1

The week leading to school was a busy one. It was the last ditch effort of this summer adventure to see the other side of the metal door. To answer the lingering questions behind the surveillance tapes, and, hopefully, behind the dying animals at the farmhouse. But there were steps that had to be taken. And like any plan, for it to fall like dominoes, every piece had to be in the right place. That was just the way of the world. And if there was any truth to some of grampa’s ramblings, it was that the unfairness of time left what you wanted to achieve mired in the dusts of laziness and excuses since most would quip there just isn’t enough of it to do everything.

“There’s only one person we have to convince.”

“Two,” the Jew interjected.

“No,” Adam answered, understanding what Danny was on about. It was the plan. His plan, actually. And he thought it was a good one. He looked through the box on the Jew’s shelf. He leafed through a few cards then sighed.

“I’m not sure what you’re even looking for.”

“Whatever it is, it’s not here. You know we won’t score jack with an ’87 Ripken. A Fleer Boggs. Come on, Danny. Where’s your Seaver, your Mr October? Buddy won’t budge for anything but a rookie. Especially one he’s not showing.”

“Then sell one of yours. Jesus, Adam, if my dad knew what we were on about in here, he’d have a fit.”

“Then he doesn’t have to know.” Adam looked at some of the cards in the plastic sheets. Some were in acrylics. Guidry’s rookie stared out at him and Adam only thought of his homerun. The blast into the forest. The reason they were even standing here.

“He catalogues the things. Checks the price ticker every month and inventories. You know how the guy is.”

“Yeah. I do. He’s a Jew.” Adam only chuckled. It was indifferent. Danny’s room was organized. Nothing like his own. He figured Danny was mature and accountable enough that he made the conscious decision himself to tidy the place. It wasn’t his mother. His father. It was him. He could only respect that sort of gumption. The acrylics were stacked like books along the back of the shelf. He could just see the thin edge of each card refracted through the beveled cases. Danny’s father was sitting on a goldmine, and he respected his boy enough to let him store a few of his extras. It let him understand the value of a dollar. He pulled out a few hard cases.

“Okay. How about this: you guys are Yankee fans. So I doubt your old man would give a shit if we bartered a Met.”

Danny looked at the card in Adam’s hand. A Koosman/Ryan. Nolan Ryan. ’68 Topps. Mint condition. The undisputed strikeout champ whose legacy, as far as his conversations with his father went, would go unchallenged even if he did retire in the next few years. He’d probably finish with north of 5000 k’s. And when that did happen, and it would if the numbers held true, that piece of cardboard would hold a higher intrinsic value than gold. “Screw the Miracle Mets.”

“That’s the spirit,” Adam smiled. He put the acrylic in his pocket.

2

Danny would have known to call it a division of labor, but to Adam the plan had roles. And each role had to be carried out by its respective player. Pug had his purpose. And Croak would have his. But the plan required financing.

The Hobby Shop was on Main. That was its designated title, for in its pursuit to capitalize on the wider endeavors that had turned the Creek into a rural money pot, Buddy the Collector had expanded his operations to include the sort of crafts bored housewives would scoop up when they learned to sew or crochet. He actually leased some of the property next door when the paint shop went belly up a year and a half ago. He took down the wall, had an HVAC guy bring the space up to code, and engendered the store in halves, with the old real estate dressed up in baseball pennants, NFL posters, and cardboard stand-ups of Michael Jordan and Roger Clemens, all staring toward the entrance as if, in the sort of gratifying way that kids all learned to imagine, the life-sized superstars were really there with words of salutation. The remaining half, recently procured, was gussied up in the girly accoutrements of Barbie, Cabbage Patch Kids, and enough fabric to clothe the Creekers indefinitely.

“He’s going to lowball.”

“No shit,” Adam said. It was a warm day. It would turn into a hot afternoon. He wanted nothing more than to grab his mitt and head back to Fenway, but knew now was not the time. He figured they’d each be watched pretty intently. And if it wasn’t his father and the sheriff patrolling, it would be grampa.

“So we have to devise some sort of tactic here. We can’t just lay it out on the table.”

“I know, I know.” The high schoolers were playing football in the field. Pre-season training and scrimmaging. Adam couldn’t wait to be a part of it. He could hear their grunts and calls in unison, figuring this time next week he wouldn’t be strolling the sidewalk but sitting in class meeting new people and hopefully flirting with some lookers. Like the ginger-haired Stephanie. The prospect scared Pug to death; he knew that. They all knew that. In a week things could drastically change. So he kept his yapper shut about what he presumed that new life would be like, because he knew bragging of his potential at the new school would be like saying goodbye to the fatso and the Jew. There were pretty girls in the stands watching the guys. It was like every movie he’d ever seen. Every movie where the jock just wears a letterman jacket and the girls flock as if by its very virtue the garment was transcribed the athletic representation of a high-dollar contract. “Bud’s got an eye for old shit. Do you have a number in mind?”

The Jew nodded. He didn’t think twice.

“Is it realistic? You know you won’t get book value.”

“We’ll see.”

The Hobby Shop was brick. Something about the finish intrigued Adam. Maybe the industrial veneer hid what the boys considered a form of magic within, as if the place was built to contain and produce cardboard stock with stats printed. It was the Jew’s favorite place in the Creek. Besides Fenway, though in his mind he would still refer to the clearing as the House that Ruth Built. The windows were plastered with vinyl, most screaming of INSANE DEALS or ½ OFF as if the street gawker would ever have an understanding of Beckett’s market value for most of the cards Buddy had on his 10 mm glass shelves behind the counter.

The bell dinged when they opened the door. It was the smell. It hit you first. The boys loved it. It was the smell of a freshly opened pack of Topps; the stale gum whose sugared dust always spackled the top card. There were comic books along the front racks. Pug usually sifted through them, but the other boys would skip right on past. Sports were better. Sports were real. Attainable. Adam understood Pug had the sort of imagination that would require of him a taste of the “out there”. The supernatural and abnormal. But he could speak for himself and Danny when it came to what truly interested them about this place. At the back of the store there was a counter with glass paned aprons at the front, lit within by task lights, and a Formica top whose edges had started peeling. Nobody really noticed these imperfections though. The illusion was misdirection. That’s why the Jew’s dad came to this place. There were no age limits. Sports had that draw.

The counter’s windows were just a peek: Buddy had the place organized by sport, partitioning each aisle beneath the cash register. Gordie Howe. Wayne Gretzky. Bobby Orr. And then Bill Russell’s rookie card was in the next section, displayed by a genuine basketball with his autograph. Nothing personalized. Buddy understood the moment memorabilia pinpointed its recipient was the moment it lost all value beyond the sentimentality attached to its connection. The baseball section was the boys’ favorite. Croak could argue all he wanted about the rarity of hockey cards in the mid-west, but baseball held the history. Buddy had a few, what he called, pre-WWI cards. Tris Speaker from 1911. A 1915 Cracker Jack Ty Cobb with a price tag of $15 grand. Adam was looking at cards that pre-dated his grampa. And then there were the Goudey Ruths. Babe in all of his glory, staring out at them, unblinking, but expressing interest in them as they window shopped, mouths agape, hearing the crack of the bat before 714 dingers cleared the fence. The Jew wondered if this place, this shop, was only an excuse for Buddy the Collector to brag. He didn’t think many people could wander in off the street with ten thousand dollars on hand, willing to cough over the average salary to stroll off bearing Ruth’s namesake on thin stock. Plus, the guy was a prick.

“Here to gawk, are ya?”

He was gruff. To Adam he looked like he’d just walked off a work site, hanging his hard hat to leave his balding head in full view beneath long strands of hair pulled back into a ponytail. He was what girls would call skeezy. The type who would catcall openly but never find the guts to approach the finer sex with a word of compliment if it meant genuine eye contact. But he was the Creek’s Collector; the guy who’d venture off to weekend yard and barn sales where people like grampa Lewis were looking to sell up their junk before some ungodly estate tax left the bereaved Funeral-Poor. There were always hidden treasures, and Buddy was one who had the knack for finding them; he’d harass old ladies with lies that whatever antiques they were hawking were either knock offs or a dime a dozen, and most of the time folks took his brazenness as a form of candor.

“You leave your nose prints, I’m makin’ ya Windex the cases.” The guy leaned over the counter and the entire thing groaned. Adam wasn’t sure he’d trust a man with hands like his, over-sized and obnoxiously swollen, to handle something so delicate that minor fuzz on the corners could make or break the sale. He touched the heft in his pocket, thought of removing the card, then shook his head. They’d have to bait the catch, so to speak. “Daniel,” Buddy nodded his head, showing at least the cadence of mutual respect. “Your pops came through here the other day. Expressing interest in that ’38 Dimaggio. I’ve heard through the grapevine the guy’s holding onto a stack of Mantles. You tell him for me again just what I told him: I’ll give him the Goudey for a 52 Topps.”

Danny laughed, though it was more of a guffaw. “Little one sided, Buddy.”

“That’s your opinion. But if value were age, I’d be trading down by fourteen years. That’s older than you are.”

“I know math.”

“Well, you should. You’re a Jew, ain’ ya?” The man laughed and then wiped his nose with the back of his hand. Adam didn’t notice a wedding ring. The poor guy was most likely single; he’d probably claim his work was his wife, but that just seemed like something an ugly person would say. “So, what have you then? If you’re not gonna play messenger, what? Are you here to waste my time?”

Adam pulled out the acrylic and balanced it in his palm. “You in a buying mood, Buddy?”

The fat guy glared down at Adam. He was wearing a T-shirt that was already showing yellow rings beneath the arms. The place was cool, and would remain so. Buddy sprang for an air conditioner when he expanded, and he hadn’t looked back ever since. “Jesus, little guy, if the price is right, I’m always on the take. You should know that.”

“Well...I...we noticed you’re lacking the mound here. No pitchers. You’ve got a bunch of sluggers out. A little imbalanced.”

“What, you looking to sell a Doc Gooden, that it? You think I’d scrounge for enough change to make that deal, do ya? Quit wasting my time, Adam.”

“I’m not wasting anything.”

“Then what is this? I run a business, boys. I don’ mind you two coming in and looking at the oldies. I’d do the same if I didn’t own them. But if you’re here to haggle some bullshit for a Canseco, you can kindly bugger off.”

Adam set the Jew’s card on the counter. He always wondered how Danny’s old man could have kept these cards in such great shape. Before collecting became the sort of hobby that would have boys following market value and understanding scarcity relative to condition, the bulk of his collection wound up in the spokes of his BMX. He saw the man’s eyes light up for a moment, but he was able to dull the pilots and bring down his mood before he sold any sort of bluff.

“Where in the hell did you pull a Ryan from?”

“It’s mine,” Danny said.

“Suspected so. Your old man give you this? He know you’re here looking for a pay out?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“So no. What makes you think I won’t just get on the horn now and call the guy, tell him what you’re up to? Cause I can only guess he wouldn’t appreciate this too much. If that is yours and not something you snatched up from him when he wasn’t looking.”

“You do what you want. But you know once you pick up that phone, we’re outta here with the Ryan. And I don’t think we’ve ever seen one of these in your shop. And if we have, it was never as sharp as this one.” Adam tapped his fingers on the hard case.

“So you think you have me licked?”

“I think it will be hard to find a pack of 68’s.”

Buddy smiled. “I like you. Both of you.”

“That’s what I thought.”

Buddy laughed now. “Ok. You looking for a trade? That it?”

“Cash.”

“That right?” He drummed his meaty fingers on the Formica. His knuckles were abnormally hairy. It was as if the hair on his head migrated. An unfortunate truism of age, Adam supposed. “You in trouble with the mob or something? What would two boys need with that much cash?”

“That much? What number’s on your mind?” Danny asked.

He gauged both boys. He didn’t get where he was, didn’t get what he had, by rolling over. No way. “I know you’ll both spout Beckett numbers at me. But this is the real world, and that mag is just speculative; it wouldn’t assume two kids had a Nolan Ryan in Podunkville, so it reacts to a presumed scarcity that doesn’t exist. Not when you got your father hoarding the mother lode.”

“That’s not a number,” Adam said.

“No, no it’s not.” He spun the card around so that he was looking down on a young Nolan Ryan. Strikeout king. “Far as I’m concerned, I’m paying for the card, but you’re paying for my silence. Look. I’ll fork over fifty bucks for the card. And I keep mum. Not a word of it to your dad. He sees it in the case, I didn’t get it from you. So that’s like a hundred-dollar deal.”

“That’s robbery.”

“Then you can leave and we’re done with it. Is that how you wanna play this game?”

Danny looked at Adam and then at the card. He quickly swiped it off the counter and turned to leave. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess it is.”

3

“A hundred bucks! Geez.” Pug looked at the bills. Five twenties, folded nicely in the center as if perfectly extracted from a clip.

“We’ve got a hard negotiator on our hands,” Adam said, patting Danny’s shoulder. They were back at the bleachers behind the diamond. The football scrimmagers were gone and the field was empty. This place would have to do for now only because it was obvious here that they weren’t at Fenway. Just in case Sheriff Andy strolled by. Plus, the cameras on the light poles would testify to their location if the Grand Watcher was keeping tabs. “And you?”

Pug looked at Croak, still holding the bills, swishing them with his thumbs as if it would be the last time he’d ever handle so much lucre. “Well, we played gumshoe. Like you asked.”

“Did you catch them?”

“Well, we followed them,” Croak said. His legs were splayed out on the seat in front of him, tanned and boney, both propped on the bleacher.

“Did you get the pictures or not?” His tone turned brash; hell, Adam had done his part, and if these two couldn’t do a simple task he wasn’t sure just how they’d close this cold case regarding Wilson’s tapes.

Pug handed the money back to Danny. “They didn’t lay out today. Kind of cloudy.”

“The hell it was.”

“Well, my mom stuck around home.”

“So, we’ve got nothing?”

“Not exactly,” Croak said when he noticed Pug wasn’t going to say anything. He nudged the Mormon and Pug carefully reached into his pocket. “We couldn’t get too close. You know how loud the camera is. Ange started her shift at lunch, so she and Wendy met up with some guy before. We stuck as close as we could, but Pug had to bring Chels.”

“She’s been acting off since she was sick. I figured she just needs fresh air,” Pug interjected, checking on the spaniel below as she paced back and forth on her tether beside the dugout. He was holding a few Polaroids. The edges were crumpled from being jammed into his jeans. How they fit in denim already stretched to its capacity over the guy’s meaty thighs left the other boys speechless. He handed them to Adam.

“What is this?”

“I told you. We couldn’t wander too close.” Croak crossed his arms, as if in defiance. The gesture was defensive.

The snapshots weren’t focused enough to pinpoint a true culprit. He could see two girls. Both with dark hair splayed over their shoulders, but from the distance could have been the result of shadowing from the canopies above. There were pines looming over them like slatted bars. The next couple of photos were closer, and he did recognize Angela. He could only because she swivelled toward them when Pug or Croak took the picture. There was something hanging from her lip, leaving a trail of smoke to sift into the strands of sunlight that diffused into nimbuses around her face. There was a guy wearing an Indians cap with them. Leaning against a tree.

“I saw him at BB’s the other day when I checked the place for cameras,” Pug pointed out. “He’s into my sister.”

“Who isn’t?” Danny was staring over Adam’s shoulder at the photos.

“We followed them from Main,” Croak said. “The dude in the cap was talking to somebody in a van. Just out in the open by the Depot. Guy was sitting there, idling, blaring AC/DC. Pug and I pretended we were chatting, cause Ange and Wendy went to the van as well. They waited back while the loser was talking, and then he handed the guy in the van some money. At least we thought it was money. Then the guy in the hat was holding a bag and he quickly tucked it into his waist. He was wearing a long T-shirt. So he could cover it.”

Adam already noticed that. In each picture he was leaning casually against a pine, just looking at the girls, that white T untucked and dangling over blue jeans. “Who was in the van?”

“You want to hear the fucked up part?” Croak’s voice wavered. It was the first time it broke.

“I don’t want to use them,” Pug interrupted.

“We already talked about this,” Croak said, turning to look at Horace. The guy was dour, slouched as if the impending news had tilted him. It probably had.

“We agreed up front I would take pics of them out in the front lawn in their bikinis. What we caught them doing...it’s just. Shit, guys, I didn’t expect this.” Pug swore. And that only meant his earnestness was a result of his discovering something he didn’t want to know. Something he didn’t want to believe. Adam knew the plan because he’d spit-balled it the last time they were up in these bleachers. He knew Pug’s sisters dollied up in two-pieces, dragging out the loungers to the front yard for a bit of sun and peepers, and he knew his Mormon parents would have disapproved because the two girls only made an appearance when the both of them were gone. The photos would have been the right sort of currency to blackmail Angela.

“Look, guys, after what we’ve all found in our homes—well, except for you, Adam—Pug’s just. Shit, he’s just surprised.”

"They were doing drugs. Okay. That’s what we caught them doing. Croak took the pics cause I didn’t want to watch. They’re just like Wilson, and that just...it pisses me off.” He blurted it out as if accusing Adam of the wrongdoing. Pug only bit his lower lip. His cheeks were flushed. For a moment Adam thought the Mormon would cry. That he’d found his breaking point the same way he thought he’d found Danny’s the other day when he realized somebody was watching his parents behind closed doors. Finding the cameras littered all over the place revealed the sort of momentum that would throw caution to the wind. Secrets were running unwarranted in the Creek, and this was just another one they would not have known about had they just stuck to Fenway and left the homerun ball to the wild. A part of Adam wished they had done just that.

“Guy in the van was Lazarus,” Croak said as an afterthought. “We didn’t stay way back because of Pug’s sisters seeing us. Well, not only that. Nah, like parked three cars down was a Tercel. Blue one. Your gramps was following Lazarus.”

“What?”

Croak nodded. “We kicked back until the van left and Pug’s sisters went off toward the woods. Grampa followed the van.”

“Jesus. So he tells us to stay away from the guy just so he can follow him?”

“Maybe it’s not like that...maybe it was a coincidence,” Adam said, turning to look at the Jew. But could he really believe that? Could he? After everything? He couldn’t absolve his grampa of any crimes without proof when he was asking Pug to reveal of his sisters the sort of misdemeanor that would provoke them...no, that would force them to agree to their terms.

“Come on, Adam. You pulled him into this. This is on you.” Danny sat back and spread apart his arms on the bleacher seat behind him.

Adam was silent for a moment. Everything blurred around him. The machinations of the mind could be awkward and dizzying. Danny was right. He had brought grampa into the fold. But this all seemed like too much for them. Or maybe he needed their own suspicions affirmed by somebody wiser. An adult. He wasn’t entirely sure.

“If he’s following Lazarus, how are we going to get this plan of yours to work?” Croak asked, trying to break the tension.

Adam exhaled. “We need to know if Angela will do it,” he finally said. He looked at Pug. He wasn’t going to force anything of him. Not now. “But that’s up to you Pug. If you want to use these pictures, you can. They will work. But we won’t make you. If you want to catch them sun-bathing, that’s cool. That was the deal.” He looked at the photos once more. At first he thought Ange was just clenching a cigarette between her lips. But the truth was even more damning. It was pot. What his grampa called the Hippie Smoke. And she’d know it the moment Pug flashed the image, and she’d try to focus that guilt by turning the tables on him. But that wouldn’t work and then she’d settle on a deal. And Pug would have the deal for her.

“You mean that?” There was a certain sincerity to Pug’s tone that turned the initial accusatory bluntness to gratitude.

Adam didn’t have to think about it. “I do.”

Pug sighed. “Give me the pics.” Adam handed them back without a word. “Considering what we want Ange to do, we’ll need harder evidence than a friggin’ two-piece.” He chuckled and Croak clapped him on the back with an adda boy.

“You’ve got balls,” Adam said. “So the timeline sticks then. If she agrees...when she agrees, you tell Croak. How much you think he’ll want?”

Croak looked at the wad of bills still in Pug’s hand. “If he knew a hundred was up for grabs, all of it.”

“Then don’t tell him there’s a hundred,” Danny said, as if the approach was that obvious. “Give him forty. He’s not worth my Nolan Ryan.”

“He’s not worth a Jerry Koosman,” Adam added. “Ok. Give Croak forty.”

“And then what? Your gramps is already tailing our prize.”

Adam looked at the Jew, who swept his fro up off his forehead. There was still tension. Adam didn’t think that would go away. Not when Danny was dead set against bringing any adults into play. Adam was starting to understand why, but he couldn’t make assumptions. “I’ll talk to him.”

“Shit, we gotta go,” Croak said.

The boys looked up. A group of teens was coming down the field from Main to smoke under the bleachers. Their time was up here.

4

Pug had to find the guts. That’s what it all amounted to. He couldn’t look at the prospect as one with the reliance of his much cooler friends weighing him down, but as the lynchpin holding together the entirety of this plan. That without him this couldn’t work. He’d been in his room since dinner. Ange had worked her shift, and though he didn’t know what to look for, a part of him suspected the drugs were still coursing through her body. That her flightiness wasn’t just exhaustion. Wendy was the same. The two would laugh at the stupidest things. And his parents would laugh as well. None the wiser.

And none of you know a thing about the cameras in this house. That mom and dad are being watched by the same people who watched Wilson snort coke or drive into an electrical pole. Pug looked at the notebook on his desk. He’d been writing his story. That’s where his brain always went. It was the dull, almost vacuous nature when his eyes glazed and the actual machinations of his imagination churned into gear. It was the sort of survival mechanism of a boy bored at church. Of a boy sitting in the wooden pew, flicking through the hymn book to find words he’d have to later define in Webster’s, ignoring to high heaven the council’s message that week, or the boring old song sung out of chorus by a choir whose lead weighed the better part of three hundred pounds; it was the place the mind wandered to when inspiration was nowhere to be seen. He supposed that was how the writer even conceived of his purpose. Not from the world around, but from the world within. The world outside laid the groundwork, certainly, but then the what ifs took over. Even if he looked at those cameras, all of them, as some sort of curse, as the perverse, even invasive encroachment of a barbarous cult of sexually frustrated loons, he couldn’t help but wonder what their driving cause might be. Because he knew what his goal would be if he had access to secrets from the adult world.

And the answer sort of frightened him.

You’d blackmail them. You’d show them what you know. Show them proof. And demand something in return. Money. Favors. Anything. Because this sort of power is all about the selfish intentions of gain. And if that adult, if that person were to say no to you? Were to look at your damning evidence and still shake his or her head? Would you release it as punishment?

That’s where he stopped. He read over what he’d written, his penmanship pressed so deeply into the page that it had left impressions in the rest of the book, like a palimpsest of future chapters. He figured it was apropos the content should linger where he’d left it; his motivations now were no different than his story. He looked at the Polaroids. They were sitting next to the notebook. He didn’t see his sisters smoking up. Croak filled him in. But he’d been in the woods. He’d heard the snap of the camera. And each click was another damning indictment. Not just against them, but against him and his family. Because he knew he wasn’t the only one now with proof of their transgressions. There were enough cameras in the Creek to prove whoever was holding Lazarus’s leash had enough video of these girls shirking the law that his own family’s reputation was at stake.

So you have to get there first. You have to show Ange and Wendy what you know. Maybe the trade off is they’ll both quit. Especially when Angela learns what her penance might mean.

“What do ya think, girl?”

Chels only looked up at him. She was lying at his feet. Comfortable. She hadn’t been sick in a day or so, and for that he was thankful. His mom was still worried about her. The dog wasn’t her responsibility, and the compromise in the family’s extension was the full out absence of responsibility on her part. She wouldn’t walk Chelsey, or make sure her food bowl was full. Those were meaningless threats in the end, because the woman did fall in love, as most were wont to do with man’s best friend. Except Adam. “She’s okay?” she’d asked at the dinner table. Pug only nodded. “No more puking?” Not that he knew of. “Good. You let me know if that changes. We can run her to the vet.” He told her he would and that was that. He had other pressing matters on his mind.

He slowly inhaled. “Like ripping off a Band-Aid.” He smiled and scrunched up Chels’s fur. When he stood he snatched up the top photo from his desk and went to the door. Chels followed him. The girls were across the hall. Their door was closed but he could hear the music. He could hear it from his room as well, but the act of writing was one in which those contrivances and externalities were lost to the folds of fantasy. He gave Chelsey one last look before knocking.

“What?”

The door hadn’t opened. One of them turned down the music in frustration and the other—he thought it was Wendy—screeched in the perfidious intonation of a teenage girl. Pug always suspected the fortunate year difference between the girls was enough to ensure sharing a room wouldn’t be a huge deal. Especially when the house only had three bedrooms and a shared bathroom. Had the two wanted to be separated, he would have been up shit creek; it would have been couch city, since his parents would have buckled. He knew it. The girls had the power of persuasion, and Pug had always been far too weak to question the dynamic.

“Can I come in?”

“Get lost!”

The music turned up again. He couldn’t tell if it was The Police or Duran Duran...or some indie band that hadn’t been truly discovered outside the annals of teendom, where an arduous chasm was maintained to ensure those older than twenty hadn’t the access to what made youth culture cool. He looked at the picture of Angela holding the joint. Something sold to her by a man who’d blown off half his face with a single shotgun slug, or so the story went.

He gathered his wits about him. That resulted in one clenched fist and a clamped jaw. He was certain veins flared by his temples, but thought Adam, or even Danny, would have told him he’d have to drop a few...hundred lbs before they’d know he had any veins running the course of his milky bulk. He knocked again. This time harder. Chels’s ears perked.

The music disappeared, the last percussive beat muffling to derision. “Beat it!”

He swallowed. His throat was dry. Damn it, why was this so hard? Because you care. Maybe that’s what it came down to...why he couldn’t even watch them in the woods. Even when he knew what they were doing. “I know what you did today.” He wasn’t sure if that was too cryptic. But he couldn’t make flat out accusations. Not through a door. He heard them talking to each other, only mumbles, but loud enough to break the barrier. He’d at least enticed them, and that’s all he could ask for.

“We don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Lazarus might.”

He heard the thumped footsteps and then the plunger pull back into the door as the knob first unlocked and turned.

It was Angela. Her dark hair was pulled back off her face. He could see worry sketched across her brow, even if she was trying to look composed. To remain stoic. “What are you on about?” Wendy was sitting on her bed, looking far more perturbed and unable to hide her concern.

He had one photo. He wasn’t going to lay out his entire hand for her to see. That wasn’t how poker worked. He showed her the Polaroid without a word. The image was clear enough for her to realize her little brother followed her and some boy toy to the woods, far enough away from civilization to ensure the fetid stink of weed wouldn’t breach Main.

“You little asshole,” she whispered, pulling Pug by the shirt in her room before Chels had the chance to break the threshold. She shut the door on the dog and he could hear her pawing at the frame with a whinny.

“What did he do?”

“Look.” Angela tore the picture away from Pug and Wendy’s eyes rounded with the sort of surprise of one realizing the perfect crime was anything but.

“What do you want, you little spy?”

“A favor.”

“Favors don’t have these prerequisites.” Wendy was still silent. On the verge of tears actually. The girls’ room was a fevered array of posters. Most of them of George Michael or Bon Jovi. And most of the guys shirtless and sweaty, beading beneath overhead lights, despite their mother’s chagrined protestations. But girls would be girls.

“You followed us?” It was all Wendy had to say. She felt violated. Oh how little she knew about the Creek. He envied her ignorance. It was something he’d learn to cherish in time.

“You can barely even see us in this,” Angela finally said, as if she’d just discovered her reasoning after a bout of acceptance that had her licked. She crumpled the photo. It wouldn’t rip, and she knew that.

“I have more.”

“You piece of shit.” She was seething, holding a ball of clear plastic and ink, smudged some but still legible despite the vascular folds.

“You know mom and dad don’t care if that’s a cigarette or joint. They’ve given the Word of Wisdom speech enough. You know that.”

“I know you’re a traitor.”

“Oh, and you’ve always held the cards, right? Like my CTR ring. You wouldn’t waste a second before telling mom I don’t wear that around my friends. Because you’d gain something from that.”

“And what do you gain from this? You want money? I make shit at BB’s. It wouldn’t cover candy costs. Or what, free movies? Something behind the cowboy doors for you and your pervert friends?”

He knew Croak wouldn’t have balked at that proposition. And maybe their combined boyhood curiosity could use that leverage to summon a few of those tittie titles his own father hid in the closet.

“I want you to go on a date.”

“A date?”

It was unexpected, and her tone said it all. It was almost deflated, without the deflection that would have made it an indubitable question.

“You do that and I put all of those pictures into the fireplace. Every one of them.”

“What about me?” Wendy asked.

“You’re scot free.”

“With who?” Ange cocked her eye, ignoring her sulking sister on the bed behind her. She was beginning to understand it wasn’t the date itself that required the blackmail, but the intended with whom she’d be courted. It had to be bad if it required this sort of subterfuge.

This was where it all hinged, and he knew her answer would propel the remainder of their little summer break.

“Who, Horace?” she repeated, visibly more and more frustrated that the little shit had her in his grips. And frustrated that she knew, no matter what, that she would have to agree. That this wasn’t a negotiation as much as it was her brother’s terms and agreements.

“Randy Hopson, Croak’s older brother.”

“Jesus.” It was all she said. All she could say. And he knew he had her.

5

Croak got the call that night. He was expecting it, sure, but he also questioned whether or not those pictures were enough to compel Pug’s sister to downgrade for one night with Randy. He saw the guy in the Indians cap; he was sharp looking. The type he figured girls like Ange would want to be seen with. The guy’s look didn’t take much effort, but the bastard pulled it off. Croak only had to look at his own face in the mirror, already showing signs of acne and dry skin by his lips that only a thin mustache could conceal, to know he was following in his bro’s bad graces by inheriting the poor genes of his absentee daddy and not the interesting beauty of his mother that was keeping her evenings busy. That was life, he figured. And it was probably why Randy was such an asshole. Because he looked at the mirror every day and saw the man that didn’t want him. So he grew his hair long. He grew patches of facial hair. But nothing could totally diminish that similarity. Nothing. That was just the piss poor luck of divorce. You couldn’t choose your parents. You couldn’t choose what they gave you. So you were stuck as a living reminder. Croak could only wonder if his mom looked at her boys and saw the asshole that just up and left her. That she had to leave this house at night for her own sanity. Not because she felt alone, but because moving towns hadn’t totally removed the bad memories. Those stayed intact with the fruit of the asshole’s loins.

It was a pitiable thought, but there had to be some merit to it. Had to be. Croak didn’t truly remember his dad. But Randy did. And that made all the difference. That’s why he was the way he was. His mom liked to say he was just rebelling, that that was just the spirit of his age, but Cory didn’t think that was true. Randy harbored the sort of resentment that could only be blame or guilt. It was a deep thought, and Croak was allowed a few precocious efforts once in a while, but he always believed Randy, asshole or not, blamed himself for their father just packing up and leaving without a word. If he was a rebel, it was mostly because of that. Any other reason would just be an excuse to believe he would eventually grow out of it. Cory felt bad for Angela. He really did. He didn’t see his brother as the type any girl would pine to date. He stood at the patio door watching Randy in the yard. He was sitting on a lounger with one of mom’s Molsons, flicking the ashes off his cigarette. His Winston. His hair was long and black. There were some natural waves in there, curls that would remind Cory of his father’s hair in the few wisps of recollection that was mostly culled from certain scents. Cologne, especially. His father must have had a familiar musk, something Croak’s brain cultivated and inventoried for just those random moments when he was walking in a store, or meeting a guy carrying flowers to whip his mother around town. But Randy had their father’s hair. Of the few pictures he ever did find, those few his mother hadn’t yet burned or thrown away, he could see the uncanny similarities, could see that same curl in those black locks, and he vowed never to grow his hair the same length. Because that would only punish his mother.

“Mom home?” Randy asked when he saw Croak open the sliding door. He had quickly tucked the beer under the chair and palmed the smoke. Not that he cared. Maybe, hidden within those folds of resentment, there was a regrettable impulse to abide by his mother’s rules, but those intentions were easily deflected.

“Nah.”

“She’s with a new guy tonight. Asshole had a bald spot. I’m not sure what she’s thinking.” He laughed and stuck the Winston into his mouth. Croak could hear crickets. He loved the sound they made. He always would, he figured. Their lawn was long and dying. Randy had one responsibility over the summer, their first summer here at the Creek, and that was to show some semblance of landscape maintenance, but Cory could only recall the guy pulling out the lawnmower twice. The grass against the fence was yellow and long enough to tickle the underside of an elephant. The place looked like shit. Croak figured he should try and use the mower but his mom told him she didn’t want him messing around the gasoline.

He hated the way Randy spoke about their mom. Hated it. But that was just another combined result of an amoral father; he picked up the man’s tab, as if gauging his own existence as a reflection of the Squirter and Deserter—another of Randy’s colorful nicknames for a ghost.

“What do ya think of Angela?”

The cigarette was dangling from his lip when he answered: “You know what I think. Prime beef.”

“So you wouldn’t be against taking her to a movie?”

Randy’s eyes cocked. He was still for a moment. Croak thought it was a sign of excitement, but the guy quashed it before it could fully bloom. “What are you on about?”

“Look I—we, the guys—need a favor from you.” Cory touched his pocket. Two crisp twenties were folded inside. The most cash he’d ever had on him. It was invigorating to hold.

“Taking out Pug’s sis is a favor? She ask that?”

Croak saw a sudden hope in Randy’s eyes, something he wouldn’t have acknowledged, but it was something that could—would—affirm he shared some self-worth beyond the intentions of the Rebel and Shitty Brother. If the favor is acting Cupid for Ange, then maybe the Creek ain’t that shitty after all. Cory felt guilt crawl up his throat and he hated himself for coming outside. Because he saw something human in his brother. That hope was so grounding Randy looked immediately innocent. He looked like the boy who used to play T-ball with him when they were both kids. When they watched He-Man together. When Randy loved him.

“We’re asking that,” he finally said, and he saw Randy’s cheeks flush. It was the only reaction, but it was enough, because it was a mighty fall from that initial high. “I’ve got forty bucks in my pocket with your name on it.”

“For what?”

“You get to take Ange to a movie.”

“I get to? What the fuck is this, charity?”

“No, no. Me...well, Adam, he...we want to meet Lazarus...and he thought the only way you’d agree to it was with a...with a buy out...a bribe.”

Randy flicked his cigarette into the dead grass and took a long gulp of his beer, chucking the empty against the paint-flecked shed. Cory saw it rebound into a dirt mound where there was an anthill. “You want to meet Scarface...for what?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Well, what if I just punch you in the fuckin’ face and take the cash and tell Ange to stuff our date in her cooze? I don’t need a date with that Mormon trash. And fuck Adam for thinking that would work. I should break his jaw.”

Cory didn’t expect this to explode the way it had. Maybe he hadn’t prepared the way he should have. Maybe he should have had a script. “Ange agreed to it. She...well, she was our chip.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I could have just asked you to meet Lazarus with us...to buy some weed from him. Make the rest of summer manageable. Then pocket the rest of this cash...but Angela, she approached Pug and Adam thought that would be a better...well, a better bribe.” Croak was lying through his teeth. He was almost certain Randy could see it, could see the veins in his temples, could see the sweat budding—

But the guy was constructing the story from there on, was writing the history he wanted to believe, the one that would pad his ego. And Croak knew he had him. Knew it was only a matter of pulling out the bills and his attention would be so far into Ange that their intentions with Lazarus would go unnoticed. The way Adam had hoped it would when he spit-balled this plan. He could take Angela to Bull Durham. Maybe the sight of Kevin Costner will be enough to make her forget she’s with your ugly bro and he’ll make out with a pair of panties by the end of the night. Adam had such a way with words.

“So you’re gonna give me forty bucks to take Angela out?”

“And set up shop with Lazarus.”

“What’s the hook here?”

Croak remembered what Adam said: “Adam and Danny, they want weed. They want a contact for it. Before school starts. But they don’t want to get ripped off. Adam thought if you were there the first time, Lazarus wouldn’t dare fuck with us.” Stroke his ego. Assholes like their egos stroked.

Randy smiled. “You guys are on the level. Show me the cash.”

Croak gave him the twenties. It would prove to be the biggest mistake of his life. Besides going back to the farmhouse.

6

Grampa was on the back porch. Adam hadn’t seen him all day, and when the old guy did sneak in, his mother was busy putting down Patty for the night. He could hear her singing to him. Her voice was strangely magical. Only because there were nice memories attached to the way she treated his brother. He was still swimming in the pool of childhood, but he understood next week the shallow end would give way to the depths of adolescence and the expectations that came with teenagers. He knew Pug was terrified. Croak probably was too. He wasn’t sure he could read the Jew, not in that way, but in the end he figured the New Yorker would love to be cool, would love to sidestep the obvious prattling of older boys who’d harass him if his dad ever forced him out of the house with a yarmulke. You got used to the jokes when it was your friends making them. The moment a stranger touched a nerve, took that one weakness and caricaturized it for the world to see, that’s all you were. That was your legacy. And the world was a giant asshole.

There was a flyer on the kitchen counter. Written on the front, in brash, red letters:

REEDY CREEK BACK TO SCHOOL BLOCK BBQ

THIS SATURDAY!!!

THERE WILL BE COLD BEER & ROOT FOR THE KIDS,

FRANKS, STEAK & BEANS,

MARV’S FAMOUS BURGERS & DILL

ROASTED CORN, CORN ON THE COB, SWEET CORN, CORN

SALSA &

NO CANNED CORN!!!

STAY FOR THE FIREWORKS!!!

It was something his father brought home from the Plant’s Community Development Board he was helping to instil as a result of the Creek’s civic proliferation. Just another stupid way to bring big city folk together under the umbrella of togetherness, like the big melting pot of America. He wondered if grampa had seen it and scoffed. But he couldn’t tell. The man’s mind seemed aloof. The porch light was on and he was sitting with his legs crossed, an open bottle sitting on the table. Adam wasn’t sure if he’d taken a sip. But there was something else. Something that struck Adam as odd. It wasn’t just the shock, but the effort the man had gone through to resist over the years. Ever since gramma passed. Ever since they found what he remembered his mom calling a black speck on her lung. That took persistence. That took goddamn patience, and if anything, Lewis had earned the right to gloat about quitting an addiction to any fool who’d argue the trauma of stopping something to which he’d grown accustomed. There was a pack of cigarettes sitting on the table by the bottle. The cellophane was still sealed, as far as he could see, but they were there. They were new. They were a blotch on his record.

Do you bother him? It was a question he never thought he’d have to ask. Not about his grampa. But he just appeared so weak...so unbelievably vulnerable. This is how he must have been when gramma was sick. When she was dying. He must have been helpless. When you watch somebody you love, when you watch them deteriorate, that’s gotta take something from you as well. Something big. Will you ever love again? Will you ever live again? Adam didn’t like having those thoughts. Not about grampa. He picked up the flyer. He could only use it as a sequitur. Get his grampa’s mind off those Cancer Sticks. Keep his fingers from drumming the box. Because that’s all it would take. Once the wrapper’s gone, once that lid can flip open, every one of those damned temptations would be accessible.

“Hey grampa.”

The man looked up, as if startled from a dream. Had he been crying? Adam didn’t know. He didn’t want to know. When he adjusted, when he was given enough time to recognize his role here, Lewis smiled and palmed the smokes. He took a gulp of his beer and wiped his lips. He was clean shaven. His hair was combed, but a little mussed in the back. He certainly looked better than he had. Put together, Adam supposed. He was wearing a pair of starched khakis and a stiff church shirt he’d imagine some hunchbacked accountant pulling on before entering the rat race.

“You okay?”

“As okay as one can be in this God-forsaken town.”

“So you saw this?” Adam showed the slip of paper. It was an ungodly yellow with red and blue font. Probably to appear festive, but the result was something Pug might churn out in Health class about the anatomy of the circulatory system.

“Looks like your father wants a little neighborly normalcy. Otherwise I’d suspect his intentions are to put arsenic in the Kool-Aid.” Lewis exhaled. “I’m sorry. Don’t mean to speak ill of your dad.”

“What are you doing out here?” Adam looked at the pack of smokes. They were mostly covered by the man’s hand. Arthritis had done some interesting things to his fingers. When Adam was younger, he always thought the man was turning into a tree, and that his fingers were just the start, were the roots of what would become a cantankerous poplar.

“You remember your gramma?”

“Not much. Kind of. She used to sing, right? Like mom sings to Patty.”

Lewis smiled. “Oh, she had a great voice, she did. Wouldn’t like the tripe they play on the radio these days. But I suppose my pa would have said the same about my records. Generational thing, I guess. I was just curious what she’d think of this place.” He took another sip, wiped his lips, and stared deeply into the bottle.

“That why you have those?” Adam gestured toward the cigarettes.

“So you saw ‘em.”

“Not my business to judge. I just know you like talking about how you quit the habit.”

“One can quit a habit, but not the tics, dear boy. You ever see me touch my fingers to my thumb? Years o’ holding one of these things, it’s ingrained like a memory. Fingers are just broken motors. Sometimes when I think of gramma, I just need something that was once hers, something that might help keep that connection.” He drummed his fingers on the pack. But a part of Adam didn’t buy it. It wasn’t just about what Croak had said, that he’d seen the Tercel following Lazarus like a private dick, but because in all the time he’d spent with the man, in all the time he’d ever brought up gramma and her memory, he’d never required the assistance of a new pack of smokes. Never. No. Something drove him to buy these. Something unnerved him. “You’ve been behaving though, I take it?”

Adam was silent.

“I know small talk. I like to think I invented it.” Lewis crossed his arms. “I know Croak and Pug saw me today. I know because I know they were following Pug’s sisters. Have you ever wondered how those two should be so fortunate and poor Pug, well, poor Pug shares the name of his relatable breed?” His laugh was short and staccatoed. It reminded Adam of a smoker’s cough. “You’re out here to see what I’m on about with the one you call Lazarus.”

7

Every town had one. He supposed that was the rule. There were no exceptions. When he was a deputy, he remembered Earl Cloven like the back of his hand, because he’d cuffed the guy so many times he’d mistake his own fingers for Earl’s. But people got bored. He didn’t have the stats to back up his claims, but he figured he didn’t need them. Anecdotes weren’t science, but behavior was. And behavior was just a reaction to a stimulus, and small town life could pull you into the doldrums. Especially when the networks started showing those big city shows, those suburbanites who’d commute to the city and share a barrel of laughs for a half hour. There were projections now of what could be, or what is. In places like California or New York. The coasts. They were rampant with the sort of leisure that had become exclusive to the Atlantic and Pacific rims, leaving the flyover schmucks dealing with the could-haves through the sort of shit guys like Earl would peddle to bored housewives and teenagers. So Lewis would cuff him, throw him in a cell for a night, and that was that. Because then he figured a little fear might shake things up. But if there wasn’t an Earl, there’d be somebody else. He figured that out after sometime.

Lazarus was the Creek’s Earl. And Lewis followed him in his Tercel. He’d already seen the import process and today, well, today he saw the small town deals that would turn that G20 into a veritable apothecary on wheels. But Reedy Creek was a different breed, because Reedy Creek had, in the last two years, exploded and expanded with the boom of ethanol and the promise of federal subsidies to grow corn. And that boom brought big city people to small town life. And big city people had different tastes. They liked the prescription stuff, the poppers, Oxycontin, generic shit pharmacists with nasty habits put together in makeshift labs for supplemental income, or cocaine, the drug of choice for a late Mr Wilson. These were Lazarus’s clientele; the Corners, the engineers who got hooked on amphetamines in graduate school to pull all nighters, the lab chemists, lawyers and accountants, those guys used to corner offices with a view of Central Park or the Golden Gate bridge now looking at an ocean of maize, and the only saving grace to their sanity was this scarred fuck with a loaded van.

You’re casting pretty big assumptions there, Lew. Betty’s voice was always there. Isolation required that sort of comfort; it wasn’t so much that misery required company as familiarity required constancy. And Betty would always be there with him. He watched the G20 pull away from a house north of Main, its shutters all closed. He’d sat back under the shade of a willow whose leaves were just beginning to turn. He thought he’d noticed the glint of a camera on the trunk, but he wasn’t sure. At this point he didn’t much care. The proof was in the pudding, and the Creek was a breed unlike any other. Your paranoia is extending out to the boys, Lewis. It is. You saw Pug and Croak following those teens to make a score. And you know they saw you. You’re their example, and what do ya think they’re pulling from this? What do you think Adam’s pulling from this?

Lazarus was acting a courier in this instance, walking up to the front door with a scrunched paper bag, and the woman who answered the door didn’t look like the usual addict, whose hair and make-up looked like the shoddy remnants of a late night out. She was professional, in dress pants and a blazer, and her manners were not of the uncouth wino with dirt under her fingernails. She didn’t show surprise at Lazarus’s scar, proving this wasn’t the first rendezvous between the two. She took what was hers and shut the door, leaving Lazarus to scramble down the steps toward his running van. Lewis drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. He was far enough away to appear aloof in the matter. He watched the G20 squeal away from the curb and he waited a moment before turning on the ignition. Now what? Are you just going to keep at this? And what if he sees you? What if he has a gun?

“He’s not going to shoot me. Not in the middle of the day,” he muttered, pulling away from the curb and out of the willow’s shadow.

Again. More of your assumptions. I know you want to compare this guy to Earl Cloven. And maybe you should. Because you had some control over him. You understood if you took him off the street, somebody else would pick up the pieces. And that somebody else would be new, maybe even worse. Maybe the cops here have the same deal.

“We didn’t hold onto tapes of people...newly deceased people snorting coke, Betty. We didn’t have wires running all over the damn place, cameras in the trees, cameras in people’s homes. We respected privacy.”

Because you didn’t think of it.

Lewis laughed. “Because I respect a code of conduct I don’t think exists here.”

Well, look, there he goes, there that poor boy goes toward the gloom of the forest. Think of how lonely he must be. Think of how he must feel knowing what people say behind his back, about his face. Maybe he hadn’t a choice what to do in the matter. Maybe this is a position he requires only because he knows he serves a purpose. No matter what you might think, Lew, people’s happiness sometimes needs a boost. Sometimes there’s loss, there’s boredom, there’s loneliness, and guys like Lazarus, they make sure you don’t put the gun in your mouth like he did.

“You’re seriously commending what he’s doing?” Lewis pulled onto Woodvine. The van had disappeared up the turn where Robert Wilson lost his life. He’d already started tapping his forefinger against his thumb. That goddamn tic!

I’m saying you could have used a guy like Lazarus when you knew I was dying.

He couldn’t argue with that. He could have used some assistance. Betty was gone. And Barb didn’t want much to do with him. Not when Trevor had taught her so much about what was wrong with his traditions. Maybe it was for that reason alone why he couldn’t absolutely condemn Lazarus. But it wasn’t just Lazarus. And that was the problem. It was the place to where he was driving.

The farmhouse.

Lewis parked at a distance and walked. He put on his hazards. He watched the G20 pull off the 34 down the side road toward the burial pit. He was old as hell. He never thought, so many years ago, that he would be that man. The guy kids looked at wondering how close to death he might be, and how scared that thought made him. But he was now. And no matter how much that terrified him, it pissed him off even more. Because he had memories of being able to do things that appeared, and had become, so difficult now. Like walking through a field toward the trees. Feeling the coming aches and pains in knees that used to squat in the Korean brush. Betty would always say he wasn’t young anymore, and though he understood old age would eventually come to get him, he certainly wasn’t a fan that it finally had.

The walk took some time. He watched the crows in the sky. Listened to their distant caws. Heard what little traffic there was to hear, that muffled drone that had been the white noise of his dreams when he and Betty lived near the freeway.

This isn’t safe, Lew. She could go ahead and cull any number of memories from his vault when he’d done similar stupid things: when he’d drunk a little too much before skiing alone on a lodge trip after he’d gotten in a fight with Betty. He’d escaped that with a broken ankle, but it had left a certain distrust with Betty that would forever have her sliding AA pamphlets in his general direction, as if a few beers at dinner justified alcoholism. It wasn’t the drink that mattered in the end, now was it? It was a hurtful thought, but it helped him stop touching his finger to his thumb. Just long enough to reach the copse of pines ahead, behind which there was a large pit with decomposing animals.

He ignored the hole. He didn’t look into it. The sound of the birds was mostly gone now. He went to that place at the rim of the clearing where Adam and the boys had hunkered behind the trees when they showed him this place. When he realized his grandson and his chums had found some sort of factory of evil all because Adam was so goddamn talented at ball. It was late afternoon and the woods were just beginning to slip into that cover of darkness that would not fully recede until mid-afternoon tomorrow. Because the forest was the keeper of darkness; it leeched the pitch black and held it in its pores, extending like tentacles of tenebrous smoke down its corridors until life seemed choked from its core. Lewis stood by the tree where Adam first found the crow. It was still there, black feathers frothed with but the spackled contrast of maggots and bleached bone. The animals would soon be husks, mounds of darkness that night would thankfully steal, leaving only the smell.

I don’t want you here, Lew. You shouldn’t be here. But this was where he would find his answers. He wasn’t quite sure why he believed that so much, but its veracity and clarity were like the slivers of sun still squirming through the alleys of the forest. The boys found a box of tapes here. Surveillance tapes of two dead men. Maybe more. Who knew?

He could see the crows in the sky now, the clouds behind them a purplish stain against the rows of corn to the north that gently swayed in the breeze. And Lazarus was inside the farmhouse. The lights were on. He wasn’t alone.

Who is that?

And now Lewis was scared. He knew he shouldn’t have come. Shouldn’t have followed the peddler here, even despite those atrocious curiosities that had come as a result of watching those VHS tapes. The man inside wore a fedora, whose brim cast shadows over his face.

He could hear the crows now. Could hear their calls coming closer. Closer. Could hear their wings, could hear the projected clap like stiff linens in the wind. They’re all watching you. They’re going to tell the man in the fedora you’re spying. And he doesn’t like filthy little spies. It was a strange voice. It wasn’t Betty, but it could have been. Could have been some version of her. Near the end, perhaps, when her cheekbones were like juts of marble and the hollowed sockets of her eyes like the deepest wells, looking out at him with such helplessness and desperation.

And then a crow fell from the sky. And another. It rained crows. Ten fell dead in the clearing. Fifteen. The sound their bodies made was like spoiled fruit hitting carpet.

You need to go. You need to go now.

It was that burst of adrenaline he remembered from so long ago, when he heard mortar fire, when he heard the callous screams of boys no older than he most likely calling for their mommies. Because that’s what comes, that’s the thought that always comes near the end. You want your mommy. She always makes everything better. Always. He ran, even despite the pain in his knees. The burn in his quads. The crows were gone. They were no longer in the sky; they were the tar tears of purple clouds grieving the dead below.

He reached the Tercel, his heart racing, gasping for air now, feeling the hot pulse of blood like lead. He steadied himself against the roof of his car; he wasn’t quite sure what he saw. No. Because it didn’t make sense. They didn’t fly into the trees, snap their necks. They just fell. Like Japanese Kamikazes. He sat in his car, staring at the road ahead. Touching his forefinger to his thumb, wanting so damn bad to settle the driving itch in his throat.

His passenger door opened and a man sat next to him.

“Jesus...Lazarus.” It was all he could say. He’d zoned out or something. He wasn’t sure when he sat in his car, but it was dark now. Or almost dark. It could have been minutes. Hours. You’re a fool, Lew. A bonafide fool.

“That’s not my name.” The guy’s eyes were questioning but resolute. His hair was long and swept over his scars, though the ossified flesh by his mouth looked like knotted bone. The doctors tried, they did, but he’d done a number on himself. Probably had to use skin from his ass, cause the bulk of it was pulverized and splattered against a wall. He was holding a gun. It was pointed at Lewis’s head. “I ain’ stupid, ol’ timer. I know you’ve been tailing me.”

“What...what do you want from me?” Ya see, you dumb shit. He does have a gun and he will shoot you. Maybe we can have that dance you promised me when I was in that goddamn hospital with the IVs in my arm.

“I want you to leave me alone, ol’ man. Let bygones be bygones and I won’t give you the ticket here to see Betty earlier than you ought to.” He tapped the old man’s brow with the barrel of his pistol.

Lewis exhaled. He’d never been so afraid. Not during his service. Not when he thought the Low Breed would kill his daughter and poor little Adam when his goddamn son-in-law spent his book money and borrowed from the wrong people. Lazarus—or not Lazarus—knew his wife’s name.

“There’s a plan here. It’s already in motion. And if you fuck it up, a lot of people will die.” The man with the scarred face, the man barely out of adolescence, stuck the pistol into his pants and opened the car door. He swept his hair away from his face, giving Lewis one final glimpse of the gnarled scar that had tufted his cheek and pulled his lips into a stretched grimace where no stubble would ever grow. “I ain’t the bad guy. Even if you don’t like what you see. I’m just here to restore order, ol’ timer. That’s all the Creek needs.”

Lazarus stood up and shut the car door. And he was gone.

8

Lewis looked at his grandson. It’s not drugs, is it? Or not just drugs. There’s something else happening here. Something you’re not supposed to know and not supposed to stop. He would not tell Adam about the crows. About the birds falling from the sky and into the clearing among the dead. The sound of their bodies like soft melons.

Your only job is to protect those kids, Lew. Protect Adam and Patty.

“You want to hear something crazy’s going on here, bud, but there ain’t. If I was to guess about the cameras, I’d say it’s some security detail for the ethanol start-up, but Lazarus, he’s what you’d expect. You already know as much about him as I do. He’s just a hippie in a van.”