I'd Walk with My Friends If I Could Find Them

4. Neutral Drops

ALSTON MIXES VODKA and cherry Kool-Aid in his water bottle before his high school doubles tennis match.

“Gatorade,” he says to his doubles partner, Dax, then gulps down the red concoction and smirks. No one cares enough to notice Alston’s drinking because Dax and Alston are terrible, even stone-cold sober. They play for the short-skirted girls who never pay them attention and the spring weekday afternoons out of school. Dax, who sticks with actual Gatorade, has a single goal on the court — he takes aim at the other team’s net player and tries to smack the ball as hard as he can into his opponent’s head or nuts. If he gets four or more direct hits before he and Alston are blanked 6–0, 6–0, he considers the damage a victory.

Alston is fast, sinewy, and handsome with his square jaw and narrow blue eyes. He likes to rile Dax up and tell the other team what’s coming—“Dax, the dude at the net says your sister likes it blindfolded with a midget watching,” and “Hey, Freckles, your nuts are about to get fucked up!”

The other team typically responds with mock anger or withdrawn cowardice, never neutrality, but Dax doesn’t mind whatever animosity comes his way. Already six foot six, two hundred pounds in eleventh grade, armed with a cannon forehand, he has a stature that alone deters the most ardent opponents.

Dax’s friendship with Alston is cemented by past loyalty and subtle envy. Alston showcases none of the shyness that Dax battles, so Dax attaches himself to Alston’s moments of outward exhibition and feels the alluring intensity, but not the consequences, of a life without restraint; even now, though Dax has no sister, he plays along with the blindfold taunt and lets the net player decide which body part to defend. The choice may seem easy, but Dax’s coach often sees talented players hunched over, peering through the heads of their meshed nylon racquets, praying that Dax will aim high.

Alston handles his liquor well, but one day he throws up in the middle of his serve.

“Damn,” he says, wiping his mouth. Then: “Love thirty. Second serve.”

“Wait,” the nervous but skilled opponent at the net says. “We’re not playing with that shit on the court. Somebody’s got to clean it up.”

Alston studies the foul puddle of alcohol and Kool-Aid.

“Dax, you want to keep playing?”

“Whatever,” Dax says.

“We’re done,” Alston says.

“Then you guys forfeit.”

“Bitches,” Alston says, already swigging from his water bottle.

Dax and Alston walk over to the top of a grassy hill overlooking the courts and check out the girls’ matches, their attention focused on the hiking hemlines and swaying asses of girls awaiting serves. Their earnest coach leans forward in a lawn chair next to the fence, shouting encouragement. Dax stretches his body out on the grass and stares up at the crisscrossing contrails. Alston sits and wraps his arms around his knees.

“Hey,” Alston says. “Tall one.”

A new girl at their school speaks with the coach, her hands rubbing her hips, then turns and walks toward them. She crests the hill and stands close to the boys.

“They’re talking about you two,” she says. The hill is empty save the two boys and her. Dax shakes his head and rises onto his elbows.

“Bad flu,” Alston says.

“I can smell you,” she says.

The girl lowers herself to the ground. Dax watches her long limbs fold. She clasps her hands and slides them between her thighs. Dax notices a dolphin tattoo above her right ankle, a scar running along the outside of her thigh, disappearing under her shorts.

“You on the team now?” Dax says.

“No racket,” she says.

“Oh.” Then silence, except for the grunts, shoe squeaks, and score recitations of six high school tennis matches.

The match they all ignore features the two best girls from each school. The girl from Rutherford High is the better player, quicker to the ball and with smoother ground strokes, and she produces a high-pitched squeal every time she strikes the ball.

“There need to be more tennis sluts,” Alston says. “All this grunting for nothing.”

“Alston,” Dax says, and nods at the girl.

“Relax, Dax. Your name’s Jean, right?” Alston says.

“Janelle.”

“How come you don’t play?”

“I’m new.”

“So? Aren’t you living with the Conleys?”

“Yeah.”

From down below the coach yells something about backspin and gives a thumbs-up. The boys Dax and Alston forfeited to stand across the way, talking to their coach and pointing to where the three of them lounge. Dax stares at his feet.

“Don’t the Conleys have a bunch of foster kids?” Alston says.

“Jesus, A,” Dax says.

“Yeah,” Janelle says.

“You been in other foster homes?” Alston says.

“It’s not my first.”

“Where you from?”

“Delaware.”

“The whole state?”

“Dover.”

“Why are you in Rutherford if you’re from Delaware?”

“You talk too much,” she says.

“Bitch, please,” Alston says, “people should talk more.” He reaches into his shorts, pulls out a pack of Camels, selects one in the middle, and lights it.

“Here,” he says, holding out the pack to Janelle. “I can tell you smoke.”

She accepts one and Alston reaches across Dax and lights it for her, cupping the flame with his opposite hand although there’s no hint of wind. Dax glances at her face, her thin nose and dark eyes, then her long legs. His body tightens, but when she glances back at him he knows right away she’s not interested. She looks at him as many have, as a slight physical freak — a grown-man body at seventeen — that’s worth a second glance, and that’s all. Dax shakes his size 15 basketball shoes and wonders when he’ll stop growing.

“I’m trying to get this one to start,” Alston says, exhaling a cloud of smoke.

“Not a chance,” Dax says. “I like my lungs without the crap they put on the roads.”

“It’s different tar,” Janelle says. “This is good tar. Helps you breathe.” She smiles for the first time and shows her perfectly white, crooked teeth.

The three of them stay quiet for a while under a partly cloudy April afternoon. The low grunts of the Rutherford girls’ number one rise to high-pitched shrieks as she volleys, retreats, then hammers a cross-court winner to take the first set.

“Druggie parents?” Alston says.

“No,” Janelle says.

“So?”

“So what?” she says.

“So what’s the story? You’re what, seventeen? Eighteen? You’re in Rutherford, New Jersey, sitting with two fucks at a stupid-ass tennis match, and you don’t play tennis. You probably already know you’re going to take off if you’ve spent over a week at the Conleys’. But we’re not there yet. What’s up with your parents?”

“You’re pretty stupid, aren’t you?”

“Yes, but you’re still sitting here with me and Dax.”

“Dax isn’t a name.”

“He’s sitting right here,” Alston says.

“Are you stupid like this one?” she asks Dax.

“He’s not the most talkative,” Alston says.

“I’m talkative,” Dax says. “What do you want to know?”

“Tell me about anything.”

“Okay. If you keep throwing up at our tennis matches, coach’ll kick us off the team and we’ll have to sit through history class more often.”

“Did you throw up?” Janelle says.

“Do I seem like someone who throws up in the afternoon?”

“You look like someone who flinches.”

“What?”

Dax yanks up a balled fist and Alston jerks away.

“I’ll kill you, Dax.”

“You’re a shit talker, but I didn’t say that was bad,” Janelle says.

“Shit. I’ve never flinched. I’ve hurt people.”

“Where?” she says, smiling.

“Where?”

“Yes, where did you hurt people? Tell me where you were when you hurt all these poor souls.”

Alston takes a drag.

“Everywhere. That’s what you need to know. In the Bronx. In Canada. In your back yard.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Dax says.

“I’m not done. Here, in Rutherford. In fucking Finland and Egypt and Iraq.”

“Wow,” Janelle says. “World traveler.”

“Where you going to go?” Alston says.

“When?”

“When Conley accidentally walks in on you taking a shower.”

“You don’t know shit.”

“Yep. But where?”

“To your house.”

“Take Union to Springfield, couple houses on your left.”

Alston and Janelle light two more Camels and somehow end up sitting next to each other. The sun warms Dax’s face, and after he gets a flirty wave from an overweight girl from the opponent’s school, he forces a nod. An ice cream truck pulls into the nearby parking lot, thin music box tunes tinkling out, and for a moment Dax thinks back to when his parents were still together.

Later, with only one match continuing in the far court, Janelle fingers her right earlobe.

“A refrigerator fell on my dad in Iraq,” she says. “In Desert Storm, unloading crap. Damn thing crushed his neck and most of his chest. After we got the army money, my mom split.” She takes a drag and exhales white smoke. “She’s in Wyoming, I think, but I’m not sure. Every now and then she sends me thirty dollars cash.”

“What’s the return address on the envelope?” Alston says. “If you want to know where she’s at, check out the return address.”

“You think I don’t know that?”

“Yes. I think you don’t know that.”

“Damn, A,” Dax says.

“And a fridge? No bullet to the heart or anything?”

“Nope.”

“What kind?” Alston says.

“What?”

“A Maytag?”

“Alston, come on.”

“I don’t know,” she says. “I know it was big. Someone said it was brown. That’s what I know.”

“A falling refrigerator,” Dax says.

Alston runs his fingers through his hair and looks at Janelle.

“Fuck Saddam.”

Drew Barrymore sits behind Dax, Alston, and Janelle in a New York City theater just before Die Hard: With a Vengeance starts. Early summer and hot, and Dax and Alston have traveled the short distance to the city from Rutherford for basketball camp and sneaked out on the third night to the show. Dax didn’t anticipate that Janelle would show up, but nothing surprises him about Alston and Janelle, now that she’s a permanent fixture.

Dax is too nervous to talk to Drew, but Alston turns around and says, “Poison Ivy was your best work,” and for those words he receives a condescending pat on the head before the lights dim and they all watch and cheer Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson as they kill, maim, and solve logic puzzles to save New York City from pissed-off foreigners.

On the sidewalk after the show a disheveled and serious old woman begs Dax never to cut his hair because she’s certain the Japanese will soon invade the country searching for American locks. Dax takes a step back and the woman holds up a paintbrush as evidence.

“Promise me,” she says.

“Yes,” Dax says.

“They have unfinished business here.”

“Okay,” Dax says.

“Oklahoma City was two months ago. It was just the start.”

“Yep.”

“I was alive for Pearl Harbor.”

“Okay.”

“Promise me.”

“Fine.”

“Your hair.”

“Yes.”

A block later, Dax, Alston, and Janelle stroll along the night boulevard, and a boy around twelve years old walking in the other direction pulls up his shirt to reveal a white-handled revolver stashed in his pants. He contorts his fingers into a practiced gang sign. Once Dax notices his weapon, he allows his shirt to fall back down, nods his head, and continues down the street. Dax’s body shakes and Alston says, “Calm down. It wasn’t loaded.”

“You can’t tell that shit from the handle,” Dax says, trying to settle himself.

“I can tell.”

Dax is in awe of Alston because of his ignorant surety — an unabashed confidence that Dax desires for himself — and because Alston teaches Dax things he’s not supposed to realize until much later in life, stuff like honesty is rarely the best policy, a car runs even if you don’t have a driver’s license, and people do whatever you want them to do if they’re scared enough.

Alston’s father left when he was eight, and his undisciplined mother saw Alston as a miniature version of his wayward father — same verbal energy, blue eyes, and attraction to alcohol — so Alston largely takes care of himself. Most nights dinner is frozen chicken nuggets and a Coke from the corner store. His father still shows up once a year and takes Alston up to Bear Creek Camp near Wilkes Barre to shoot a.357, camp out, and sip a mix of whiskey, vodka, and root beer, a drink Alston’s father calls root root.

Dax’s father, a tired, below-average dentist, gave fatherhood a shot when Dax had to make a decision during the divorce but has since focused on golf, his new girlfriend, and his timeshare in Hilton Head. If he had to do it all over again, Dax wouldn’t pick differently — he has all he needs, and his father kicks him extra money whenever he asks. Plus the freedom gives him more time with Alston, the one person he considers a close friend.

One of the things Alston teaches Dax is neutral drops, the art of shifting an automatic vehicle into neutral, revving the engine, and simultaneously “dropping” the shifter to drive. One Friday night Dax and Alston neutral-drop Dax’s 1984 Toyota Camry in the Lincoln Elementary School parking lot, listening to the front-wheel-drive vehicle skid on the old pavement. Alston nurses a fifth of Black Velvet, and even though he has never had a driver’s license, he demonstrates particular talent at the neutral-drop maneuver, seemingly oblivious to the grinding sound the shift produces after each drop.

“You need a six-cylinder,” Alston says. “But hell, you have a car.” He pauses and takes a sip. “Drink this,” he says, offering the bottle. “I know you won’t. And that’s okay. If you did it, I’d hate you. You’ve fucked yourself into expectations, my friend. Always the good guy, huh?”

“Never,” Dax says.

“Guy with your size should be fucking shit up. You know that?”

“I am.”

“No. You’re not. Listen, it’s easy. You need to be louder. Even when you’re wrong, be loud. It works.”

“Where do you get this stuff?”

“I have eyes and ears.”

“Fine.”

“I mean it. A guy your size, they’ll tuck their dicks and run. Girls coming out of their minds.”

“You should teach, A.”

“Volume up. Free lesson, my friend. And you should play football. Everyone likes football. You watch it enough.”

Dax loves college football and follows the games closely, especially the New Mexico Lobos, from where his father went to school, but actually playing football would mean violent contact, speed, and inevitable pain.

Alston revs the engine and drops the shifter and the tires squeal.

“Not bad,” he says. “Hey, what about Janelle?”

“What about?”

“You know she’s messed up, right? That family she lives with — they got all those dumb-shit foster kids.”

“Okay.”

“Weird shit. Foster dad jacked up.”

“The dad messes with them? Did she say that? I don’t want to know.”

“We’re going to take off. This is the last time you’re going to see me.”

“Don’t tell me.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t want to know. You tell me too much.”

“’Cause you don’t know anything.”

“Where you gonna go?”

“She wants Key West. Figures rich people need help around their mansions. Plus if we got to live, why not live there?” He takes a swig of the Velvet.

“I don’t think Key West is real. But even if it is, it can’t be all that great or everyone would live there,” Dax says.

“I always wondered why people don’t move to the vacation spots. If you have so much fun there, just move, get a job, boom, done.”

“Sounds too simple. Like when you’re ten and say you’re going to run away when your parents piss you off and you don’t make it out of the driveway.”

“I’m not ten, and besides, how hard is it? Get on the bus, get off at Key West.”

“You think Greyhound goes to Key West?”

“Close enough.”

Weeks pass and Alston and Janelle haven’t gone anywhere. Autumn sweeps in and basketball season arrives. Dax finds himself starting at power forward. He’s big but not very strong, and outside of the summer camp with Alston he has largely ignored the sport, but the team needs height, so Dax clogs the lane and keeps his arms up.

Alston comes to the home games with Janelle and sits in the front row trying to pick fights with opposing players, which, while funny, still surprises Dax. He has seen Alston in three fights, all of which he lost badly.

After one home game — a rough night when Dax’s best efforts and Alston’s “weak dick” chants fail to keep Dax’s man from pouring in thirty-three points in a blowout win — Dax, Alston, and Janelle neutral-drop in the post office parking lot. Alston drives first, drinking root root from a Natural Springs water bottle he then passes to Janelle. Dax lounges in the back seat, feeling the jerk and lurch of the car from neutral to drive, neutral to drive, and the dirty smell of brakes and tires. Tired, he thinks of the player that lit him up in his home gymnasium, how the guy was smaller than him, not that much faster, but had seemed so much better at everything. He wonders why it’s so damn hard to get his body to do exactly what he wants, as fast as he wants it.

When it’s Dax’s turn to drive, Janelle and Alston climb into the back seat and disappear into the darkness.

“Put on some Biggie and drive around,” Alston says, so Dax does. He drives down Montross to Pierrepont to Riverside with the music loud. A cop car appears up ahead and Dax rolls his window up. He turns on Passaic and something pushes at the back of his seat. Alston told Dax that the first time he and Janelle screwed he used Saran Wrap and a rubber band, so this is what Dax can’t shake out of his infected mind: Alston, back at home, unfurling a rectangle of clear plastic and snapping it off with the carton’s sharp teeth.

After a song titled “Who Shot Ya?” beats out of the factory speakers, Alston hops into the front seat. For a while no one says anything, and for the first time Dax notices that he has to hold the steering wheel an inch to the right to keep the Camry straight, but he’s unsure what this means.

“I fucking hate people that play instruments,” Alston says. “Seriously, who has time to learn to play an instrument? There’s nothing better to do? Let’s learn notes over and over. Dumbasses.”

From the back-seat darkness, Janelle says, “I played the piano for a little bit.”

“You’re a foster kid,” Alston says.

“So? You’re a shit. I can play a Beethoven song, a song from The Nutcracker, and an overture.”

“What’s an overture?” Dax says.

“Did I say I was a fucking music teacher?” Janelle says.

A right turn.

“Where did you get a piano?”

“Electronic keyboards at Walmart. They got them set out and plugged in and no one’s ever there, so you go in and practice and keep the volume low. Sometimes I went to Target, but mostly Walmart.”

“Radio Shack?” Dax says.

“Did I say Radio Shack?”

“Foster-kid trick,” Alston says.

“When we’re married we’re having ten foster kids,” Janelle says.

“You’re too tall for me,” Alston says.

“You’re too small for me. And by that I mean your cock.”

With that, Alston jumps into the back seat.

Dax slides a Boyz II Men CD in and thumbs the track to “I’ll Make Love to You,” knowing it’ll piss off Alston, but there’s no reaction. After the first chorus Dax only wants to escape from his car, so he drives to his high school, parks the car facing the grass field, leaves the stereo on, and gets out.

The grass is still wet from the previous night’s rain, so Dax walks the length of the field and leans on a damp picnic table. He looks up at the city lights’ dirty hue, then over at his Camry, a tiny light from the stock stereo illuminating the interior.

Dax smells the night grass, considers how there’s a good chance that no one, anywhere, is thinking of him. He thinks of his mother, her hands on his face the day she left, her eyes on his eyes, her voice whispering. “I love you, but you chose him.” Dax imagines his mother in Dallas, where she now lives, strolling down the street in an oversized cowboy hat with her Texas husband. They hold hands and laugh and push their set of twin girls in a wide stroller. The last he heard from her was three years ago, when she sent him a Troy Aikman jersey for his birthday. A New York Jets fan, he burned it in his back yard with Alston.

Dax fights the tension in his chest and glances over to his car — still the stereo’s glow, but he’s not sure how long the battery will last. His dad has shown him how to jump the car, but he’s not sure he remembers, something about grounding. Janelle will probably know.

A helicopter overhead, with a searchlight scanning. A pain in Dax’s back right molar, then gone. Dax thinks about his dad, the new girlfriend who resembles his aunt Karen, how his dad has been harping on Dax to consider the army, how it’ll pay for school, how he’ll have no one to fight, just train and train, maybe stub a toe or two, then go to college. Even Alston thinks it’s a good idea: “Sweet outfits? Rugged, hot army bitches? Bazookas? Fuck, yeah. Do it.” Dax pictures himself in camouflage, running in formation, hiding in the woods, and wonders what kind of disadvantage he may be at in blending in with the surroundings. He’s a big man, easier to see. That can’t be good. But who’s shooting?

He hasn’t been swayed toward this army idea, but when he imagines college or a job, nothing comes to him and he hears his father’s low voice in his head: “A paycheck, free post living, free food, free school.” Dax thinks, How can everything in the military be free? When was the last time we really got into a fight? Vietnam? Iraq? Does Iraq count? A few days of bombs. Night-vision tracers on CNN. A falling refrigerator.

Dax has fired a gun once outside Watertown with his WWII army vet grandpa, who has also been pushing the military route. Empty beer bottles near a creek in autumn. He remembers the silver revolver, the bunny-eared rear sights, the fierce percussion, and the still-standing bottles. His grandpa’s voice—“Fun, isn’t it?”—and Dax thinking it was something, but fun?

Dax snaps out of his dream when a lifted truck pulls into the spot next to his car and someone jumps out. The person races in front of the truck’s headlights, then jerks the Camry’s back door open and reaches inside. Dax stands and starts walking back, and by the time he’s close enough to see clearly, a man towers over Alston, punching and punching, and Janelle, pantless, is at the man’s back, tearing at his neck and face. Dax’s body comes alive, and he races across the field and lunges at the man, but Dax is thrown off and he feels a punishing pounding on his face and chest. He tries to rise but can’t. The man lifts a grunting Alston from the pavement and rams Alston’s head into the Camry’s door. Janelle lies in the first cut of grass holding her stomach, her naked lower half kicking at the sky. The man walks over to Janelle, pulls her up by her hair, walks her to the truck, throws her in, and leaves.

Dax’s chest burns; rocks dig at his back. Alston moans.

“Al-ston,” Dax says, trying to find his lungs. “Alston.”

“Shut the motherfuck up.”

Dax touches his body, but everything is too new to know anything. He goes to his knees, then stands and staggers over to Alston, who drags himself up into the passenger seat.

“Drive to my house,” Alston says.

“What the fuck, Alston?”

“Conley, that sorry-ass, messed-up dick. I’m killing that motherfucker.” Alston says this calmly, and Dax worries that he might be telling the truth. Dax flicks on the interior lights and sees Alston’s inflating face.

“Call the cops, A,” Dax says.

“Drive to my house. I’m not asking.”

“I’m calling the cops.”

Dax reaches for the keys in the ignition.

“Fine. Listen, you won’t see me after tonight.”

“What?”

“Don’t call anyone.”

“What?”

“Stop and listen to me.”

Dax has his hand on the key but doesn’t turn it. He stares at Alston, who seems transformed, happy.

“Give me a sec.” Quiet everywhere, then the soft sounds of traffic a couple blocks over. Alston touches his own arms and neck, then smirks.

“You’re not gonna see me after now. I knew it was coming.”

“What?”

“Shut up and listen. That dude should’ve killed me.”

“Alston, don’t be crazy.”

Alston shakes his head. He pulses his hands into fists, in and out, in and out, each time slower than the next.

“Damn, he’s a tough fuck,” Alston says. “Didn’t see that coming.” He laughs. “Okay, all right. Okay. Thinking. I’m thinking. Just sit here for a bit.”

“Alston.”

Alston slaps his face and blinks three times. His eyes narrow and Dax wonders if he’ll cry.

“Okay, brother. Here it is. If you go into the army, shoot first. Prison is better than dead.”

“What? Calm down. Calm down.”

“You aren’t listening, Dax. Listen for a sec.”

“Fine.”

“Be a medic or something, but if you get a gun, shoot that motherfucker. If ever in doubt, shoot first. Prison is a ton better than dead or paralyzed or no arms or eyes or whatever.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“And one more thing.”

“We’re not fighting anyone.”

“And one more thing. Listen. You’re not going to see me again.”

“Sure.”

“And one more thing.”

“What?”

“I forgot.”

“Fuck you, A.”

“Don’t worry about me. I know you will,” Alston says. He opens the door, stumbles into the night, and disappears around the corner of the gym.

When he arrives home, Dax steps into his living room. His father and his father’s girlfriend, Angela, sit on a blue leather couch.

“I’m okay,” Dax says before they can ask.

“You don’t look so bad,” says Angela, a fortyish brunette whom Dax believes is too good for his father. She likes her martinis, but she’s well-spoken and even dragged Dax’s father to a couple of Dax’s basketball games. “Did you take an elbow during the game?”

Dax sees himself for the first time in the living room mirror and realizes that Angela is right: he appears fine, with only a scratch on his left temple and a black mark on his red T-shirt.

“Dax, sit down,” his father says. “I was just finishing this story. You won’t believe it.”

“I’m tired, Pop,” Dax says. “Alston’s out of his mind. Got the shit kicked out of me. I’m headed to bed.”

“Here’s the story, honey. Someone called him the n-word on the golf course,” Angela says.

“Angela, please.”

“But you’re white,” Dax says. He touches his stomach, surprised there’s no pain.

“No shit. That’s the point. How does that make sense? There weren’t any black guys around. And even then.”

“It doesn’t make sense,” Angela says.

“Who was it?” Dax says.

“Another golfer,” she says. “What do you say to that?”

“I should’ve laughed, I guess. I don’t know. Bizarre.”

“So what’s the point?” Dax says.

“There’s no point, honey,” Angela says. “People don’t know how to speak.”

“I’m white,” Dax’s father says.

“It doesn’t matter,” she says.

“I don’t know.”

“Okay.”

Angela reaches out and holds Dax’s father’s hand.

“I’m sorry,” she says.

“Why are you sorry?”

“It’s just I’d be sorry for anyone being called that.”

“It shouldn’t mean anything.”

“Well.”

“To me, I mean,” Dax’s father says. “I don’t know.”

“It doesn’t mean anything. It can matter to you but not mean anything.”

“I was playing golf. Wild.”

Dax waves good night, walks down the hallway to the bathroom, pisses, brushes his teeth, inspects himself in the mirror, washes his face, walks to his room, undresses, and climbs into bed. He glances at the Cindy Crawford poster on his wall before turning off his bedside light. He touches his forehead and runs his fingers through his hair, finding, then flicking away a piece of gravel. His chest lifts and depresses. In a weird way, he wishes he was more badly hurt; maybe then he’d have the courage to call the cops. He runs his fingers along his rib cage twice, then down his sides to his hips. Alston’s stupid, but Dax doesn’t believe he’s kill-someone stupid, so he has no one to save, as long as Alston saves Janelle.

Dax shifts to his left side and wonders how Alston will break Janelle out. He imagines a near future with Alston and Janelle at the local bus ticket counter, wild and nervous, and then the dim, southbound Greyhound filled with grim-faced nocturnals with little to lose. He knows Key West is near Miami, but he’s not clear on exactly where Miami is, only that there’s water everywhere. He pictures a map of Florida, then alligators, then an island with high-walled mansions. He imagines Alston strolling around in a pink shirt serving drinks at a party and sneaking one for himself every time he refreshes his tray.

What Dax can’t imagine as he drifts off to sleep is what will actually happen — that he’ll receive a postcard from Alston nine years from now, and on the front a photo of a mountain lake with an island golfing green right in the middle of the water. On the bottom: Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. And the handwritten words on the back: Yeah, Idaho. Shoot first. A. Closing his eyes on his dark room, Dax can’t fathom that he’ll receive the postcard in Afghanistan on his second tour there, or that later, on a dirt plain, he’ll peer through his rifle’s scope as a girl sprints toward him. So tonight he visualizes Alston in Florida; Janelle on a beach in a two-piece bathing suit; hurt Janelle in the night grass holding her stomach, her long naked legs, somehow inviting and cursed; Notorious B.I.G.; Janelle in a well-lit, cavernous store, an ELECTRONICS sign overhead.

She stands at the keyboards, alone. She’s picked a new model with a large CASIO on the side, and she turns the volume up and presses middle C over and over. Using just her right hand, she keeps to the white keys first, “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” then “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” easy and boring but still magic, the connected sounds from her fingers; then she moves to the black keys, the tone shifting, somehow ominous and tender at once. She doesn’t recall a song for the black keys, so she presses each one in order, working her way left to right, then back down again. She starts into the one Nutcracker song she knows, “The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy,” playing slowly, biding her time. Every now and then she peeks over her shoulder for a ticked-off employee or a one-in-a-million keyboard seeker, but as always no one notices her, so she decides to stay and play until someone does.