much, too soon? Maybe, but Paul didn’t really know how else to do it. With the order changed and thoughts of Tina on his mind, Paul called Nora again and learned that Evan’s phone wasn’t on and Marnie hadn’t heard from him either. Nora had to leave for work, and admitted she was a little worried to which Paul tried to calm her as he looked over the picture of the wanted black kid again in the newspaper. Bacon and Eggs where are you? he wondered, but had to get back to work. They would turn up.

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FOUR Charlie left the station late, the sun not yet really bright enough for the shades he wore anyway, and in his mind the night had been a complete failure. He’d handed out six citations and had one DUI arrest, an unusually busy night for him or anyone in Lenoir for that matter, but B.T. was still on the loose and Charlie had lost whatever advantage he might have once had. If he could trust that Spindler kid, and Charlie thought he could, then B.T. was in the drug trade and Evan Barnes was a customer. Well, so what? With no evidence of a transaction, his info was nothing but rumor. He couldn’t very well go knocking on Barnes’ door in the middle of the night based on the suspicion that the guy had once bought pot from someone who was wanted for a crime that had absolutely nothing to do with drugs. Sure, he could ask the guy if he knew where B.T. might be, but Charlie knew better than to think Evan would just give B.T. up. Heck, he couldn’t even tell the Chief what the Spindler kid had said because then he’d have to admit to giving B.T. a ride the night before and taking him to the scene of an accident and then just letting him go. He wasn’t even supposed to be talking to anyone, he was supposed to be looking for bad drivers. So that’s what he did. Charlie looked for bad drivers on the street Evan lived on and he looked for bad drivers on the street the Lipton guy (whose connection to all of it he still hadn’t figured out) lived on. He included their two streets into his regular rounds, and made a new round that consisted of only their two streets. For most of the night, nothing changed; the two houses were quiet, mostly dark and still. Then, at some point – and it pained Charlie to admit he didn’t know exactly when – a car that was parked badly with one wheel on the curb in front of the Greely house, that was there in his photo from earlier in the day, simply disappeared. He did one last round on his way home (though the houses were by no means on the way), his cruiser traded in for his pick-up, and the blue sedan had not returned. Charlie had a feeling it wouldn’t anytime soon. * * * Sometimes an occasional train ran early in the morning delivering raw materials to the big plants near the movie theater. Charlie was first in line at the tracks as the crossing lights flashed and the caution plank lowered. He couldn’t even see the train yet, but he could hear it coming from the south. He took off the shades and rubbed his eyes,

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exhausted now from the previous night’s lack of sleep. He would have to do better today, maybe turn off the phone and the answering machine just this once. The Chief had already scheduled a sit down for Charlie’s next shift to discuss his barging in on a witness and he could only hope Hardbarf wouldn’t be at the Chief’s side this time. Charlie took the picture of Marnie from his shirt pocket and held it in his hand. She stared back at him, her eyes wide as if he’d just told her some bad news. She’d already been through that with her father, Charlie knew, and he was willing to bet she hadn’t looked anything like she did in the picture at the time. Even still, he found the look captivating, thought he could stare at it all day if only he had that kind of time. The train rumbled and something else caught Charlie’s eye. In between the jostling cars and containers, Charlie made out the figure of a black male, dark baggy jeans and long white t-shirt, walking through the grass on the other side of the tracks. He moved his head to either side trying to get a better look at the man and when that didn’t work, turned his eyes to the curb and the grass and the vast parking lot of the furniture plant in the vain hope that there might be some way around the passing train. Cars were now lined up behind and beside Charlie and there was no real hope of a U-turn. He slapped the rim of his steering wheel with an open palm and knew he would have to wait. It took minutes, but when the train finally passed Charlie knew the man he hoped was B.T. would be nowhere in sight, and this proved to be the case. He waited for the caution plank to raise high enough to avoid scraping the top of his truck, and then gunned it across the tracks before the lights had stopped flashing. He scanned the parking lot of the theater for signs of B.T. and ran the light at the intersection, turning right and then quickly pulling into the lot. The theater stood alone, but adjacent to it was a strip mall that used to house the old Sky City store and now was home to several city offices. There was an even older Winn Dixie at the far end of the lot and a surprising amount of cars out already, but no sign of the man he’d seen walking. Charlie spun the wheel and circled back through the parking lot toward the theater. Maybe B.T. had gone behind all the buildings trying to stay out of sight. Charlie passed the dumpster of the theater and rolled down his window, a faint whiff of stale popcorn in the air which he knew smelled better than his own truck. He took off his shades and drove slowly. If B.T. was back here, he needed to sneak up on

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him. There was a line of trees that separated the strip mall from the train tracks and factory, and if the kid took off through there Charlie knew he’d have a hard time catching him. He was in shape, but no shape to run. He passed the theater and the backs of two shops before he saw the dark man with the dark jeans. In the distance, Charlie saw the man turn and briefly look over his shoulder and then continue walking without changing his stride. That’s it, Charlie thought. Don’t run. He gave the truck a little gas and inched closer to the man. If it was B.T. he was being awful brave. He could be armed Charlie thought, then slowed to retrieve his gun from the holster in the back. He sat it in his lap and continued the approach. The man’s pants were sliding down on his hips and there were massive folds of fabric bunched up at his ankles. His hands swayed at his side, one tugging at the waist of his jeans every now and then, but otherwise they looked empty to Charlie. The white t- shirt looked as if it were beginning to stick to the man’s back from the heat and humidity, and his hair looked like tight little puffs of black cotton, wavy. His hair was too long. His back, Charlie realized, was too big. It wasn’t B.T. Charlie passed the man slowly to be certain. The man looked at Charlie and nodded. If he were writing it up, Charlie would’ve put the man in his mid-thirties, but then there was no need to write up a man walking behind a building. Charlie rolled up his window and drove home, thinking it could’ve been beautiful. * * * Inside, Charlie’s apartment was cold and quiet. He sat his heavy keys on a mail table and began to unbutton his shirt. He looked forward to taking the uniform off; it never looked right on him in the place where he lived alone. The suit was for the people and it needed people in order for it to mean anything. Charlie let his feet drag as he walked into the living room, and saw the blinking red light of the answering machine on the kitchen counter. If he drank or entertained, he could’ve used the counter as a bar, the landlady had told him. Instead, the counter held the answering machine and a little green cactus in a red plastic pot that he’d bought once at the grocery store. It appeared to be dying, though not from neglect. Charlie pushed the big blue button on the answering machine.

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Marnie Teaks, her voice older than her age or appearance, wanted to talk to him. One of her friends seemed to be missing. She was a little worried. She knew he had been watching them from his truck. Would he help? Would he? He left his shirt on and picked up the phone. Just then, he thought that helping her was the only thing he’d ever really wanted to do in his entire life, maybe even longer.

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FIVE Now she was mad. Whatever it was Lip and Evan had gone out so early to do, even if it was him trying to surprise her with some notion of a romantic breakfast, Nora was in no mood now to be even remotely impressed. It was nearly eight o’clock and she needed to get to her job. The fact that her boss put no pressure on her to be there didn’t lessen the pressure she applied herself. Worst of all, Lip knew all of this story, knew she had set the alarm early, and he still wasn’t back. What were they doing? Had they been in another accident? Couldn’t they at least call? Nora wrote a note, more polite than she knew she should’ve been, and left the messy, smelly Greely house. * * * Nora turned on the radio and listened for reports of a fatal car crash, or a major delay due to construction, or a bank robbery, or a sudden flood, anything that would loudly suggest Lipton, but after awhile she couldn’t stomach the thought. Not knowing was bad, but with Lipton knowing had the potential to be worse. She could restrain her imagination slightly by singing, so she flipped stations. The morning was warm, already in the mid-‘70’s she’d heard, and it felt to her like the mercury was climbing by the minute. She didn’t know if her air conditioner could keep up, if her nerves wouldn’t sweat her out of the car regardless. There truly had been nothing to eat in the Greely’s house and Nora could feel her stomach growling even if the volume of the radio kept her from hearing it. She was going to have to stop, she knew, but she wanted to get out of Lenoir first. Suddenly, the town didn’t seem so charming. If it were so small, how could two people get so lost? And if there were only twenty-some thousand people who lived there, how could there be this much traffic? As she watched the cars around her jockey for position, testing who would go over the speed limit and who would go way over the speed limit, Nora felt as if everything were Lipton’s fault. When the light turned red it was Lipton. When the station went to commercial it was Lipton who programmed a string of ridiculous advertisements that seemed to last forever. When an old person was planted firmly in the left lane doing fifteen under it was Lipton’s future self. When she sneezed it was Lipton tickling her nasal passages, and when she couldn’t find a tissue in her purse it was

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positively Lipton who had used the last. Lipton made her stomach empty. Lipton created Burger King. Nora stepped from her car into the humidity feeling damp and weak, silently cursing Lipton for making the drive-thru line so incredibly long. She parked unnecessarily far from the building because Lipton told her she would find dings in her doors if she didn’t. Inside she was comforted by vents of cold air shooting down from the ceiling and the thought of eating the greasiest croissant that ever existed. (The croissant itself was hers, but the bacon, egg, cheese, and sausage were undoubtedly Lipton.) She got the food to go because Lipton had made her late, and now he was making sure she would risk her life by trying to perform other tasks when she should be concentrating on driving alone. Taking her bag outside, back into the heat, back to the long walk across the hot asphalt, Lipton finally showed his face as a young black man walking swiftly across the lot right toward her, desperately trying to get her attention. “Hey, hold up a sec,” the young man said. Lipton made her stop. “Sorry, I don’t mean to scare you or anything.” Nora wasn’t scared, just unnerved. The young man’s face seemed hardened to her. He was sweating profusely. “Which way you headed there?” “Winston-Salem,” Nora said and then cleared her throat. The words didn’t want to come out, Lipton making her sound more frightened than she actually was. The young man scratched at his chin, avoided eye contact as he spoke. “Look, I know this gonna sound a little sketchy, but I was hoping you might give me a lift. I only need to get as far as Hickory, and I ain’t looking to rob you or hurt you or anything I know people think when they see somebody like me asking somebody like you for a ride. I can pay you, in fact. I just can’t keep walking or I’m going to die.” The young man’s last words hung between them in the thick morning air. For whatever reason, Nora believed him. If he did keep walking he would die. She understood and agreed. The young man looked up at her, his eyes suggesting he expected defeat and maybe should’ve known better for asking in the first place, but simply had been that desperate. To be fair, she was most certainly not the kind of person who just gave rides to strangers; she didn’t even like it when friends without cars needed

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rides here, there, and everywhere, always just expecting her to be the one who wouldn’t be able to say no. For the most part they were right. Today was different though. When the young man got into the passenger seat of Nora’s small car it wasn’t because she couldn’t say no; it was because Lipton had forced her to say yes.

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SIX B.T. tried not to think about how good the girl’s food smelled. He hadn’t eaten a drop since that damn party, and his stomach was feeling it. Shit, all of him was feeling it, but his stomach was the only part saying it. He needed to think about something else, needed to focus on the fact that maybe, for awhile at least, he was safe. Right now, that was better than any damn food anyway. “Thanks, again,” he said as the girl backed the car out and moved through the parking lot. She was a skinny thing, looked a little awkward in her own skin, but B.T. thought she was all right. She didn’t look much older than he was, probably some college girl traveling back and forth between friends and family. He liked the angle of her nose, thought it looked a little like a nice shoe. He tried not to be noticeable in the way he was checking her out, a glance here and there as if he’s watching for oncoming cars, and wondered if she was doing the same with him. What the hell would she think about him, coming out of the woods all stinky and gross, walking up to her like there was a good reason she should do him a favor? He reminded himself it didn’t matter what she thought. As long as she didn’t kick him out or call the cops, then she could think what she wanted. “I’m sorry to eat in front of you, but I’m starving. Do you mind?” She shot him a quick glance and then fiddled with the bag in her lap. “Nah,” B.T. said. “Are you sure? Do you want some?” He wanted more than some, he wanted the whole damn thing. “Nah,” he said again. “I’m cool.” They were on the highway now and the girl struggled to get the food out of the bag, unwrap it, and keep the wheels straight. If it had been anybody he’d known, B.T. thought, he would’ve leaned over and taken the steering wheel, but he knew better than to try it with this girl; he might cause an accident instead of preventing one. He sat there and pretended not to watch as she finally got the wrapper and bag situated and the food to her mouth. It smelled like it had been cooked in the car, only seconds ago, the seat beneath B.T. an oven, stove, and skillet. He wanted a bite so bad, and every little

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mouthful the girl took made him feel like he had made a terrible, terrible mistake getting into that car with her. She didn’t speak again until she was done. “Whew,” the girl sighed, leaning back in her seat now. “I needed that so badly it hurt.” B.T. snorted a polite laugh through his nose. She was killing him. “Oh, I’m sorry, I haven’t even asked you your name. I was so hungry.” “B.T.” he said, trusting her for some reason. The name might mean something to her later, but by then he’d be long gone. “Is that your real name or does it stand for something else?” “Nah, it’s a nickname.” He looked out the window as they passed the DMV. Suddenly, he didn’t care anymore. “My real name’s Thomas.” “I like that name,” the girl said. “Thomas. Sounds presidential.” “Nah,” he said, smiling a bit. Him, President. That was a damn rip. “You don’t think so?” “I think it sound presidential,” he said and made quick eye contact with her. “But it sure as hell don’t sound black.” “What’s that mean?” Her nose crinkled a bit. He wondered briefly if he offended her, but what business did she have being offended by something like that, her being a white girl? “You’ve never met a black person named Thomas?” “I never even heard of another black person named Thomas.” He was grinning fully now. “I think I’m the first, the only, and hopefully the last.” “No Thomas, Junior?” “Hell no,” he said and laughed a little. “I don’t really like my name either,” the girl said. “What is it?” “Nora.” She pulled the car into the right lane. Cruise control. “As in, rhymes with bore-uh.” “Yeah, but at least you ain’t the only white Nora who ever lived.” “Oh, trust me, I know.” She looked at him with her eyebrows raised. “There were two other Nora’s in my grade during high school and all three of us took nearly the exact same classes. It was a mess.” “See, that’s why you need a nickname.”

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“My boyfriend calls me little names, but nothing’s stuck so far.” B.T. nodded. They stopped talking for awhile as they passed the exits for Granite Falls. In less than half an hour they would go through Hickory and B.T. hadn’t made up his mind yet where he should ask to be let out. Even more important, he didn’t know what he would do once he was there. He wanted to talk to his mother, but that was as far as he’d thought. “I’m going to think of a black Thomas,” Nora said and nodded her little round head, convincing herself she would. In the silence B.T. realized the radio was on, barely audible in the background. He closed his eyes and tried to pick out what was playing. He realized he was exhausted. “Okay,” he said and waited, thinking that if anybody could do it this white girl would. Bring on the black Thomas. He was anxious to hear it, truly. * * * The girl’s hand was on his shoulder and B.T. startled awake. He sat up hard and stared out the window at the scenery passing before he remembered he was in a car. The radio was louder now, some talk show. He tasted the fuzzy musk of sleep in his mouth and wished he could brush his damn teeth, or drink some water, or anything. “We’re almost at Hickory,” Nora (he remembered her name now) said. “Where do you want out?” He hadn’t dreamed an answer to that question therefore he still didn’t know. “It don’t really matter. Whatever works for you.” “Oh,” she said. “That’s a little vague.” She smiled, trying to show she wasn’t criticizing, B.T. thought, but it sounded like it to him all the same. “Yeah, I know. I just didn’t want to stay in Lenoir. Anywhere here is better than there right now. Really, it don’t matter.” B.T. turned to the window, hoping that would end the conversation. He wasn’t trying to be difficult he just didn’t know what else to tell her. She could stop wherever she felt like stopping, he didn’t give a damn. Just do it. “So, have you done this kind of thing before? It seems so spontaneous and risky, I don’t think I could ever bring myself to try it.” “Well, you picked me up didn’t you? Lot of folks would think you’re nuts for doing that.”

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“People are paranoid,” she said and shook her head. “We’re more comfortable being afraid, which makes absolutely no sense. You know, it’s easier to just dislike the idea of something than to actually try and figure out why you don’t like it in the first place.” Definitely a college girl, B.T. thought. “Is that why you gave me a ride? To prove some point?” “No,” she said. “I don’t know. This probably sounds silly, but I think I did it to spite my boyfriend.” “I got you,” B.T. said. He knew girls did this shit all the time; it was nice to actually hear one admit to it. “What’d he do? He didn’t cheat on you, did he?” “No. God, no.” She let a laugh puff out her lips. “He’s far too neurotic to pull something like that off. He would probably go insane with the guilt. Besides, I love him and I’m good to him, and I don’t want to get married. What more could he want?” She had no idea, B.T. thought. He chose not to say anything, shrugged his shoulders instead. B.T. was young but he knew a dude always wanted shit he couldn’t have. Even if a dude had stuff, good stuff, there was always more. His brother wanted to play college basketball. He wanted a car. “My boyfriend made me late,” Nora said gripping her palm against the wheel, then releasing, gripping, releasing. “And he didn’t leave a note, didn’t call, didn’t tell me where he was going, all the typical stuff that drives a woman insane. It’s silly to you, I’m sure, but it’s the little things that can really get under your skin, you know? I don’t want to be mad at him. I’m actually pretty concerned that I haven’t heard from him. But, God, I just can’t help thinking he’s done something idiotic and that somehow everything is his fault.” B.T. thought of his mother. “Well, maybe it is.” “I don’t know,” she said and sighed. “Listen, where are we going to stop? Seriously, just point me in the right direction because I don’t really know this town at all. Otherwise, I’m liable to drive right through and take you all the way to Winston.” B.T. nodded. He had a cousin in Winston. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea. * * *

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They passed the last exit for Hickory in silence. Minutes later there would be no trace of a town that size for miles. B.T. stole a glance at Nora and could tell she was trying to figure it out. “Are we,” she stopped talking and looked out both side windows. “Are we out of Hickory now? It doesn’t look like there’s much ahead.” B.T. hesitated. If she were going to freak out, then this was when she would do it. “Yeah,” he said. “Is that all right?” She blinked. Her mouth jutted out from her face slightly and her shoulders shifted back against the seat. He knew she was thinking about regret. “I have a cousin that lives there,” B.T. said trying to make her feel more comfortable with the idea. He realized it sounded like a lie, but then sometimes the truth did. “He lives near the art school. You know where that is?” Nora nodded, but still wouldn’t look at him. “You don’t gotta drop me off there though, if it’s inconvenient. I can call him from wherever.” She nodded again, forced a smile. “Sure. It’s no problem.” Now she was the one who sounded like she was lying, probably, B.T. guessed, because she was. B.T. sat up in his seat and wiped a hand across his face. They were an hour away and he was thirsty, starving, and in need of a restroom break. Still, it was Nora’s change of mood toward him that held the biggest threat of making it a long ass trip. He didn’t have a clue of how he could make her comfortable again. Why should she be comfortable? If the roles were switched he knew he wouldn’t have given the girl a lift more than five miles out of his way. “You got a job?” he asked, finally. He needed her to talk about herself, and he needed her to stop asking and thinking about him. “Mhmm,” Nora said without opening her already pinched lips. That was all she said, too. “What do you do?” B.T. looked at his hands. He didn’t like pulling teeth. “I work for a library.” Still no eye contact. “Cool,” B.T. said. “Books are good.” “Do you read?” “Not unless I have to.” “Then why did you say that about books?”

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“Because,” he said and realized he wasn’t really sure. He looked out the window and spoke. “If I said books don’t mean nothing, then you’d be thinking that I’m stupid, probably can’t read. I can read, I just don’t like to. I don’t give a shit. If that makes me a bad person, then so be it. But I get the feeling that you thinking that way already.” “That’s not what I was thinking,” she said, her forced smile gone now. “Then why don’t you tell me what you were thinking. That I’m gonna rob you?” B.T. looked at her. “That I’m some rapist monkey nigger?” Nora shot him a glance at last that spoke volumes of hurt. He’d pushed her buttons. Maybe she’d stop now and kick him out, and maybe that was fine with him. He didn’t need to go to Winston, shit. He was far enough now, fuck her. “That’s not very nice,” she said quietly. B.T. let her words hang, not really sure where he was going with any of what he’d been saying. This whole day had been the worst of his life and it wasn’t getting any better. At the next exit, Nora slowed the car onto the ramp and B.T. thought it was over. She pulled into a gas station and parked next to a pump. B.T. undid his seat belt. “All right,” he said and opened the door. He had more he wanted to say, but what was the point? As he stood and walked, his feet and legs sore from all the movement made through the night, B.T. heard Nora get out. “What about your cousin?” He heard her door close, the twisting of a gas cap. “I lied.” He continued walking gingerly, his mind on just getting to the bathroom and not worrying about anything after that. This was it. He was on his own now. “So?” B.T. stopped, turned, and looked at Nora. She wasn’t smiling or making any dumb face, but he knew she meant what she said. He nodded and said, “I have to piss.” When they were both back in the car, the engine cranked and running, the air was still tense between them and B.T. wondered again if he should be doing this. He could make one call and end it, go home. Otherwise he might run the rest of his life. Nora put the car in gear. “You know,” she said, “I think I give up.” B.T. looked at her. “You are the only black Thomas.” B.T. smiled slightly. “Good.”

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SEVEN Nora no longer understood her actions, but she performed them with relative ease. When she decided to stop at her apartment before dropping B.T. off at his cousin’s, it was under the ruse that she wanted to check her answering machine before she went to work, but the truth was a little different. For some reason, she wasn’t ready to rid herself of his company. Once he was gone, she doubted she’d ever see him again and there was something so powerful, so rushing about being around him. She sensed danger with him; she couldn’t help herself, but she guessed he had done something bad. This attraction, though she’d never call it that exactly, wasn’t based on thrill alone. He had been kind to her after the gas station. He seemed intelligent in an unorthodox manner, and he was younger than her, almost five years younger than Lipton. Of course, Lipton was exactly who she was thinking about when she invited B.T. in just so he didn’t have to sit in the hot car (couldn’t leave it running, needed the keys to get into the apartment), and it was Lipton, she decided, who could stand to be a little jealous just this once. “Would you like some water?” Nora said as she poured herself a glass from the filtering pitcher in the fridge. The grease of the crossainwhich had settled heavily in her stomach and she was desperate for something pure. B.T. shook his head. “Nah,” he said, the way he’d said numerous times since they met. She assumed it was his thing, sort of like her own little language trick, though his was decipherable to more than just one person she knew. “Well, I’ll check the machine then.” Nora took the glass with her and walked through her tiny kitchen and past B.T. She inhaled his aroma, which she knew was mostly the product of a thorough sweating, and realized she had missed it in between the time they had gotten out of the car and now. Again, it was all the opposite of what she thought she liked, so much so that she found she was nearly overwhelmed with this man. Who was he really? Nora wondered if she could ever know. In her bedroom, on her overcrowded desk, the answering machine’s tiny red light flickered, and just like that she was awash with hope and anxiety. She knew it was Lipton before she pressed the button. But she was afraid of what he might say, afraid of what he would say if he only knew what she was doing, thinking just moments before.

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She pressed the button. His voice came on, the sounds of a car moving in the background: “Nora, love, it’s me. I’m in a most awkward situation, but I am quite fine and am hopeful that all will be resolved in a relatively short time. Uhhh, I can’t really say much more than that except that we are on the move, and uhh, well again I’m in no real danger or anything so please do not worry. I apologize profusely for the way you no doubt discovered we were gone, and I’ll explain all in a letter as soon as I possibly can write. Uhh, right. That might not be for a couple of days, but do check the mail regularly because then again it might be very soon. I’m okay, really. I have been better, yes, but under the circumstances I’m more than tolerating. Have a good...” The machine beeped and Nora immediately listened to the message again. Her sense of dread, frustration, and confusion had been replaced by more dread, frustration, and confusion from the message. It told her nothing. She couldn’t move. B.T. appeared in the doorway, his eyes focused and attentive. “Is that him?” he asked, placing one of his large hands on top of his head. “Yes,” Nora said. “That’s Lipton.” Then, B.T. laughed. He laughed and laughed, big low breathy laughs that no doubt filled his lungs. He laughed and laughed and laughed, his hand on his head and then across his face, and then later on his knee, and as he did so, as he laughed like no one else she had ever heard before, a laugh that would forever define this man in her mind, Nora decided she wasn’t going to work, not today.

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PART FOUR

ONE Dearest Tulippants, I am in hell. Engaged in a great, strange, and merciless battle, I have found myself in hell wondering when it was I died. The answer to that thought, of course, is when I left you slumbering beneath the sheets (forever cold!) in the early morning of that, our last of days. I have ceased to exist since. The war has taken its toll on my body and upon my spirit; but fear not for it shall never claim my heart, my cause. I am alive for you. It is always you, Nora. Always, Nora. I love and miss you, awake each day to live for you, and hope each moment that the next will be the one where I walk away, wounded and tattered, following the compass of my heart into your accepting arms. Upon no guarded glance shall I run to you. I will not hesitate despite the grave insensibilities of which I have acted in your regard. I trust you will understand. I trust my Nora will forgive. Let us hope only that if a God exists, the combined spiritual momentum of our shared love will be enough to propel me from this most grievous of circumstances I presently find myself in. I am in hell, but I am here unjustly. There must be salvation for the innocent, and let us pray that it shall come quickly. Where is my literal hell? I’m sure you’re curious as to the location (you’ve no doubt noticed that the return address was a joke). Well, there has been some debate between myself and the Devil I know (i.e., Evan), regarding whether or not I should inform you of said location, whether or not the authorities would be monitoring your mail, whether or not I could trust you (certainly this was not my concern and I have rightfully forbid the mere notion to be uttered again in my presence), or some other such nonsense conspiratorial bogus hogwash. I reject all fears, and I simply must tell you: I am in Myrtle Beach, SC. Can you believe??? According to local sensibilities I should be composing this letter on a postcard with a picture of a dog in a bathing suit or a scenic overview of all the lights and soul-stealing lures this city has to offer. Even if I could muster the brevity required to mark upon a postcard, I am incapable of leaving our room unless it is absolutely necessary. Why? Because Evan fears someone will see us? Because the heat

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is simply unbearable? No. I will tell you. I am in hell and hell is unusually crowded. Nora, it’s SENIOR WEEK. Lest you confuse this as a seven day celebration of the elderly, know that SENIOR WEEK is the exact opposite. The world at my window is cramped as far as the eye (even one, like my own, which is flawed) can see with the recently graduated – though I no doubt question how so many of them managed such a feat – high school teenager. The smell of alcohol and unprotected sex seeps through our hotel vents like incense. The walls rumble at all hours of the day and shrill screams of joy and stupidity echo through the caverns of my brain, which I suspect is decreasing in size with each passing minute. Men, rather, boys parade through the streets with their shirts off and their hairless chests brown like the color of caramel crèmes, while the flip-flopping of their sandals now pound in my head like a miniature horse touring my ear canal. Girls wear as little as possible, showing off tasteless tattoos and regrettable body piercings. I have seen them remove their tops; they kiss other girls fully with casual glee. They dance to the blaring of bad music from all corridors, beaches, and patios, and they cruise in equally loud cars with a hand stapled firmly to the horn. I feel as if I am in Ancient unruly Greece, only the Parthenon has been replaced by a ferris wheel, Nora. There is no authority, no sense of self-respect, no social concerns. Some will leave this weekend, thank God, but others will stay and there is speculation that another group will be here starting Wednesday and that they may outnumber the current collection of drunken lemmings. More! It seemed so impossible! Evan, naturally, is lamenting the fact that his leg wound is keeping him from enjoying all that hell has to offer, while I have turned my focus to my work, though doing so has been difficult if not because of the obvious outside distractions, then because of the rate at which you pervade my every thought. I do not regret this, of course; however, I fear if I am unable to do nothing but think of you then surely I will go mad with despair. This then is my battle. War is never kind and you must know this: I shall not return the same man as I was when I left. I have seen too many things... So then, how are you? How are you enjoying your job? Have you come across any work by Dr. Miller, PhD? He’s a brilliant writer, Nora, quite the cantankerous old coot, but nonetheless a genius of recent history. You may find his essays engaging. Also, if it is in your power you should discuss a new system of fines and renewal with those in

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the upper brass. There are valid reasons why some students keep materials for extended periods of time and I still contend that no one’s degree should be held for ransom because of something so trivial. Imagine having your education jeopardized for failure to pay a parking ticket! This method of operation from the library is no different, and completely anti-student. Something should be done. Viva la revolution! Anyway, I suppose you are interested in the details of our arrival in this very colorful version of Hades. Honestly, the details themselves are rather uninteresting, which is why I chose not to tell them to you before we left. You probably would have been mad at me for waking you, it’s such a stupid little story. Better to sleep and worry slightly (though again, I promise, there really is very little to worry about) and then all will be well after a short separation. The story begins with what you already know, that Evan crashed his car into a police officer and the gun he kept in his glove compartment fell out and shot him in the leg. Why was I with Evan in the first place? Because he kidnapped me. Well, relatively speaking at least, though I was never actually threatened. The gun was revealed later in the plot. Still, I rode with him in order to hear of his plans (which you’ll remember was, ironically, to have me as a roommate here in this tepid town. I guess he got, to some extent, what he wanted.) and quickly learned that we were instead on our way to retrieve one of his “friends” and deliver him to his “girlfriend’s” house. After a very uncomfortable and tense ride, we were rid of this young man and it was learned that Evan was something of a client of his, and in fact had bought a small bag of marijuana from him before we delivered the man across town. This man would show up again, at the hospital and later at my father’s humble dwelling, and it is essentially because of him that we are at large. His name is B.T., Nora. Well, this is what he goes by – I do not know his real name. Please track the local news there in Lenoir. If this character is captured and arrested, you must let me know immediately! (Evan’s cell phone is collecting messages. He’s afraid to answer it or make any outgoing calls, because he is paranoid.) Also, look for his description online. You may also find a photo, though he’s likely taken to disguises. Regardless, if you should by chance see anyone who resembles this person, AVOID HIM AT ALL COSTS! HE IS NOT TO BE TRUSTED! TURN HIM IN ANONYMOUSLY! He may have resorted to murder by now. The news would not come as a shock to this particular party. Now, then, where was I?

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After the crash, the bag came up missing (Evan was medicated to the gills) and it was only a chance matter of luck that I happened to discover it in his pants pocket (don’t ask). Foolishly, I did not turn it over to the authorities then and there and implicate that B.T. fellow as the rightful owner, dealer, and distributor of illegal substances. Instead, I used it as a psychological toy. I pretended to not know where it was either and admittedly delighted in watching those two hooligans shake in their proverbial boots. Then you showed up, gloriously and lovingly, and there was that business with my father (Have you heard from him?), the siren Marnie, and the others. Temporarily depleted of spirits and clearly absent of faculty, the last thing I did before bed (oh, how I have revisited that evening) was surprise Evan with the missing bag. I considered it a gift, a truce even. Look how I have been rewarded. At some point in the night I was awakened by what I assumed was you, sweet Nora, talking in your sleep. I couldn’t have been more wrong. The noise grew louder and I realized it was coming from the door. I carefully got out of bed, dressed, and went into the hallway where Evan was lying on the ground. He had been calling my name under the door, he later told me, for quite some time. One can only wonder what he would have done had I not woken. We retreated into my father’s room where Evan had been reading (I know, one more unbelievable event in a story already resembling a fable), and he very rapidly informed me that he had a message on his cell phone from our pal B.T. The news was bad. B.T. was running from the law because of some unrelated act of violence, and now some individual, unknown to us, had told the authorities that both Evan and I were co-leaders of Lenoir’s largest drug ring. (Isn’t that breathtaking? Me a drug lord! Never mind the fact that I don’t even live in Lenoir!) According to B.T., it was only a matter of time before they burst through the doors to send us away to prison for the rest of our lives, though Evan now admits the unlikelihood of this given the two hour time difference between when B.T. left the message and when Evan got it. Needless to say, I was concerned. Logically, the evidence would overwhelmingly prove that any notions of my involvement with that sort of accusation were all but ridiculous. Yet, I have read too many varying accounts of historical event to know that there are always separate versions of the “truth.” It’s true, I have history with Evan. It’s true I punched him in the stomach at my college graduation. It’s true I rode with him to B.T.’s and

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watched a drug deal take place and did nothing to prevent it. It’s true I had a bag of marijuana in my possession for some period of time. It’s true (well, we suspect it is) that someone did implicate us in the so-called drug ring. You see, Nora, looking at these things with the mindset that I am not my normal self and instead a criminal, it is not too difficult to make assumptions about a rather nefarious character. Reasonable doubt? Sure, but even that is entirely too subjective to feel safe about. Will running only strengthen the case against us, assuming that such a case exists? Ah ha! You would think so, but no! Only the guilty run, right? Well, if the guilty know this then why would they run? They wouldn’t they would stay at home and say, “But officer, if I were guilty do you really think I would have stayed around here waiting to be caught?” See, this is all worked out. We are running because we are innocent. At least, I am. Evan is partially guilty, but marijuana penalties are notoriously steep and he is hoping to avoid that whole scenario altogether. So, I suppose that honestly he is running because he is guilty, but make no mistake: I am not. And what now? Well, we wait. Neither Evan or I have any confidence in B.T.’s ability to run. Mark my words, he will be caught, likely very soon (and perhaps even has been already – do check the police reports if you can). Once he is caught, he can only be tried for the unrelated crime that he is wanted for. The police have no evidence of any drug transactions (save for this letter, which I’ll ask you destroy after reading) and it would make no sense for B.T. to implicate himself of additional felonies. Unless, of course, he strikes some sort of bargain with the judge whereby he is sentenced to a reduced amount of time in exchange for giving up Evan and myself. That, okay, is strictly worst case scenario. Understood? B.T. said very little when I was around him and I don’t imagine he would start blabbing just because the police are putting pressure on him. In fact, he’s probably been through that experience a few times already. And there would still be the matter of evidence. What evidence is there, Nora? There is none. Evan has “disposed” of the one bag of marijuana and there is nothing else connecting either of us to B.T. When he is captured and there is no threat of any unfortunate grouping between us and the truly guilty party, then we will come home. I will be with you then and this experience will be forgotten.

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My Nora I miss you. Each day here is eternal and I have never felt more out of place in my life. There is no respect for intelligent thought only decadence for the sake of decadence. (A water balloon just hit our balcony window and Evan is convinced it was filled with urine. Also, this amuses him. Such are the trenches of war...) I hope the length of this letter has not overwhelmed you. Certainly you know my proficiency of saying exactly too much, and believe that there is yet more I wish to tell you. I will wait instead, and cherish the chance to say it all to you in person. In closing, may we never dip even an ankle in this raucous river and live instead in a village far, far away, happily ever educated, merrily, merrily, merrily... Love, incredibly, L.G. * * * “Don’t send that in a regular envelope,” Evan said, his fat head cocked at an angle as he examined the yellowish fluid trickling down the balcony door glass. “They’ll suspect something.” Lipton folded the letter using a phonebook as a surface, the several white pages of paper causing his seahorse to flutter. “And exactly who would suspect something, Evan?” An empty envelope sat on the unmade bed. “The mail people.” WAM! Evan flinched as another water balloon hit the glass and the sounds of adolescent laughter came from somewhere unseen. The fluid on the window rolled down the glass, combining with the previous elixir, though the current batch was of a darker shade. “Okay, this is definitely somebody’s piss,” Evan said. “You’re right, they’ll suspect me of being long-winded.” Lipton stuffed the thick letter into the envelope. “Of which, I confess, I’m guilty.” “No, I’m serious. They’ll rip it open and look for powders and stuff.” “But there’s nothing suspicious about it. Look.” Lipton held up the envelope. It had a little weight, yes, but there was nothing extraordinary about its appearance. “It looks thick. Nobody writes letters anymore. What if they think it’s plans for a bomb or something?” “Then they’ll be sorely disappointed to read it.”

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“Not if your name and picture is hanging up on a wall behind them.” Another water balloon slammed against the glass door. Evan jerked his head to and fro trying to get a pathetic glimpse of the culprits. “Will you please just close the curtain?” Lipton asked, standing up now. He brushed crumbs off his disheveled shirt. The place was a mess and his appearance wasn’t far off from the room’s. “All you’re doing is encouraging them to throw more.” “I’m trying to see who’s doing it.” “And then what? Are you going to limp over there and pee on their door?” “Maybe.” Evan turned, looked at Lipton with a serious gaze. “We gotta do something to get them back!” Lipton ignored him with his body. He studied his beard in the mirror. “Do you not think it’s best that we do as little as possible to attract attention to ourselves? Considering everything else that’s going on out there, it shouldn’t be too difficult. Why must you challenge this?” “Well, all I know is if you get to send that letter then I get to do something too.” Evan’s head was back searching through the glass. “Fine, write them a letter and ask them to please stop throwing their urine at our door. Just keep it short so the mail people don’t suspect you of terrorism.” “Jesus, you’re an ass today.” Evan closed the curtain just as another balloon splattered against the glass. “I’m going out.” “Will you take my letter?” Lipton held out the envelope as Evan limped past him. The crutches were on the bed and he appeared to be getting along all right without them now. “No.” “Fine, then.” Lipton paused to lick and seal the envelope. “I’m coming with you.” * * * Outside, the sun was warm and the sidewalks were crowded. Evan refused to bring his crutches, and Lipton found the pace at which he hobbled to be maddening. With the crutches, Evan cut a natural path through the zombies for them to walk, but without them Lipton had no choice but to feel swarmed. In his head, he imagined they

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would stand out no less if they were dressed as Frankenstein’s monster and his buddy the Wolfman, and in fact, he knew that’s sort of what they looked like already, sadly. His clothes didn’t help things; in his khakis and button-down, Lipton appeared to be the sole missionary in a mob of heathens. He felt undoubtedly square, though remained asserted in his belief that this was far superior to being whatever it was that was the opposite of square. All this after a fifteen minute drive, and twenty minute search for parking, from the only hotel in town that had a vacancy. Lipton was boiling. “You’re absolutely positive there’s a post office near here?” “Yeah,” said Evan as he hobbled and shuffled. Mighty gobs of sweat formed on his forehead. “I think so. It’s down here a little bit.” Lipton stopped walking, waited for Evan to catch up. “You think? You mean, you’ve dragged me all the way out into this on nothing more than a whim?” “Hey. You invited yourself.” Evan caught up and passed. “Yes, and I’m still willing to suffer in order to send this letter.” Lipton stood still watching Evan hobble on. “But if there’s no post office, then the equation is ruined!” “Then let’s find it. Don’t just stand there.” “But–“ Just then, a group of boys passed Lipton in the opposite direction and suddenly had a coughing attack that suspiciously sounded like the word nerd. He turned and watched them celebrate their rudeness with high fives, and then one of the boys spun and faced Lipton, making obscene gestures involving his crotch. Lipton lowered his head and started walking, cursing himself for even being there more than he silently cursed the Neanderthals. They were very clearly ignorant, but he should’ve known better than to agree to this whole hairball scheme. What was he thinking? He probably could have gotten a stamp from the concierge. On pace with Evan again, Lipton continued to sulk. While he was sulking, they passed familiar sites along the so-called “strip” that were synonymous to Lipton with the eradication of any kind of cultural significance; the Pavillion with its rides and games and overpriced theme park atmosphere; the Gay Dolphin store with its cheap brands at expensive prices, selling everything from hermit crabs to Japanese kimonos with the words Myrtle Beach Samurai ironed-on across the breast; the Metalhead Outlet (or so dubbed by Lipton, as he’d never bothered to learn the store’s name) with its black t-shirts

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and leather jackets and employees who were as aggressive as the music that churned out of the storefront speakers; the oyster bar; the head shop; the country saloon; the video arcade. All Lipton wanted was a stinking stamp. That and the comfort of knowing Evan wasn’t out alone, mucking up their plan. “I can’t believe you don’t like this place,” Evan said, more or less reading Lipton’s mind. “There’s so much to do.” Lipton lifted his head. “Yes, but it’s all so noisy and expensive. People used to invent their entertainment. They didn’t need to be convinced by men in sheets.” Lipton nodded his head in the direction across the street where a man dressed as a ghost stood in front of a sign that read Haunted House 7 Bucks!! Naturally, there was no real house there in that busy section of the city, so Lipton assumed the sign would have been more accurate had it read Haunted 2nd Story Shop. He was also thinking that some men still found entertainment dressing in sheets, but that was another story entirely. “You know you sound like you’re seventy years old?” Evan shook his head and hobbled, Frankenstein’s monster slowly becoming agitated. “Can’t you lighten up for once in your life?” “Doesn’t it strike you as odd, though, that having fun in our society is irrevocably linked with spending money? And therefore those with the most money no doubt have the most fun? This doesn’t unsettle you at all?” “No,” Evan said soundly. “Where do you want to eat?” “At the post office.” “Come on, Lip. I’m starving! We can ask where the post office is at the restaurant.” “Ah ha! So, you admit you don’t know where it is?” “Yes.” “I knew it!” “Good. So, let’s eat.” * * * They selected a tiny pizza establishment crammed in between two junk stores, whose claims of New York style pizza essentially translated to thin and greasy. Of course, the two times Lipton had been to The City he had not stooped to eating pizza, so

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he couldn’t actually verify this southern reproduction, though he did have his doubts. At the table, Evan woofed down two slices before Lipton could finish one, and was audibly debating a third when a girl walked in and caught his eye. “I know that girl,” Evan said and Lipton turned to see who he was talking about. At the end of the line was a short, tan, blonde girl with long straight hair and pink tinted sunglasses resting atop her head. Short shorts, a tank top, and tennis shoes. A thin wire bracelet on her left wrist. She was like all of them, Lipton thought, utterly interchangeable; a replicant. Evan shuffled off, leaving Lipton alone to eat and attempt not to stare. Instead, he stole glances, which he knew were completely obvious since they required him to unnaturally look over his shoulder, and saw a polite hug between the two, heads down in apparent conversation about Evan’s injured leg, and lastly Evan’s pointed finger in his direction. Lipton turned back and faced the peach colored wall, painted with a sloppy mural of a dated New York City skyline. Of course Evan would invite her over. Why not clue someone else into the fact that they were on the lam? Evan sat back down, a clear smile on his face. Lipton was not impressed. “Tell me, are you in love with her?” Evan looked at him, as if insulted by the question. “No. She’s just a friend.” “Then why did you invite her to join us?” “I was just being nice. What’s the big deal?” “What if she asks us what we’re doing here?” “Then we’ll tell her we’re here for Senior Week.” “Do I look like I’m here for Senior Week?” As the words came out of Lip’s mouth, Evan’s face changed to a boyish smile and he was soon standing to pull out a chair for this friend of his, ever the gentleman. The girl sat between both of them, her perfume pleasant but strong enough to overpower the smell of the pizza. She looked at Lipton and said, “Hello.” “Lipton this is Kaitlyn. She goes to South Caldwell.” “Excuse me?” the Kaitlyn girl said mockingly, her drawl all but outlandish. “I went to South Caldwell. I am now officially an alumni, thank you very much.”

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“My fault,” Evan said. “Will you ever forgive me?” Lipton watched Evan turn on his grin again. It was obvious he had some sort of crush. Lipton didn’t dare ask how he knew this girl, was quite sure Evan would tell him every illegal detail later regardless. “Perhaps,” Kaitlyn said coyly. She turned again to Lipton and smiled an entirely different smile, one much less exciting. “Nice to meet you.” “Lip went to Hibriten with me,” Evan said, his eyes all but rolling across Kaitlyn’s body like the wheels of a toy car. “Cool.” Kaitlyn took a bite of her slice of pizza and immediately fanned the air around her mouth with her hand. Not cool. “Hot?” Evan asked. Lipton rolled his eyes, wished he could close them and wake up sometime later when innuendo was outlawed on account of bad taste. Kaitlyn nodded. She swallowed and took a sip from her drink. She looked again at Lipton. “Are you, like, one of those Jehovia’s witnesses people?” Now she was making fun of his clothes. Lipton wondered if he tried hard enough whether he could trick his mind in to simply erasing her from his line of sight, simply make her vanish. “No,” he said calmly. “Oh. Aren’t you dying from the heat?” the girl asked, taking another bite from the too-hot pizza. “Well, actually–“ Lipton stopped as Evan’s change of face again distracted him. This time the grin had disappeared and Evan looked as if he were guilty of something and was doing his worst to hide it. Without saying anything else, Lipton turned and saw what had so effectively destroyed Evan’s flirtations: there were two cops in line for pizza. They weren’t only in line, they were ordering. If the cops sat down, then the gig was up; the only open table was right beside theirs. Lipton stumbled. He looked to Evan for direction and labeled that as mistake number one million. Evan just sat there wearing the same chin-in-neck look of avoidance and gazed at the checkerboard tablecloth. Now Kaitlyn was in on the act too, looking at both of them and clearly confused about why her suitor’s lights had gone out and why the one in the funky clothes wouldn’t answer her question. “What?” she asked, her accent giving it an extra syllable.

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“I’m sorry. What was it you were saying?” Lipton spoke, but didn’t look at her. The cops, both of them middle aged and tan, were laughing at something. The clerk handed the taller one his pizza. “Is this some sort of Hibriten thing?” Kaitlyn asked, and Lipton glared at Evan to try and break him from his state of frozen paranoia. If he couldn’t act normal, Lipton thought, the least he could do was try and keep his new girlfriend from getting suspicious. But Evan was unresponsive and the cop with his pizza was heading their way. “Right,” Lipton said at Kaitlyn, though not directly to her. The cop was behind him, to his right, pulling out a chair, the metallic legs grinding against the floor, and then sitting down. Over his other shoulder, Lipton saw the second cop taking his plate from the clerk. “Okay,” Kaitlyn said, drawing it out and making it apparent she wasn’t thrilled. “You know, I have other people I could be eating with.” Suddenly Evan was on his feet. “Yeah, so we’ll see you around. Stay safe.” His voice was louder than it needed to be, and he was already limping from the table as he finished speaking. Lipton sat and watched in horror as Evan limped his big frame right through the path of the second cop who was making his way to join his partner at the table. The cop yielded to let Evan pass, and then followed the shuffling maniac with his eyes until Evan was completely out the door. Once gone, the cop shook his head and continued to the table. Lipton froze and as the cop sat down behind him, he heard him say “Asshole.” He couldn’t disagree. “Is he all right?” Kaitlyn asked and looked at Lipton like she was asking with more concern for her own health than Evan’s. “Hmm, good question. I better go find out.” At last Lipton stood and, making no apologies to young Kaitlyn, walked as fast as he could without looking like he was trying, right out the door. Outside, the heat pressed down on Lipton like a vise and he quickly spotted Evan, the other large limping men at Myrtle Beach apparently still in their hotel rooms. Lipton didn’t like the look on Kaitlyn’s face when he walked out, didn’t trust her not to strike up

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a friendly conversation with the cops now sitting beside her, and knew they needed to get off the main strip as soon as possible. Evan had picked up the pace considerably though, and Lipton had to fight through the crowd to catch up with him. In his head, he thought of them as cavalry, every bumped shoulder a run in with a bayonet, every slim space he could squeeze between two people a narrow escape from the hooves of a charging horse. He was a messenger, running through the front without so much as a shank, and the world at large was frightening but he knew he must go on. Unfortunately, Lipton got caught at the light. He stood there impatiently, checking over his shoulder for the cops and always trying to keep an eye on Evan’s progress. Where was he going? How could he just leave him alone like that? Lipton was thick in a mass of teenagers whose breaths were already heavy with alcohol though the day was young. He avoided making eye contact but could feel them leering over him all the same. He wasn’t sure how long he could withstand it, a nightmare realized. The light changed and Lipton bolted across the intersection, leaving a trail of cat calls and crude comments behind him. Lipton ran past the miniature golf course, unaware of the giant plaster-foam gorilla with smoke coming out of its ears, or the Tyrannosaurus Rex wearing sunglasses. Because of the stoplight, the crowd between him and Evan was now thinned and the sidewalk seemed to glow beneath his feet. Sweat ejaculated from his pores and beads of liquid were clinging to his glasses, slightly obstructing his view. Just as he was on the heels of Evan, those heels suddenly changed directions and were he not quick with his reflexives Lipton would have barreled right into him. “What are you–“ he huffed and then realized exactly what Evan was doing as the sound of sirens approached rapidly. Out of breath and sore from the short run, Lipton was too tired to move again. He watched with his hands on his knees as Evan limped back in the direction of the pizzeria and a cop car appeared and quickly parked. Lipton wanted to say something, but didn’t know what. The cops got out of the car, left the lights flashing, and ran right past him into the miniature golf course. Another siren sounded and seconds later a fire truck was parking in front of the cop car. Lipton looked up. The giant gorilla’s head was awash in flames. “Evan,” Lipton called and Evan finally stopped and turned around. They made eye contact, the same doe eyed look of incredible guilt still molded Evan’s face. Lipton

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shook his head and pointed to the big monkey. Evan looked up, stared at the fire briefly just as the crowds were doing. He nodded. * * * They spent the rest of the day in the hotel room watching television. At night, when both were in bed, the water balloons started again. They hadn’t said much about the day, the close call, little Kaitlyn, and the fiery gorilla, and were content to avoid the water balloons as well. Lipton turned off the light that hung above his bed and thought of Nora and how long it would take her to receive his letter. Just as he’d suspected, the lady at the hotel’s front desk had been happy to sell him a stamp. How much longer? he wondered and rolled onto his stomach. A balloon exploded against the balcony door and laughter followed from outside. Lipton put the pillow over his head. “They’re going to do this all night,” Evan said. “They know we’re in here.” The room was dark, but Evan’s deep voice sounded to Lipton larger than the infinite darkness. It wasn’t loud, but it was filling. Kind of like seafood. “They’ll get bored after awhile. At the very least, they should run out of urine before long,” Lipton mumbled. “Yeah, but then what?” “I don’t know, Evan.” Lipton lifted the pillow to turn his head to the opposite side. “Just try to sleep.” Lipton knew he was going to have his own difficulties doing this and wished greatly that Evan would just let it go. There was no sense in worrying about the petty games of the inebriated now. What could they do about it? Call the cops? They had to lay low. “I checked my cell phone while you were brushing your teeth,” Evan said disrupting the momentary silence. At least, Lipton thought, he wasn’t talking about the infernal water balloons. “And? No new messages?” “One from Marnie,” Evan said. A balloon splattered. Lipton found the timing somehow appropriate. “Look, why don’t you just go downstairs and call her from the pay phone?” Lipton pushed the pillow to the side, too hot to keep it on his face any longer. “I don’t understand why you insist on keeping her in the dark.”

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“I don’t want to drag her into my mess.” “Fine, but let her know you’re alive and messy. I imagine she’s worried sick, seeing how fond she is of you.” “What’s that supposed to mean?” Lipton lifted his head and squinted through the dark to the other bed. His eyes hadn’t adjusted enough yet for him to see Evan, and he desperately wanted to read his roommate’s body language. He thought briefly of turning on the light, but decided against it fearing it would give the ballooners new hope and purpose. Another balloon hit anyway. “What do you mean ‘what’s that supposed to mean’?” “I asked you first.” Lipton imagined Evan on his back, hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling, physically unfazed by what he was suddenly saying. “Yes, but I was under the impression that what I said was fairly straightforward and now you’re questioning it, which leads me to believe that it’s not.” “Nothing you say is straightforward, Lip.” “Well, it was perfectly straightforward to me.” Lipton rubbed his eyes. The outlines of Evan’s body were beginning to form, and sure enough Lipton had pegged his posture exactly. “Yeah, that’s the problem.” Splaaack! Another balloon. “Everything you say is for your own benefit.” “That’s incendiary!” “See?” Evan pulled his hands out from his head and let them rest at his side. Lipton found his glasses on the nightstand and put them on. He needed to be able to see in order to properly express himself in this matter, as Evan was now accusing him of being entirely selfish, as if it was his idea to come to this godforsaken Beach in the first place. “You’re diverting the conversation,” he said. “No, I’m not.” “But, you are! I made a comment about Marnie’s fondness for you and now you’re accusing me of egocentrism!” “I don’t know what that is, Lip.” “Another diversion!” Lipton sat up. He couldn’t help himself, he turned on the light. They both struggled momentarily to adjust to the brightness, their eyes squinted

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and faces sour like those inhaling the essence of a skunk. Three balloons hit the glass door in rapid succession. “What the hell are you doing?” Evan said, raking at his eyes. “Tell me why you haven’t called Marnie.” “I already did!” “No, tell me the real reason,” Lipton said. His eyes blinked off some elaborate sentence in Morse code. “You’re withholding.” “Because,” Evan said and rolled over, turning his back to Lipton. “Because what?” Lipton said, anxious. “Will you turn off the goddamn light?” “Fine!” A flick of the switch and the light was out again. More balloons. “Now, tell me.” The room was relatively quiet. There were noises coming from every room above, below, beside, and across from theirs, but inside Lipton and Evan’s room things were briefly still. “I don’t know if I can trust her,” Evan said at last. “What?” Lipton asked. He remained in his propped up position, looking at Evan despite the fact that there was little to see. “What are you talking about? She’s crazy about you, anyone can see that.” “We’re just friends, Lip.” “So the relationship didn’t pan out. Most people don’t stay friends with ex- girlfriends, but you two act like best friends. You have for years. How can you not trust her now?” “It doesn’t have anything to do with now. I haven’t trusted her for years.” Lipton audibly gasped. “You’re kidding!” He turned the light on again, and again balloons shot against the glass door. “Jesus!” Evan complained. “You’re blinding me with that light!” “Then keep your eyes closed.” Lipton sat up completely now. Evan pulled the covers up tight to his neck, leaving Lipton no choice but to get up and walk around to the other side of the bed. He kneeled down to eye level with Evan squinting in the bed. “But I want to see you say it. Tell me what she did.” Evan opened his eyes and immediately

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rolled over. Lipton ran to the other side of the bed, and at last Evan pulled the covers completely over his head. “I knew she was a spinstress!” Lipton said loudly. “Tell me what it was, Evan. You owe me! For seven years, you owe me!” Lipton jumped on Evan’s bed and bounced up and down. “All right!” Evan yelled. Someone banged on the wall in the next room. A balloon hit the door. Lipton stopped jumping. From beneath the sheets Evan spoke. He voice was tired and sounded almost as if part of the sheets were in his mouth. “You remember when I called you on New Year’s Day and told you we were dating?” “Yes,” Lipton said. He stood in his glasses and boxer shorts above Evan’s hidden body, his head not too far off from the room’s low ceiling. “Well, I lied.” Evan’s breaths made the sheets rise up and down against his body. “She had already dumped me.” “Why,” Lipton said and made it sound like a demand instead of a question. “She found somebody else. She didn’t tell me that, but I found out. Some dipshit freshman soccer player guy.” “No, why’d you lie to me.” “Because I was embarrassed. I was hurt. I felt like an ass.” Lipton didn’t say anything for a moment. Another balloon hit the glass. He had so many questions flooding his mind, he hardly knew where to start. “Why didn’t you tell me later?” “Because,” Evan said and stopped. His breathing was heavier, clearly hot beneath the sheets. The room was by no means cold. “Because you almost fucking killed yourself, Lip. I didn’t want to say the wrong thing twice.” “So you and Marnie have just been pretending to like one another all these years in order to keep me from trying to kill myself again. That’s it?” “No,” Evan said. “Fuck. I’m in love with her. I can’t help myself. She let’s me get close enough to think that maybe we’ll get together some time and then she goes out with all these whackjobs and then she freaking tells me about the stuff they do. She’s my

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best friend and my worst friend at the same time. It’s just–“ Evan stopped at the sound of another balloon. Lipton waited for him to continue. When it appeared Evan was done saying all he had to say, Lipton started bouncing again on his bed. He jumped up and down until the entire thing rocked, until Evan’s body was nearly bouncing off of the mattress. He jumped with his hands up to keep his head from crashing into the ceiling and he jumped until his pathetic excuses for calf muscles began to ache. Evan never said a word. Tired, Lipton finally stopped. Lipton climbed back into his own bed and turned off the light. More balloons pounded against the glass, but Lipton, ever the soldier, eventually grew accustomed to the rhythm of the shelling and fell into a deep sleep. * * * The phone rang. Lipton’s eyes darted open and the room was still mostly dark. He closed them again as the phone rang a second time. On the third ring he flung his arm over the nightstand and groped for the telephone, knocking things off and producing a groan from Evan. Finally, he found the phone. “Hello,” he mumbled, thinking briefly that if it was Nora all would be forgiven. “Morning.” The voice was female but he didn’t recognize it. “This is the front desk with your wake up call.” “Oh,” he said with an incredibly thick tongue and could smell his own stale breath. “Thanks.” “You’re welcome.” The voice became a dial tone and Lipton let his arm once again find the base of the phone. He laid there for a moment processing the information of this most recent event. Then, all at once, he came to the conclusion that the beast slumbering in the other bed pretty much deserved to die. “Evan,” Lipton said. When the only response was the sound of heavy breath passing through an open mouth, Lipton spoke again louder. “Evan. Wake up.” “Muhhhh,” Evan emitted.

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“Evan.” Lipton sat up now. He rubbed his incredibly dry eyes. “Why did you request a wake up call? It’s,” he paused to squint at the clock on the nightstand, “God, five seventeen. What possible reason do we need to be up at this hour?” “I didn’t request a wake up call,” Evan said, his body still heaving up and down beneath the sheets. “Well, they just called and said someone did.” “Maybe they had the wrong room.” “So, you’re positive you didn’t–“ “Yes,” Evan said loudly. “Maybe it was the punks with the balloons.” Lipton let his shoulders droop, drained and deflated. He lay back down and put the pillow over his head. The room was quiet again and moments later, Evan was snoring. Acutely aware that he was not going to be able to get back to sleep in this environment, Lipton tossed sheets and pillow to the side and got up. * * * The hotel lobby was drab and unimportant. The front desk was currently occupied by a young woman with big brown hair who looked as if she’d rather be burying a loved one. A grossly patterned sofa and two fading wingback chairs were positioned beside the rack of tourist pamphlets, and a cheap set of cabinets served as the countertop for the hotel’s complimentary breakfast, which was nothing more than a selection of single-serving boxes of cereal, coffee, and juice. Lipton avoided the coffee and sat on the flowered sofa with the early morning newspaper. He had been too tired to work his traditional button-down, and his arms looked skinny and pale in the tight plain undershirt he wore instead. With his nose in the paper, he paid no mind to the group of young men, three total, who stumbled into the lobby bleary eyed and reeking of tobacco. They coughed more than they spoke and had Lipton seen them he would’ve thought it was obvious that they had yet to see a bed (at least for sleeping purposes) that evening. As the three of them walked past the front desk and on down the corridor in the direction of the elevators, a fourth young man straggled in with a similar disposition. Lipton continued reading through the local section, looking for any little clue about B.T.’s hopeful arrest, but was soon distracted by an odd plopping noise. The noise repeated

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consistently and when Lipton finally lifted his head out of the paper he saw the source of it land in the boy’s bronzed hands: a blood red water balloon. Lipton quietly jumped to his feet and trailed after the boy, taking the newspaper with him. At the corner past the front desk, he stopped and lifted the newspaper to his face again. He rounded the corner under the cover of the paper and then slowly lowered it enough to where he could just make out the young man going around the next bend in the hallway. The floor was quiet, the cheap orange carpet cushioning his footsteps despite its relative thinness. Lipton moved faster, his heart picking up steam. He’d had his share of excitement in the past twenty-four hours, but nothing that held such great potential for a completely satisfying form of revenge as knowing the whereabouts of these balloon hurling demons. At the next corner, Lipton pulled the same trick with the newspaper. When he lowered it again, he panicked in realization that the boy had stopped just a few doors down, and quickly hid behind the corner. Projecting just enough of his head around the corner to see what was happening, Lipton watched as the boy gently continued tossing the water balloon in the air just high enough to be caught safely again in his hands. He waited and saw the kid bang on the door for what was likely the second time. Probably lost his key, Lipton thought. A moment passed before the door was opened and then lickety-split the kid was gone. Lipton checked behind him to make sure no one was approaching. With the coast clear, he scurried on the tips of his feet down the hall, took one good look at the door number where the perpetrators had disappeared, and then sprinted down the remaining length of the hallway. At last, Lipton thought, trying not to grin as he ran. Vengeance is ours! * * * Lipton opened the door and turned on the lights, illuminating the sheer disaster that was their hotel room. “Wake up,” he said before he was even inside far enough to make out Evan’s lifeless lump on the bed. “I have excellent news. Wake, wake!” Evan’s legs kicked beneath the sheets making shapes form on top that looked to Lipton like a tunneling race between moles. His great body rolled over and his hand swatted at the free pillow. Lipton walked to the window and threw open the curtain. He stepped out onto the balcony, the air already muggy and dense, and gazed down at the

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room he now knew belonged to the guilty. Their curtains were drawn and no light shone through. Good, Lipton thought. Sleep. Back in the room, Lipton walked in the minute space between the two beds and sat down on his disheveled own. “Evan, honestly, this is worth the effort,” he said and watched Evan turn his head away from him. More leg kicking and rolling. “I know where they live.” “Who?” Evan muttered. “The balloon creeps!” Lipton said and stood up again, pacing now. “I saw them in the lobby and secretly followed them to their room.” “Oh yeah?” “Yes. Now, wake up.” Lipton tugged at the sheets from the foot of Evan’s bed. “We have to hit them while they’re sleeping.” He gave a harder yank and the sheets fell bellow Evan’s thighs. Evan didn’t move, didn’t protest. “What are we going to do?” “I don’t know. That’s why we have to think and prepare.” Lipton dropped the sheets into a pile on the floor and moved to turn on the television. “Plus, we need to pack. We should check out today. We’ve been here long enough. We’ll hit the balloon creeps and then split for another place.” “Okay,” Evan said, his jaw not really working properly as it was planted firmly against the mattress. “So, what should we do?” Lipton, disinterested in the television and the little it had to offer, left it on an old black and white movie and turned the volume all the way down. “I don’t know.” Evan’s eyes were still closed. “Let me think.” “And you can think with your eyes closed?” “Yes. I do my best thinking with my eyes closed.” “Oh, of course,” Lipton said and sat down on his own bed. He propped the pillows against the headboard and focused on the movie. “Well, we can very easily arrange a wake up call for them in a few hours.”

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“Yeah,” Evan said and made a slurping sound, apparently battling with drool. “But we can’t just do that. It has to be something bigger.” “So, tell me.” “Well, I’m trying to think.” “I thought you would be an old pro at this sort of stuff.” “That’s your assumption.” “You did string toilet paper through our trees when we were–“ “That wasn’t me,” Evan said matter-of-factly. “Well, who else could it have been?” Lipton looked at Evan shocked by this announcement. “Lip,” Evan sighed. “Don’t take this the wrong way but there were quite a few people at Hibriten who didn’t really like you a whole lot.” “So you know who it was then.” “I didn’t say that.” “Well, you certainly implied it.” “Look,” Evan said and finally opened his eyes long enough to find the one remaining sheet at the foot of the bed and drape it back over his body. “We need to think about the balloon guys.” “I’m thinking, I’m thinking,” Lipton said dramatically, though his attention was clearly on the television. It wasn’t long before he felt his own eyes begin to sag. * * * Hours passed. The sun crept high in the South Carolina sky and poured through the dirty glass balcony door drenching the room in warmth. Lipton slept soundly with his head at an uncomfortable looking angle against the headboard. Evan was flat on his stomach, arms and legs spread out making an elongated X. The television was on, the lights were on, the room was dead with electricity. A knock at the door. “Housekeeping.” Lipton jerked awake. The clock showed eleven. At the door, Lipton sent the housekeeper away and fumbled back through the room. He turned the television off and without putting much effort into it, told Evan to wake up. He walked to the balcony door, the curtain still open and the light all but

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blinding him. Lipton slid the door to the left, the air bombarding him as soon as it had a crevice to enter. Just as he was about to step out onto the balcony, he instinctively paused. A water balloon smashed against the glass just beside him. Laughter followed. Lipton slid the door all the way open, as the red fragments of the balloon fell from the glass onto the balcony. “I know where you live!” he shouted and leaned over the balcony pointing at the room below, where a young man ducked behind a curtain. “Room one twenty-four! Yes! One twenty-four! I know where–“ Suddenly, Lipton stepped inside just as a barrage of balloons sailed through the open door and shattered against Evan’s bed and, in one case, against his back. Lipton watched with his back against the balcony wall, as Evan jerked alive in anger. More balloons flew in and one burst against Evan’s shoulder just as he sat up. Alarmed more by the look on Evan’s face than the prospect of the balloon assault, Lipton jumped into action and reached for the balcony door. “No!” Evan shouted, stopping him. “Leave it.” Lipton ducked out of the way and stared with an open mouth as Evan limped out of bed and onto the balcony. He dodged one balloon and smacked another out of his way with an open hand. Lipton watched Evan’s vertebrae show beneath the skin as he leaned over the balcony. “Throw one more!” Evan yelled, challenging the ballooners. They obliged. A balloon smacked against Evan’s bare chest. Lipton stayed behind the safety of the wall thinking the nice thing to do would be to get Evan a clean towel, but he was incapable of moving. The scene in front of him too closely resembled a brush with massive wildlife and he knew better than to turn his back. Evan limped into the room and his head swiveled in an obvious search for something to grab. The closest thing of any significance to him was a tubular brass halogen lamp, and he grabbed it the way superheroes bend prison bars and yanked the cord from the outlet. He limped back onto the balcony and positioning the lamp in his hand like a javelin, yelled “Fuckers,” and sent it flying through the air. Lipton heard glass break, loud obscenities, and the clangy bounce of metal on cement. Evan limped back inside and slid the glass door closed. He was breathing heavily and his chest was wet with some foul liquid. He marched straight into the bathroom and shut the door. Lipton rolled his eyes and began to pack.

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* * * Lipton drove the blue sedan north toward another city and another hotel. Evan was quiet in the passenger seat; whether he was embarrassed by his lamp wielding actions or still mad that he’d been woken up by urine bombs, Lipton didn’t know and didn’t intend to ask. Evan had checked the cell phone once they were moving, and as Lipton suspected there’d been no new messages over night. The prospect of spending more days hiding was taxing, just as the prospect of discussing the likelihood that the hotel, the ballooners, or both, would press charges was taxing. Their energy had to be directed in the right channels, Lipton knew. Yet, everything was a distraction. How long could one go without responding to their environment when their environment was Myrtle Beach? The only real surprise to Lipton was that it had been Evan who had succumbed to the temptation and not him. In many ways, he found he had an entirely new level of respect for Evan. Soon, they were through North Myrtle and crossed the state line into North Carolina. Lipton pulled the car into the lot of a dingy looking one story motel in the small town of Calabash, a decidedly non-Myrtle town with only a few seafood houses drawing any sort of steady visitors. He looked at Evan, slouching in the passenger seat, for approval and Evan only shrugged. Lipton got out and checked; no vacancy. He wasn’t entirely disappointed by this result, based on the dying exterior of the place, but had a harder time imagining why that many people were inclined to stay at such a place all at once. Maybe there were entire sects of people on the run from the law and found the coast a sort of modern day pirate’s safe haven. Or perhaps people just really liked fresh seafood. They drove onward to the larger town of Sunset Beach some five miles away, with its genuine pier and family atmosphere promising to be more accommodating. Evan, though, was still a quiet slouch. At the next only slightly better looking motel, Lipton again turned to him and was greeted with the same apathetic shrug. Ridiculous, he thought. Here he was trying to save them from jail and the main offender could care less. “You know,” Lipton said and let his hands fall from the steering wheel. “If there’s some other way you want to do this then I don’t understand why you won’t just

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say so instead of sitting there pouting. You suggested Myrtle Beach, and I said okay because I thought we could blend in with the crowd. Well, now that you’ve thrown a lamp at the crowd, I’m suggesting we go north. You could at least show me the same courtesy I’ve shown you, you know.” “It’s not that,” Evan said sitting up slightly. “Then what?” Evan twisted his head at an angle and a funny little crease appeared momentarily at his mouth. “It’s Marnie,” he mumbled at last. “Give me your phone,” Lipton said and held out his hand. Evan turned away. “I can’t.” “That’s exactly why I’m going to do it for you. Now hand it over.” “No, I mean I can’t keep calling her. I can’t keep thinking about her.” “Fat chance,” Lipton said turning to the backseat where Evan’s backpack rest in the floorboard. “Is it in here?” He began to dig through the front pocket. “Lip,” Evan said and wrapped one of his meaty hands around Lipton’s bony wrists. Lipton struggled only briefly, but it didn’t take much for Evan to command his attention. He looked Lipton in the eyes. “I’m not going back.” “We have to go back!” “I didn’t say we, Lip.” Lipton’s brows bent down. His mouth hung open and he seemed to consider deeply what he was going to say before he said. He pulled his wrist from Evan’s hand. “Then what am I doing here?” “You’re helping me,” Evan said. “Well, yes, I’m trying, but if we don’t get a–“ “Go home, Lip.” Lipton looked at Evan as if he were joking, though there were no signs of laughter on Evan’s face. Finally convinced that this was not some new form of teasing, he said, “I would love to go home Evan, but unfortunately it’s not that easy.” “Sure it is.” “Are you high? Do you know what you’re saying?”

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“If the police come after you, just tell them it was all me. I’m the drug boss. I forced you to do everything, but you never sold or did any drugs. That part’s true anyway, right?” “Yes, but–“ “They don’t have any evidence on you. Just a testimony that won’t hold up. If they find me, I’ll tell them the same story as you.” Evan unbuckled his seat belt and opened his door. “Wait! What are you doing?” Lipton asked, the hot air pouring in from the open door and colliding with the car’s air conditioning. “I’m leaving,” Evan said and shut the passenger door. Lipton watched as he then opened the rear passenger door and stuck his body in. “I’ll catch a ride back down to Myrtle and start looking for a place.” “Are you certifiably insane?” Lipton could feel sweat now at his armpits. “They’ll catch you! What if they come after you for the lamp and you turn into a weird zombie again like you did in the pizza joint?” “That was a mistake,” Evan said and lifted his pack from the floorboard. The only thing left were the crutches. “It won’t happen again.” He shut the door. Amazed and confused, Lipton threw open his door and tried to get out without undoing his seat belt. On his second try, he stood and talked over the roof of his car. “What about your mother?” “I’ll call her when I’m settled.” Evan threw the bag over his shoulder and began limping through the parking lot towards the road. “Look, thanks for everything, Lip. I wish you’d stay, but I know Myrtle’s not your place. You should be with Nora.” Dissatisfied with talking, Lipton jumped back in his car and started the engine. He backed out of his space and quickly pulled alongside limping Evan. “Come on, get back in the car,” he said, window down. “I can’t do that, Cujo.” Evan limped forward, the sun already sending sweat across his brow. “Just go on home.” “I am going home,” Lipton said. “Lip, I’m not going back to Lenoir,” Evan said and stared hard at Lipton through the interior of the car.

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“I know, I know! Jesus!” Lipton shook his head and threw up his hands in frustration. Finally, he calmed a bit. “Just let me take you back to Myrtle. You can’t hitchhike these days, don’t you know that? You can get killed or raped, or both at the same time. It’s not safe. If your body ends up floating in the ocean, I’m sure somehow I would be convicted. So,” he paused to catch his breath. It was so hot outside, he wasn’t sure it was worth it. “Will you just get in?” Evan hesitated, the open road before him and his one wounded leg, and then opened the door. * * * Myrtle Beach was alive again with the pulse of a blisteringly beautiful summer day. Lipton parked in a public garage to the tune of a dollar twenty-five an hour, and Evan insisted on buying him lunch before they separated. They walked passed the jewelry stores and the places selling sand art, the ice cream vendor with her cart and umbrella, and the guy selling dark rugs with Leopards or Cheetahs (Lip could never tell the two apart) woven onto them. They walked to the beachfront and found a place that sold hot dogs from a window, a tiny shop that was more like the back closet of a larger shop, and instead of having a dining area they offered their customers convenience. Lipton ordered two dogs with mustard and ketchup, while Evan got two footlongs with everything. They found a bench underneath a tree that was too tall to offer any shade and sat down facing the ocean. It was low tide and the water seemed distant, calm. “I think this might be the best date I’ve ever had in my life,” Evan said and Lipton laughed with his mouth full, careful not to choke. He had already been thinking about how many people bought hot dogs and went swimming without allowing the proper downtime to avoid cramping, and was keenly aware of how tragically ironic it would be if he were to then choke on a piece of processed pig parts. He swallowed. “So you and Marnie never did anything like this during that week you were an item?” Evan punched him in the shoulder. “Oww! What was that for?” “I’m trying to forget her.” Lipton punched him back, though it had less of an effect. “Yeah, well, I’ve been doing that for seven years, I think I’ve earned the right to joke about it.” Evan nodded,

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didn’t say anything. He seemed disinterested in his food, or just more interested in the ocean than eating. “So, what are you going to do here?” Lipton asked. “What kind of job do you want?” “I don’t know exactly,” Evan said, still staring out to sea. “What do you want to do?” “I want to be a professor. I’ve told you that, surely.” Evan nodded slowly. “How come though?” “I want to be able to do research on the modern south,” Lipton said, as if he’d said it a million times before. “I thought a professor was supposed to teach?” “Ehh. Only every now and then,” Lipton said, crossing one leg over the other. His food was gone and he sucked the last bit of drink from his straw. Lipton thought that if there was beauty in Myrtle Beach, then they were at the exact source of it. With his back to the city, the noise, the crowds, and the hermit crabs, Lipton realized maybe it wasn’t such a bad place. “I think I might try to get a job on a boat,” Evan said. With the distance in between where they sat on the bench and how fixated their eyes were on the ocean, a passerby might have confused them as lunatic strangers talking to themselves. “Maybe something that does charter tours or small scale fishing trips. Something like that. I don’t want to bust my ass. I don’t really see the point in it.” Lipton nodded. “I think you’d be good on a boat.” “Oh yeah?” Evan finally turned and looked at Lipton. “Why do you say that?” “I don’t know.” Lipton squinted at the sun reflecting off the water. A child was trying to ride a boogie board on a non-existent wave. “Probably because I think I would be the absolute worst person in the world to work on a boat.” “You don’t like the water?” “I like it from here.” “You know,” Evan said and gathered up the napkins, bag, and cup from his lunch. “I don’t mean this in a bad way, but sometimes I wonder how we ever became friends.”

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Lipton laughed through his nose. “That’s why the past is always so interesting.” He took another look at the ocean. It was big. It was blue. It wasn’t going anywhere. “Because the past very rarely makes any sense whatsoever.” They walked back to the mouth of the parking garage, the static notion that they would likely never see each other again palpable in the air between them like the scent of an orange. They said small things, made comments about this and that person who walked past them, discussed the health status of Evan’s bum leg, marveled at the popular appeal of salt water taffy. Inside the garage the temperature was slightly cooler from the shade of the floors above them and a very gentle breeze that passed in and out of the concrete slabs. They rode the elevator to the third floor and tried to remember the last time they had heard actual elevator music on an elevator. It seemed to be a growing relic, Lipton thought. Evan limped out of the elevator and Lipton decided to give it a try, performing a spot-on mimicry just behind him. Evan laughed and exaggerated his walk, and Lipton quickly adjusted to keep the look mirrored. There was a break in the row of spaces for the traffic to flow in and out of the garage, and when Evan and Lipton turned left at this opening they were greeted with the sight of two policemen in blue uniforms, bicycles at their side, standing right behind Lipton’s car. Upon closer glance they realized it was the exact same cops from the pizzeria the day before. “Shit,” Evan whispered and immediately turned around. Unfortunately, his leg didn’t move as quick as the rest of him and the bottom of his shoe scuffed loudly against the cement. The cops turned around. “Hey you!” one of them yelled. “Run, Cujo,” Evan said quietly, standing still now with his back to the cops. “Run, man!” “Sir, is this your vehicle?” the cop spoke again, walking toward them now. Lipton stared at the cop, too scared to say anything. “What are you waiting for!” Evan said louder. “Go!” “Excuse me, sir? You want to answer my question?” The cop was ten feet away. “Yes, sir,” Evan spoke up, loudly now and turned to face the cop, giving Lipton one final glaring look as he did so. “That’s my car. Is there a problem?”

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“Were you registered at the Seahorse Motel last night?” Lipton’s eye twitched instinctively. The cop stopped walking. “Why don’t you come on over here, sir. Both of you.” “Uhh, yeah,” Evan said and limped forward toward the car, the cops, and their bike. He looked back at Lipton, his eyes telling him to stay put and wait. There would be a signal. There had to be a signal, Lipton thought. “I think that was the name of the place.” “Right,” the shorter cop said. “You think.” “Know anything about a lamp that got thrown out of a window and into somebody else’s door?” The tall cop had a notebook in his hand, but he paid it no mind. Evan was at the car now. Lipton held back, held off the weird looks the cops were giving him intermittently, though they remained predominantly focused on Evan, the one who’d lied and said the sedan belonged to him. “That was an accident,” Evan said. He turned and looked at Lipton. The signal? Lipton took one small step backward and the short cop was all over him. “Hey! My partner asked you to both come over here, so why don’t you go ahead and do that, son.” Lipton quickly nodded, came forward and joined them. “What’s your name?” “Uhh, Lipton Greely,” he said, his voice unable to hide his nerves. “Lipton?” the tall cop asked. “Like the tea?” Lipton nodded. “Huh.” The short cop laughed. Lipton turned his head. “He had nothing to do with this,” Evan said. “Excuse me? Did I ask you to talk?” The tall cop clearly enjoyed his job, Lipton thought. “The hotel room is in both of your names, you split the bill, and used two credit cards. If you want to take sole responsibility then you can settle that with the hotel. Until then, you’re both in deep shit, buddy.” “But that’s retarded.” “Hey!” The tall cop put his face as close to Evan’s as he could get it without kissing him the way Lipton had always heard Eskimos kiss. “I don’t like that word. I have a cousin who is mentally handicapped and she doesn’t like that word. My partner doesn’t like that word and God doesn’t like that word. You say it one more time and I promise you we will have a problem.” The cop slowly backed away and Evan let his

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head hang low. Lipton watched, conflicted, feeling guilty that Evan was going to such lengths to protect him and thinking that the cop had a good point. He didn’t like that word either, due largely to the number of times he’d had it said in his direction during his lifetime. Nonetheless, his allegiance was to Evan and he didn’t see much at the moment he could do to help. The tall cop turned to his notebook again, while the short one kept his eyes firmly planted on Evan. Lipton took a second to look over the two cops and realized, very crucially, that they didn’t have guns on their belts, no doubt a bit of a safety restriction for riding the bike. He wondered if Evan had noticed this, and if he had, would it change anything? Evan’s head was still down and he looked so defeated that Lipton wanted to scream, fart, or vomit – anything that would change his mood and cause Evan to lift his head and participate. Lipton wanted him to know that there was honor in what he was trying to do. It was crazy, but there was honor. And then suddenly Evan’s lips were alive and his voice came out slow and determined, building into a fully throated echoing yell: “ReetaaarrrrDEDDD!!!” Evan lifted his head and smiled. The tall cop closed his notebook. He turned to Evan and casually placed his hand on Evan’s wrist. He tried pulling Evan’s arm behind his back, but Evan resisted and the tall cop struggled. “Jim,” he said loudly and the short cop joined him in the attempt to get Evan’s hand behind his back, but Evan was stronger than even Lipton imagined. “No, dammit,” the tall cop said to Jim. “Take his knees.” Lipton watched, sweat pouring off of him, barely aware that his small hands were shaking slightly as he watched Jim push his own knees into the back of Evan’s and send him buckling to the ground. As he fell, Evan managed to look over his shoulder, clear in Lipton’s eyes. The signal, he thought. Oh God, the signal! He wasn’t prepared to do what he did, but he did it anyway. * * * Lipton came roaring out of the parking garage perched atop Jim the short cop’s bicycle like Sherman atop his horse ready to torch the town all in the name of one fallen comrade. The air smacked against his face with the force and heat of a hair dryer, as Lipton pulled in front of a minivan and blistered into traffic. He pedaled rapidly, pushing

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the bike in between cars and across lanes until a red light finally forced him to stop at the intersection. A pickup truck filled with teenage boys honked their horn repeatedly at him as he sat at the light, but the noise barely even registered. Lipton looked over his shoulder, impatient with the damn light and all the traffic crossing in front of him, and saw to his horror Jim come dashing from the parking garage on the tall cop’s bike. Lipton could wait no longer and pulled into the walking traffic, yelling excuse me, excuse me as he did so and turned right, pedaling into the lane and nearly into the rear wheel of a fancy looking motorcycle. Another car honked behind Lipton but he kept pedaling, the pant legs of his khakis swooshing against the frame of the bike. He looked behind him. Not only was Jim coming through the intersection, but people were pointing him in Lipton’s direction. Traitors! Lipton’s mind yelled. He turned around and the traffic had come to a sudden stop and he had to dart in between the right and middle lanes to avoid ramming into the motorcycle. The traffic was ridiculous. Car after car filled with newly graduated teenager after teenager, honked their horns as Lipton passed ensuring there was no way he could escape Jim unnoticed. At the light, he cut in front of the stopped cars and headed left onto another street, but cut too close to a parked car and had to hop the bike onto the sidewalk. No sooner had he done this then he finally did run into something: a sandwich board advertising a haunted house for six bucks. Lipton got up quickly, the throng of people mostly stopped and staring at him, and took off running. He turned around and saw Jim make the left in his direction. The cop was too close now, Lipton knew. His legs ached and if he kept running he didn’t stand a chance. He ducked inside the next shop he came to. Inside, the place was like most other shops in Myrtle Beach, a monsoon of junk towels, t-shirts shot glasses, and bathing suits. Lipton stopped running and walked quickly to the rear of the shop. He tried to look inconspicuous, knowing fully well that was rather impossible. Behind a rack of sunglasses, Lipton stopped to catch his breath. After a second, he looked. Jim was inside. Lipton watched in disbelief as an Asian lady at the cash register pointed in his direction and then just like that he and Jim made eye contact.

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Lipton moved again quickly and he could feel all eyes in the store turn and watch what was going on. He didn’t run, not because he couldn’t but because something about it seemed too absurd, and soon he knew that Jim was just a few steps behind him. He passed a row of whoopee cushions and novelty gifts, stuck his hand out and knocked a pair of flip-flops in the floor and then let his arms hang out in front of him as if he were going to embrace someone. He needed something to hold, something to grasp. He didn’t know what, but it mattered. He kept walking and just as Jim’s fingers grazed the back of his button down shirt, Lipton found it. Lipton lifted a small glass aquarium filled with hermit crabs in his arms just as Jim the short cop tackled him. The aquarium fell to the ground and shattered only inches away from where Lipton landed face first with Jim on his back. Someone in the store screamed. The crabs didn’t move, not their style. Sirens were going off somewhere outside the shop, and Lipton managed to twist his head beneath Jim’s arm was face to face with the bright white tail of a surf board. His seahorse galloped mightily across the pale horizon. Office Jim twisted his head back the other way and moved his knees into the back of Lipton’s shoulders. Something inside him gave, a cloud maybe, and suddenly Lipton was overcome with the great desire to release. “Sic Semper Tyrannis!” he screamed. “Sic Semper Tyrannis!” Jim the short cop told him to shut up and Lipton did, not because he was told to, not because he was afraid, but mostly because he was unafraid and he’d said it, he’d really said it. The cop pushed Lipton’s face back into the carpet and before he closed his eyes, Lipton thought he saw the red lipstick leg of one of the hermit crabs wiggle gently out of its shell. It was worth it, he thought. It was worth it.

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