PACIFIC GUNPLAY

I was just six, playing with sticks

Illustration by Felipe poveda

The hometown hero’s final rodeo.

Can he save his best friend?

He just has to get him on the plane headed East.

One more drink won’t hurt.

I. FIREWORKS

I never expected to hold my first gun in Idaho.

It was heavier and colder than I dreamt it would be. The moonlight caught my hand. I could see my tendons shifting as I caressed the barrel. I traced the underside along its curve and to the magazine. They designed it to be held one way and I resisted the urge to do so.

We were in a motel parking lot in Coeur d’Alene.

Red. White. Blue. The colors ran like wet ink. They bled into the dark water of the night sky. The air smelled of smoke. It rattled with pops and sizzles. In the street behind us, there were honks and hollering, beer bottles being smashed. An upside-down lawn chair was strewn in the bushes beside our parked cars. The balconies above us were empty. Only silhouettes gliding behind the curtains, backlit.

My phone vibrated in my pocket.

In front of me were two men with buzz cuts swinging at one another, and two curly haired men trying to keep them apart. When the gun was wrestled away from the shortest one, it was handed to me, and I was instructed to keep it from everyone. This was because I was their guest of honor.

I had just met three of the four men 48 hours ago. They were two duos of best friends.

The taller combatant was pinned down by the one man I did know. The shorter one escaped the restraint of his own detainer and instead of taking advantage of his enemy lying on the ground—he turned and ran towards me.

I hopped on to the open bed of a truck, one leg springing up the other. I did not trust my hands with anything but handling their cargo.

“Give ME my FUCKING GUN BACK!”

I raised the gun high over my head as he tried to climb up. Then I kicked him square in his spit covered jaw.

A new round of fireworks began. I knew I could make the shot blend in with the pops. Or I could wait until the sizzle and make it stand out. Just once.

After all—they designed it to be used one way: to give final answers.

But they didn’t tell you which questions to use it for.

II. ARRIVALS

Leo was my host. He picked me up from Seattle’s airport two days before.

The car was rattling with hi hats and bass as I turned towards it, still putting my sweater on. I peeked in the window and felt the contagion of his grin spreading on my own face. I tossed my bag in the back seat and sat in the passenger seat, twisting to slap his back as he slapped mine. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and we both put our visors down as the off ramp took us straight into the morning sun.

We had met two years before, in Washington D.C. I trained him to take over my role. We were lobbying interns for a big tech company. Which meant we were check runners. My training consisted of telling him where to sit in the office at what time, so that you could pretend to do work without anyone looking over your shoulder. And how to fill our 30 second slot in the weekly team meeting.

Once a day we would be handed envelopes with addresses, and we would stretch out these drop offs into several hour-long excursions through the swamp. By the time we made it back, most of our colleagues were long gone. They had done their time in public service.

Leo came in with a Latino last name, upright posture, a prominent dimple on the right, and wire rimmed glasses. In other words, I was looking at a mirror.

On his first day, he had on a crisp white dress shirt, and an immaculately knotted tie (dark blue with little golden diamonds). He slotted in the desk next to me and began peppering me with questions, the sweat tracing a clean line down his sideburns. His long fingers alternated between stroking the tip of his tie upwards, and then patting it down. I noticed his thumb bent inhumanly backwards, and he explained it as a football injury.

It took three days before I got him to graduate to polos. At drinks after the first week, we laughed at how our boss, despite being Colombian, looked visibly strained when we spoke Spanish to him. Neither of us found it strange that we would interrupt our conversations to call our long distance girlfriends.

My Political Science friends were busy that summer, slaving away at campaigns, legislative work, and nonprofits. Some were unpaid. Even the well compensated made a fraction of my salary. I’d undo their work everyday—brandishing an envelope from my back pocket and handing it wordlessly to a receptionist chewing gum and drawing on post-its.

While I wrote poems (turning my brightness down) or jammed around in a design file with my computer science best friend (turning my brightness up) Leo researched the various causes our company was advocating for.

He would peel back the layers of bills and hearings and press releases and gossip. It stung me to see his face fall as he learned time and time again that we were on the wrong side. When he would mutter to himself, I would tell him that he should study the how. How to win.

“Money?”

“Money.”

“But what’s the point of money, if you’re using it to ruin everyone’s lives?”

“Well, let’s just get it and spend it on the right things.”

We were only together for three weeks, as I had to return for my senior year. He took a semester off his junior year to stay through the winter.

Before I handed in my laptop, I wrote down the email of the boss—everyone’s boss, the guy who started the whole thing. I met him at the beginning of the summer, when we were prepping him for his Congressional hearing. He had a tattoo of a queen chess piece on his forearm, a beard that entered the room before him, ate only a steamed vegetable plate once a day, walked two hours to work, and went on a month long no electronics/no speaking retreat in Southeast Asia. He was worth the GDP of several small countries.

When we took a break from the murderboard, everyone dispersed to go to the bathroom or get snacks. I walked up to him to ask him about his time at NYU. I could feel the eyes of the room on my back but he answered me as if I was the only one around. His eyes would dart back and forth, too alive to stay put. We discovered that we lived in the same freshman year dorm.

Years later he would be my first big investor. All my check carrying was boomeranged back to me. His cut arrived by messenger. He did not trust any financial tool that was not his own. How he ran two companies at once I never knew, as I almost was driven to insanity by running one.

Leo and I grew our friendship through text but did not see one another again for another year and a half. We were both single by then. I appreciated that he didn’t ask me to elaborate, and I extended him the same courtesy. He did explain to me that he finally made the switch over to contacts the month before.

We would reunite in Miami. He was celebrating his graduation. A spot in a Chicago law school awaited him in the fall. I was celebrating finally quitting my job. My computer science best friend and I decided to go for it. If we knew what awaited us we probably never would have jumped off the cliff, but only the young have the courage to put their wings to the test.

The Miami weekend was well…a Miami weekend. It was worth the price.

Then two weeks later, we reunited once more, this time in Austin.

While on a rooftop in Sixth Street, we heard pops from the crowd below. Thinking it was a motorcycle backfiring, or fireworks, we continued to play beer pong. Our dental student friend who lived in Baltimore ran for the edge of the roof.

“Those were gun shots.”

“Shut the fuck up Adrian. Those weren’t gun shots.”

They were gun shots.

The second round of pops and the screams confirmed this. We rushed down the stairs, nearly being crushed in a stampede through the alleyways.

The next morning, Leo was interviewed on national television. He had helped point out to paramedics where the victims were lying. A biker duel gone wrong, two dead, fourteen injured. He took the call at the table of our hotel room—with our whole group on the other side of his computer, taking shots, jumping up & down, flashing him.

We partied the day & night away, this time on Rainey. While rocking back and forth on a set of egg-shaped chairs in a back patio, clinking beers, he leaned in and told me I should spend July 4th with him. He was planning a big blowout with his hometown friends and he wanted me to meet them. After a couple shots at the bar, I booked my ticket beside him and we high fived. A couple more shots and he stood leaning against the bar, letting his legs slide out away from him, as he chewed on his straw. Both of our heads were rolling lazily side to side at inconsistent intervals.

“Are you nervous about going back? I thought you always did. Go back.”

“No I do. I was just there. But…it’s different.”

“Why?”

“My best friend, my boy I told you about. Max. He’s getting ready to graduate and I want to make sure he, he sticks to the plan. The plan I, we made.”

“What plan?”

“Fuck, bro.”

“What?”

“To leave. Yakima.”

“Why does that… is that a plan?”

He stood all the way up and looked to the side, towards the bride to be on the mechanical bull. Then he nodded.

“Why?”

He curled his nose, as if preventing a sneeze.

“It’s...”

He paused for a long time, looking up at the stars, through the canopy of trees and high-rises.

“He just has to leave.”

The next morning I woke up in the hotel room we shared. The blinds were wide open, so the headache began immediately. I relieved the dry mouth with the coconut water my past self had left on the night table. I checked my phone and swiped immediately.

It was her.

We dated for a year in high school and broke up. We broke up because her parents did not let her date, for I was not of her religion. We then dated for all four years of college, long distance, in secret. We broke up a year before, around graduation, because her parents found out. The night they found out, she called me from a stranger’s phone in the parking lot of a Whole Foods. I pulled up in my car, speeding ticket in the cup holder next to me, and she was there, in her pajamas, with no shoes or socks on. The asphalt was still warm from the day. She was chewing on a mechanical pencil, and had a bruise on her forearm. The bathroom window, she explained.

She told me to take us to the airport, so that we could fly away and elope.

I drove on the highway while talking to my parents on speaker. Her parents had knocked on their door and demanded to know where their daughter was. She hung up my phone and told me to take the exit for the airport or else we would not end up together. I stared at the dotted white lines, until they turned solid. At the last moment, I turned the steering wheel right but the car in the lane next to us honked and I veered back. We passed the exit and I drove her to her parents.

I thought we could do it the right way.

Like all long relationships, the breakup was slow motion. We had last spoken three months before, when she told me she was doing a research opportunity in Rochester for the summer, to strengthen her med school application.

Her text asked me if I was going to be home for July 4th. Her parents were going away for a couple nights.

I knew I could still cancel the flight to Seattle within the 24 hour window. Leo stirred in his sleep, switching sides—from facing away from me, to now nesting his head in his hand in my direction, nuzzling it and then humming once. I remembered the timbre of his voice from the night before.

I deleted her text message.

I went back to Houston, where my best friend and I had moved to save money as we built our company. We settled into a steady, desperate rhythm once we were confronted with the void of getting a business off the ground. We worked 12 hour days and it was never enough. There was a heavy air in the room where we sat back to back, with whiteboards all around us, covered in half erased ink, circles, underlines.

All our initial investor contacts had ghosted us, our own friends weren’t using our app and the thousands we spent on influencers resulted in a tiny number of downloads. The day I left, my best friend asked me why I thought it was a good idea to be leaving now. I told him it was a holiday weekend. He said he planned on working all the way through. We had a silent car ride to the airport when he dropped me off.

She texted me again as I was in the security line.

“Hey. How are you?”

I deleted it as I stood on the bridge, roller bag in hand. The pilots were flicking switches in the cockpit. I kept my head turned out the window the entire flight, and pretended to sleep when the flight attendants came around. By the time we were heading down, my hair was a curly mess, from my running my hands through it. It was only when the plane bathed us in the clouds that I leaned back. There was a weekend promised.

III. DRIVING UNDER THE

Leo asked me to reach in his glove compartment for napkins and I was greeted by a pair of Jack Daniel’s shooters. This 10am whiskey made our 10:30am Dick’s burgers taste heavenly.

We leaned against his car and let the patty drip all over the crinkly white and blue paper. I stared at the spinning Dick’s sign as Leo licked his fingers. He explained that this was his first job and his manager from high school wrote him a rec to get into the University of Washington.

We stopped at the earliest opening liquor store. I asked him if the Seattle rain was due to make an appearance soon. As he placed the Blue Label on the counter, he stayed my hand which was reaching for my wallet.

“You’re my guest. Don’t even try.”

I smiled and he continued, telling me that he made a call to the people running the weather machine to hold the drizzle back. This was our favorite conspiracy.

It was not until the following day, as we got in his car and the skid plate dragged and sparked all the way to Yakima, that I had time to look through my camera roll and piece together what happened after we drove off from the liquor store and stopped at the Space Needle to take pulls.

He played a song on repeat the entire hour ride, to drown out the noise of his injured car. It started with a high pitched, euphoric humming. Leo said the song was playing when he found me at a random table, my eyes closed and my head resting on the shoulder of a woman. It did sound familiar. Like a lullaby. Like I remember the girl’s hair smelling. Absolution. Like what I was too afraid to ask for—so I pretended I didn’t believe in it anymore.

I’d rather be up with you

I’d rather be up with you

PHOTO ONE

A selfie of Leo and I at the local University of Washington bar.

We were in matching black hoodies, the big purple W outlined by a golden trim and in the middle, the proud husky looking off into the distance. We were sitting on stools—behind us the bartender was a green bandana wearing blonde girl in overalls smiling as she held up two glasses. She was framed by TVs and a dart board in the distance. Leo told me I had bought us the hoodies. We crossed the street from the library so he could show me where he would avoid studying for exams.

PHOTO TWO

Leo’s outstretched hand millimeters away from the famous gum wall.

PHOTO THREE

The clock tower at Public Market. I had a feeling I had taken this to send to my mother. Upon reviewing our messages I saw that indeed I had. She had sent me two pink hearts + the blushing face, and told me to enjoy & be safe.

PHOTO FOUR

Christine and Leo clinking together mugs at a brewery.

The large barrels, stacked three high, in the background and Christine pouting at the camera as Leo stuck his tongue out, brows furrowed. Christine was a bubbly, fast talking Vietnamese girl with immaculate lashes and nails. Leo told me that him and Christine had become fast friends freshman year, and then had drunkenly hooked up on a spring break trip to Cabo the year before. He had brought it up once. She pretended not to hear him. Last night, apparently, she was the one laughing about it.

He asked me if I thought she was hiding feelings for him. I tried to jog my memory. I remember Christine showing me lots of pictures of her dog, an old Pomeranian. We also talked about how she was gunning to be a food influencer full time. I didn’t remember her bringing Leo up at all. She said I reminded her so much of Max. Same height, same smile, same childish oscillation—either bright & playful or intensely withdrawn. She predicted we would either hit it off instantly or hate each other.

Don’t want to make the fall

I’d rather be up with you

I’d rather be up with you

Don’t want to risk it all

I’d rather be up with you

I’d rather be right there

PHOTO FIVE

There were five people in this photo, four of whom I did not recognize right away.

Leo was in the center, laughing. He had the kind of laugh where he opened his mouth wide before emitting a sound.

That was Shane and Christian on either side of him, Madison and Julie on either side of them. Shane was a California surfer, long blonde hair, lanky. Breezy, with a CFO dad. He had just come back from doing an Ironman on Hermosa Beach. The catch was that you had to drink a beer after every segment, so him and his brother ingested blue food coloring to make it picturesque. Christian was a Colorado Mexican, who didn’t speak a lick of Spanish. Tight v-neck t-shirt on a muscular frame, former frat star. They were holdovers from Leo’s time majoring in Finance before he switched to Political Science. There was a massive pride flag on the wall behind them, and multicolored pinball machines they were leaning on. Madison and Julie were also Wash U friends, stopping by for one drink.

PHOTO SIX

A woman’s hand, baby blue almond nails with orange spirals, pressing into a bronze mold of a bigger hand. Underneath this mold were the words “MACKLEMORE WAS HERE.” I lost it at this. Leo informed me that I similarly could not stop laughing when I encountered this in person. It pissed the bartender off.

PHOTO SEVEN

Leo hunched over a table with a pen in hand, writing on the bar’s postcard. It was his tradition to write and mail his mom a postcard wherever he found them.

PHOTO EIGHT

Shane and Christian doing a money spread with vacuum sealed bags of weed on their forearms.

Leo slapped his forehead and then pulled out a vape from his shirt pocket and told me I had given this to him at some point. He informed me that most of the weed was for Max.

PHOTO NINE

A viewpoint off a cliff that oversaw most of Seattle. Christine was sitting on a broad pale stone rolling a joint, as Shane stood next to her, pointing out at the setting sun. Leo told me him and Christian were off to the side, talking about Max. Christian had only met Max a few times, but Christian had gone to see Max DJ at a few venues in East Washington. He told Leo that Max should stick to the music thing. Leo said that was what he always told him.

PHOTO TEN

The photos were blurry now. It was me with another woman I didn’t recognize, but who looked awfully like Christine. We were in line for a club, the sun still holding on to its final embers. I was snarling, and the girl was throwing up the peace sign. Leo informed me that was Christine’s cousin, Vanessa.

Don’t want to make the fall

I’d rather be up with you

I’d rather be up with you

Don’t want to risk it all

I’d rather be up with you

I’d rather let you take me higher

PHOTO ELEVEN

Vanessa taking a selfie with me at the bar. My eyes were red and low. I was wearing a name tag that said HELLO I AM A HUMAN! Leo informed me that I had struck up a conversation with a group of Amazon employees who were gathering signatures for a petition. When I told them the startup I had just quit, their eyes went wide as they recounted to me the news I already knew. The startup had just raised a round at quadruple the valuation. My options would have been worth six figures plus if I stuck it out six months longer.

PHOTO TWELVE

I could barely discern this photo. Christine and Vanessa were in a state of flailing limbs and open mouths on the floor. Leo said this was the aftermath of an attempted piggy back ride.

PHOTO THIRTEEN

A rooftop bar with string lights, pinned on the dark blue sky. A tall black man in a pink, too-tight suit jacket was pointing at Shane, who was puking over the edge.

PHOTO FOURTEEN

A border collie staring up at me, tongue wagging, with a red bandana around his neck.

Your love has got me rich and blind and high

I won’t survive the fall

How about we stay a bit tonight?

Cause I need it

PHOTO FIFTEEN

An iPhone open to FaceTime. A curly haired, mustached blonde man with a strong jawline, his fist up, had a smile stretched way across his face. He was shirtless. We were in a club. This was Max, who picked up Leo’s call on the first ring.

PHOTO SIXTEEN

Leo tying Vanessa’s shoes. Christine’s curled fingers framed the shot, forming a heart around the scene.

PHOTO SEVENTEEN

I had to turn the phone sideways to make out any of this photo. It was dimly lit, and there were two faces huddled close together. I recognized my glasses. It was her selfie. I could only make out thick winged eyeliner.

PHOTO EIGHTEEN

In the back of the very car we were now driving in, Leo was turned towards the camera, McDonalds burger in hand passing me some fries. Christian was in the front seat driving. Apparently, Vanessa had started crying on my shoulder and the fries were for her.

PHOTO NINETEEN

Leo’s hands covering his face, fingers spread out, pulling his eyelids open, his mouth agape, as he crouched down, the car’s headlights directly on him. Christian was standing beside him scratching his beard. Vanessa and Christine were leaning against one another. Apparently the girls had been sitting on our laps, as we had agreed to take a random friend home who we ran into at McDonalds. Christian was speeding and ran over a median as if it wasn’t there. Everyone popped up and became acquainted with the ceiling of the car. The car’s underside became acquainted with the road.

Nothing’s everlasting

But if we keep on dancing

We don’t have to talk it out

Fire turns to ashes

The deeper you feel the truth

The harder you’ll come crashing down

We were meant to go straight from Seattle to Cheney the next day, but we had to hit a pit stop in Yakima to trade Leo’s car with his father’s.

As we pulled into Yakima’s city limits, the roads began to slope and wind. They were carved into the valley.

I saw endless fields of hops and apples and grapes. The landscape was teeming with blades, tractors, and dotted with workers in large hats. As we pulled into a long suburban street, every house a freshly painted pastel colored two story with a chimney, a man resembling Leo, with a salt and pepper beard and a paunch, stood watering his lawn. We pulled into the driveway and he shook his head.

“What the fuck happened Leo?”

He turned to me as I got out of the car.

“Excuse my language. I don’t normally greet my son’s friends like this. But just, wow.”

Leo raised his voice,

“You don’t know how pissed I am dad.”

It was a traffic cone that got wedged under the car, as it careened off a truck on the highway. Unavoidable. I nodded along. Leo’s father accepted enough effort was put into this lie that he could pretend to buy it. He crossed his arms and then flicked back with his big hand.

“Your mom’s inside with some food.”

He grunted and then slowly lowered himself to inspect the damage. Leo whisked me away. A golden retriever greeted us with a full body wag at the door. Leo kneeled down and let her lick his face clean. She tried to jump up on me and I found myself doing a little shuffle with her, her paws in my hands.

Leo’s mother was the one who gave him those warm eyes. She made us sit down and fixed us a bowl of pozole. Along with her endless stream of questions about my background, something wound tight in my chest began to loosen.

She grabbed my hand and thanked me for being such a good friend to Leo. I thought back to how Leo helped us get our first two hundred users, as he walked around Wash U’s campus recruiting beta testers.

I excused myself to the bathroom and was directed upstairs. On the way there, I passed by Leo’s room. His white door had his name on it in big wooden letters, arranged in an alternating tilt. I poked my head in and saw a trophy cabinet take up most of the wall beside the big window to the backyard where clothes were hanging to dry.

To the left was a cork board filled with newspaper clippings, Leo in football pads with black undereye tape in most of the photos:

“YAKIMA’S HOMETOWN HERO WINS DISTRICT CHAMPIONSHIP”

“THE VALLEY’S YOUNG HOPE”

“VALEDICTORIAN’S GOAL? GIVE BACK TO COMMUNITY THAT RAISED HIM”

“YAKIMA’S FINEST IS HEADED WEST ON A FULL RIDE!”

When I made it back downstairs, Leo was chatting with his parents, his mother drying her hands on a kitchen towel, and his dad chewing on a toothpick.

“So did Max make up his mind yet?” his dad barked.

“I mean pretty much, he’s a-uh yes, he just has to let his dad know when he comes home next weekend.”

“Good. Good.”

“I hope he goes. I love the idea of you two moving in together. Being in a new city like that can be a lot.” his mom said.

“Talking about Max?” I asked.

“Yes. My Max.” Leo’s mom’s cheeks bounced up at the mention of his name.

“Those two were trouble since they met.”

His dad recounted to me their friendship in vignettes. Sixth grade homeroom, where it all started. Leo the star athlete, Max the star musician. Max lived around the block and would give Leo rides to high school in his dad’s car until Leo got his own senior year. Max covered for Leo one time, when he was caught smoking weed behind the school, telling Leo’s mom it was part of a dare. Leo covered for Max one time, when Max was caught hooking up with a girl in the forest behind their school, pretending to be Max’s dad on the phone when the principal called home.

“The only difference between them two is that Max thinks too much with his other head.” His dad cracked his first smile. His wife pushed his shoulder.

“Yea, Max is a real player.” Leo said.

“I don’t know why. He could have a nice girlfriend. I think it would do him good.” His mom shook her head.

“Well you know, after the whole thing with Katie, he never really got over it. But last month he told me he was seeing this one girl, so who knows. We’re gonna find out.”

Leo pursed his lips and there was a lull in the conversation as everyone looked around the floor. Leo’s mom grabbed our cups and refilled them with water from the fridge.

Leo looked at his phone.

“We should go. We promised them we’d be there before 5.”

I hugged his parents. His mom asked me what I’d like her to make us when we got back in two days. I told her I was not worth that trouble, but she did get out of me a love for al pastor tacos. She held my head in both her hands for a moment. Then she said to say hello to Max for her.

We jimmied the baby seat out of his dad’s minivan. As we moved our red Marlboro duffel of weed from the old car to the new one, Leo discovered his skateboard behind his dad’s golf clubs. I recorded a video of him attempting a kick flip until he finally landed one. He looked up at me, his eyes expectant, childlike.

We were back out on the road. A chili burger in a diner nestled between the mountains gave us our final recharge. Leo wouldn’t stop laughing at the giant ketchup stain on his rugby shirt’s collar. A bottle of Tito’s grew warm in our laps, shuffling back and forth, dribbling down our chins. We arrived at Wazzu with our fangs wet.

IV. WELCOME TO CHENEYLAND

“What is Max studying?”

“Comms. He flunked out of Marketing.”

“Hmm. Is that what he’s gonna do in Chicago? A...comms job?”

It occurred to me I didn’t know the career path for that major.

“I mean he just needs any kind of job for now but yea. I’ve been trying to get him to apply to a bunch. I send him links all the time. He says he’s been applying but… I doubt it.”

I stared straight out ahead, knowing Leo would continue.

“He’s just his own worst enemy you know. He’s actually really smart. But he procrastinates. He smokes all day, or he parties. He doesn’t even work on his music as much.”

“What kind of music does he make?”

“R&B. It’s actually pretty good bro. And I’m not just saying that cause he’s my boy. Last year he sold out a couple shows at the bars in Cheney.”

He thumbed through his phone to put on a track. It began with a glittery piano and a gentle percussion joined in.

You captivate me

You my only craving

Guess what my baby?

I love it when you train me

When you wake me

And you say

You better obey me

Then you make me

Feel real shaky

Real real shaky

Please don’t play me

Please don’t play me

I just wanna talk

It’s me, myself and my Glock

What good is the top

If you’re not?

“This is Max?”

“Yeah.”

Leo had a way of drawing out the Y in his Yeas like it was dragging on the floor, hissing from his bottom teeth. It was the affirmative of affirmatives.

“Wow. He is good.”

“I know. He knows it but he doesn’t take it seriously enough.”

I looked at Leo, his hands gripping the steering wheel tightly. The road ahead was empty, except for a dot in the distance. We were zooming into a postcard of the Pacific.

“To be fair. He’s been doing more live streaming lately.”

“Live streaming?”

“Yea. He started doing these skits on TikTok and they blew up. Then he started live streaming cause TikTok is paying people so much. Last month he made almost two grand.”

“What does he do on the live stream?”

“He’s the type of guy that always has someone over at his apartment, so he’ll just sit there with people and they’ll talk about anything. He can make anything interesting. And it helps that he’s got so many absolute baddies as guests.”

“Why do you want him to get out of Yakima so badly?”

Leo looked over at me for the first time.

“Why do you ask it like that?”

“Because you’ve got this, I don’t know, intensity about wanting him out. But from what I just saw, it doesn’t look too bad. Your parents seem happy. They said your brother and his wife are happy there.”

“Max is different. Yakima. It’s not him. Or… it’s too him.”

I tilted my head and looked at the mountain we were passing. It was covered in a dense forest, the fog covering its very tip.

Leo stepped on the gas to overtake a logging truck that was crawling ahead. When we went around it, he looked in the rearview mirror.

“When Max was 15, his mom died of cancer. And it just, fucked something up inside him. He can’t stand being home. Whenever he’s in Yakima, he’s like a time bomb. He would get too bored there, he’d self destruct. It’s bad enough in Cheney. Yakima? There’s nothing to do, nowhere to go.”

“Nowhere to go.” I echoed his final words.

“Nowhere to go.”

As we entered the Cheney city limits, a squadron of three fire trucks roared past us, Leo pulling over to the dirt. As we pulled into Max’s apartment complex, I saw a plume churning in the distance. We climbed the outdoor steps to the third floor. Before knocking, I realized it was fields of dry grass on fire. The charred smell had been with us the whole time.

“Does that happen a lot?”

Leo shrugged as he rapped on the door. Then he talked, mostly to himself.

“Max hasn’t texted me back in three hours. He better not be…ou…w…fr.”

The door swung open and a wide, red-nosed Mexican with a crew cut opened it. He had on a paint speckled navy t-shirt, with a union’s crest on it.

“Look at this fucking guy.”

“Right back at ya brother.”

The two hugged tight.

“Who the fuck are you?”

The door opener pointed right at me, in my face.

“Nah I’m just fucking with ya. Leo told me all about you. Said you’re smarter than him. Not sure how that’s possible.”

He smelled like Polo Blue, and wore baggy dark jeans, white Air Forces. I liked him immediately. He was present, his voice trustworthy. As we walked into the kitchen, he opened the fridge to grab us some beers and introduced himself as Marco.

“Look at this guy acting like he owns the place.”

Leo laughed as he dropped the duffel off in an open bedroom and closed the door.

I scanned the apartment. There was a large L couch. It probably started off as a light green but was now a brownish color, almost the same color as the carpet. A big red Wazzu Cougars flag above a TV that was perched precariously on a textbook stand. An uncovered air mattress and some ratty bean bags. Another crew cut man was laid up on the biggest bean bag, his shoes off, his white polo collar popped. He had the look of a pale mean dog, thin eyebrows, hooked nose, and was fixated on the baseball game he was playing on the TV.

“How about you introduce yourself J. Show some fucking manners.”

He paused the game but made no attempt to stand up. Leo smacked him on the side of the head as he said hello and he grabbed for Leo’s ankles, who skipped away. I nodded my head and motioned the neck of my beer.

“What’s up man. I’m Joaquin.”

He turned and continued playing. Leo and Marco looked at each other and shook their heads. Marco started telling me about his job as a repairman on power lines in Yakima. We were getting into some embarrassing Leo stories when there was a knock at the door.

“Probably the girls.”

“Where the fuck is Max?”

As Marco walked over to answer it, he threw over his shoulder,

“Said he was gonna run an errand like 15 minutes before you guys got here.”

“It better not be what I think it is,” Leo said to no one in particular.

I watched Joaquin strike out.

“Ohhhh who let this fat fuck in? Yosemite Sam.”

Marco poked a pearl button flannel wearing white boy in the stomach. The white boy had on a black bandana around his nose and mouth, a trucker hat on. He playfully feinted and then stepped in to drop off his pack of Miller Lite on the kitchen table. Behind him followed a black cat of a woman— sure, blonde hair & blue eyes, but black top, black skirt, a heavy black eye and dark cherry nails. She let the door frame hold her for a moment, then slinked in, and kissed Marco on the cheek.

“Hey S, how you doing girl?”

“Wade, this is my boy Levi I was telling you about. The one I met in DC, went to NYU. This is Wade, and his girlfriend Sierra.”

Wade undid his bandana and I shook his firm, calloused hand. I waved at Sierra, who waved quickly then wove her fingers through a colorful beaded strap, bringing her phone up to her face. Wade asked me what I was drinking. Without waiting for my response, he asked me if I was a dirty liberal. I said I didn’t know for how much longer I believed in any kind of politics and he pulled out a beer from his back pocket and tapped it again my own, said he could get behind that answer. Sierra rolled her eyes behind Wade.

Wade asked me to sit next to him on the couch and give him investment advice. He kept calling me New York. We started talking about index funds, dollar cost averaging, then graduated to crypto and finally, he asked me if my startup was looking for investors. He gulped down a big chug of beer, let out a burp and didn’t let me answer before saying he was down to put in a couple grand if it could help, because Leo had spoken highly of me and looking me in the eye now he could tell I was doing big things. I stammered out that we weren’t raising yet but I would keep him in mind. He smiled and poked just above his ear, keeping his eyes on Joaquin’s baseball game on the TV.

“Keep me top of mind, cowboy.”

Sierra stood off to the side of the kitchen table, sipping a seltzer and scrolling through her phone, until Leo brought her into the conversation by asking her about her friend.

“Oh now you’re asking about her? Last time you were Mr. Too Cool.”

“Whoa whoa, I’m just being friendly.”

Leo smiled as he put his arms and hands up.

“Mhmmm. Well it’s too late, she’s got a guy now. They’re pretty serious.”

“What’s serious for Lindsay? He texted her back within the week?”

Marco laughed as Sierra scowled at him. She asked Wade where the speaker was, and without looking up, he reached behind his head, over the couch cushion and we heard the startup noise. He returned to resting his beer and hands on his stomach.

He told Joaquin to throw a slider on the next pitch. Joaquin ignored him and the batter hit a double. Wade told him to throw a curveball on the next batter and Joaquin threw a fastball and it cost him another base hit.

Now over the sound of some early 2000s hip hop, Wade told Joaquin to throw a fastball on this hitter. Joaquin asked him if he wanted to play, raising his voice and pausing the game. Wade shrugged and said no, he’d rather watch. He didn’t look at Joaquin. Joaquin chewed the inside of his cheek as he pressed play. He threw a fastball, the batter popped a fly and that ended the inning.

“So you live here?”

“Me? No. None of us live here. Max lives here with Cody and Casey. I thought they would be here already.”

I looked over at Sierra who was swinging her hips slowly to the beat in the kitchen, as Marco put his fingers in his mouth and whistled to encourage her.

“She’s so goddamn sexy right?” Wade tapped my shoulder with his beer.

“Huh? Uh yea. Yea she’s, uh, a pretty girl man.”

“The prettiest. We’ve been dating since high school. Prom king and queen. Ever since I met her she walks around like her shit don’t smell. I love it.”

The door summoned us once more.

“That better be Max.”

“Don’t count on it. You know what he’s up to.”

Wade readjusted his belt buckle. Leo looked at me then looked away quickly. Marco put an arm on his shoulder and whispered into his ear.

The door opened and a crowd of four streamed in. Two tall white boys, the skinniest and most freckled pair I’d ever seen with a similarly freckled pair of brunettes. The white boys entered doing whips and nae naes and the girls behind them dropped off packs of seltzers on the table. The girls greeted Sierra and immediately huddled.

“The twin towers. That’s what we call them. Wazzu’s nastiest golfers. If they weren’t high all the time I think they’d go pro.”

Wade had read my mind. The twin towers air humped Joaquin, then turned off the television before they came over to our corner.

“Yo yo yooooooo. You must be Levi? I’m Cody.”

“I’m Casey.”

They snapped their necks in unison, tracing something outside the window. Cody slid the balcony door to the side. I followed behind, leaving it open.

“Fuuuuck dude.”

We could see firefighters fighting the glowing blaze in the distance.

They produced beer bottles out of their pockets and proceeded to open them by smacking them on the balcony railing. Indentations littered the steel. A yellow and green braided pool chair held a chipped ceramic alligator ashtray filled to the brim with roaches.

“So this your first time in Cheney?”

“It’s my first time in Washington. I’ve only ever been to SF on the West Coast.”

“No wayyy.”

“Yes way.”

“How you liking it so far?”

I proceeded to show them the photo of Leo’s car. The two’s eyes widened and they slapped each other on the shoulder. We heard a commotion inside.

“Why are you going through Max’s room and Max’s shit?”

Marco was standing over Joaquin, who was holding a bag of weed and trying to move past him.

“He owes me anyways.”

“He doesn’t owe you shit.”

Everyone else was ignoring this encounter. I noticed Wade still on the couch, his bandana back on.

Sierra made for the front door and let in two girls she air kissed, a small Asian girl and a tall blonde. Marco and Joaquin tensed and turned. Leo greeted the girls, then Marco brought them over to me, the group standing at the open balcony door.

“This is my girlfriend Zoey.” I greeted the blonde with a handshake.

“And this is Joaquin’s girl Alyssa.” Alyssa leaned in and I gave her a peck on the cheek.

Joaquin walked past the girls and sat down in the pool chair, pulling out papers from a rusty toolbox beneath it I hadn’t noticed. Marco rolled his eyes and he escorted the girls back to the kitchen. Wade slotted into the bean bag and changed the TV to the Mariners game.

“Where’s Max at?”

Cody and Casey had produced a six iron that Casey was pretending to swing over his head at Cody.

“Oh he’s doing Max things.”

“He’ll be here soon.”

“You’re gonna love him.”

“Everyone loves him.”

“Everyone.”

This last comment came from Joaquin, who had rolled the joint in record time. He lit it, took a puff and handed it to me. I took my own long drag and then passed it to Cody.

“Why does everyone love him?”

“You’ll see.”

Cody blew his smoke in Casey’s face.

The music grew louder and better. I checked my phone and saw that she had texted me again.

“Are you mad at me?”

I deleted this message immediately, then turned off my phone and looked across through the balcony glass at the girls in the kitchen, hands up singing along. My eyes drifted to Leo, who was on his own phone. He had it up to his right ear, and plugged his left ear with his finger as he stepped into Max’s room.

“There he is.”

I followed Cody’s gaze to the road below us, the long stretch of asphalt flanked by pine trees. There was a golden hue emanating from across the field. I could see a navy mass darting, then turning into the apartment complex with a screech.

Leo exited Max’s room and excused himself through the girls as he reached into the cupboard for tiny solo shot cups. All green.

I didn’t even see Wade look up but he answered my question once more,

“ahh the St. Patty’s leftovers.”

My head was floating in a lazy river. I didn’t realize I was humming along to the song until it abruptly cut off.

The speaker restarted with a familiar sound. The 2016 hitmaker, who went 4 for 4 and then disappeared. His crooning rang out as the beat dropped.

My n****s stack they money just to spend it

Cause when you die you cannot take it with you

And if you ain’t beefin about no money what’s the problem?

Don’t worry about my n*****s cause I got ‘em

Everyone sang along, Cody grabbing me by the shoulder to sway with him and Casey. I raised my beer and it splashed all over us. This activated them, and they raised their voice and jumped up and down.

Then the music lowered gradually. I studied Sierra, who looked at Alyssa and dished out her locally famous eye roll.

Leo waved me in. I made it to the TV before the door burst open and the song returned louder than ever, as if the speaker discovered a new level.

What entered was less a person, more a force. I caught an open mouth, crooked bottom teeth, a thick light brown mustache, bright white t shirt. Arms downturned in a flex, then raised wide. I was part of a mosh with the guys, as the girls flung their drinks about, spraying the walls, the couch, our clothes.

Suddenly that force was bumping me chest to chest. At some point I had lost my beer and he put his own hands up as pretend mitts. I threw some hooks and jabs, then reciprocated as he boxed me with precision.

He wrapped his arm around me. We bobbed side to side, us in the middle of the circle, all the figures around us in a coordinated movement, and he screamed in my ear,

“WELCOME TO CHENEYLAND BABY!”

He continued as a tornado, ushering me into the kitchen to help him pour everyone shots and there was no need to tell me he was Max but he did anyways and said he had been dying to meet me and Leo had said I was the most ambitious person he had ever met which he couldn’t comprehend because Leo was the most ambitious person he ever met and he put a finger in my chest and said you better not be stealing him away from me with a big smile on his face. The song neared its end and he took his phone out and restarted it, shouting over the pandemonium as he told me that his house was my house and whatever I needed, drugs, alcohol, food, women, song requests, blood, drugs, clothes, car, money, oxygen, I could count on him.

We took two rounds of shots just me and him before we passed out the green cups to everyone. He stood in the middle of the room and put his arm up as everyone turned to him. I noticed the shaggy haired frontman tattooed on his wrist.

“CHEERS TO THE GUEST OF HONOR. LEVI...”

He turned to me and whispered, “what’s your last name?”

“Lopez.”

“CHEERS TO MOTHER. FUCKING. LEVI. LOPEZ. LET’S SHOW HIM HOW WE DO IN WAZZUUUUUU.”

His face contorted into the Scream mask, tongue out, eyes back as the U’s dragged on.

It wasn’t that shot that did me in. It was the vodka pull in the passenger seat of Max’s car. He kicked Leo out, said he wanted me upfront. The last thing I remember was how fast he was driving, in his slammed Civic with bronze rims and a rear wing. The fuzzy orange die on the rearview mirror. I remember looking down and realizing it was a manual car and being impressed by that. My eyes darted from the gearshift, to the large bruise on his thigh, right where his denim shorts rode up.

The next morning I awoke on the couch, Marco on the air mattress next to me, Joaquin on the bean bag and Leo on the other part of the couch, our feet nearly touching. Human Tetris.

I scrolled through my photos once more to jog the memory, and thanked my past self for planting a bottle of water near my head. I realized a song was playing faintly from someone’s phone, mixed in with a light snore. A country song, probably the only one I could name.

It was my phone.

Yea you used to talk about

Getting in further south

Somewhere where the summer lasted all year round

Probably got a big ole diamond on your hand right now

Maybe a baby or a couple by now

Long driveway to a big white house

PHOTO ONE

Leo on top of Max’s car, with Max alongside him. They were raising a WWE belt.

PHOTO TWO

Most of our crew on stage in a dimly lit honky tonk bar, leaning in to share the single mic Max was holding. Everyone stared up at a screen above them, except Leo who was looking at Max with a smile on his face and reaching over to grab the mic.

PHOTO THREE

A picture of Joaquin’s phone, open to a motorcycle zoomed in to the drive chain. I recalled him ambushing me in the corner as I returned from the bathroom and showing me his prized possession. It was pretty sick, a Ninja that was iced out, a light blue, with a large Mexican flag on the gas tank. My cousin in Long Island was a motorcycle mechanic and I promised him I’d try to hook him up with a part he was finding too expensive out here. I then remembered that he asked me if his lisp was obvious. I asked him what lisp? He didn’t believe me. He locked his phone and looked at me closely, before walking to the bathroom. When he came back he bought me a drink, just me and him.

PHOTO FOUR

Sierra with the widest, brightest smile, eyes looking to the side, bent forward at the waist. She was holding a glass cowboy boot filled with beer, pressed against her face, and as her brunette friend with the garnet leather vest mirrored her, her own boot half full.

But I wonder when you’re drinking

If you find yourself thinking

About that boy from East Tennessee

PHOTO FIVE

Max and Leo up there on stage alone, Leo’s arm around Max’s as they belted into the mic.

PHOTO SIX

Cody pointing at Casey who was peeing in front of a closed saloon style door.

PHOTO SEVEN

Marco with his shirt in hand above his head, twirling it as he ran around in an empty intersection. The girls in the corner laughing. Cody and Casey head butting one another as Wade took his own picture. Leo and Max nowhere to be found. Joaquin arms crossed under the stoplight.

PHOTO EIGHT

What looked like a pig sty. It was indecipherably dirty, filled with shoes, clothes, coolers, cans, rags, dip cans, buckets, tools. The floor was not visible. I had no idea what this was.

And I know we both knew better

But we still said forever

And that was seven summers of Coke and Southern Comfort

Were we dumb or just younger?

Who knows?

PHOTO NINE

Wade on a basketball court in front of a brick schoolhouse. He had on an EL PRESIDENTE hat that had five stars in an arc, and a wrinkly MILLER HIGH LIFE t shirt. Wade was showing us his frat house in its abandoned-for-the-summer glory.

PHOTO TEN

At first I thought this was a picture of Marco and Joaquin lying on the grass in front of the frat house, but upon closer inspection, it seemed that I was trying to inconspicuously take a picture of Leo and Max behind them. Max had his arms wide open, as if taking the world into his possession. Leo was looking out with him.

PHOTO ELEVEN

Marco and Max feeding their pizza slices to a couple of stray dogs behind a dumpster.

Back then you used to love the river

And sipping on a sixer with me

Does it ever make you sad to know

That was seven summers ago?

I stood gingerly and went to go catch my bearings on the balcony. Sitting in the pool chair, I could see that there were still firefighters out there, but the blaze looked like it was receding. I heard something inside and peered around the wall to a woman holding heels being escorted out by Max.

He joined me on the balcony.

“Dudeee. I was hoping someone would be up.”

“Barely.”

He pulled out a plastic toddler stool, its three legs different primary colors, from behind the pool chair. I offered to switch with him but he made a face of overacted rejection. I was hoping he would pull out a joint, and sure enough he did.

“How was your first night in Cheneyland homie?”

“Considering I don’t remember much, I’d say great.”

“That’s what I’m fucking talking about.”

He took a big hit, a fat one that had me wondering when it was going to end. And he ghosted it before dapping me up and handing it to me.

“You were on one last night.”

“Me?” I said coughing.

“Yea. You.” He said his yeas exactly like Leo.

“How so?”

“I didn’t know you knew your country like that.”

My face turned red at the thought of me belting out that song.

“I mean, just that one you know. Everyone knows that one. Not that I can sing.”

“Nah you had some pipes brother.”

He took another big hit. I looked out at the fire as he handed it back to me.

“What was up with that tall ginger? The one that came in at the end with her friend.”

“I don’t remember any ginger.”

“Bullshit. She had that little green scarf tied around her neck. You were going crazy for that, you kept telling me it was driving you wild. The scarf.” He was laughing by the end of this and I was too.

“Well what happened?” I was feeling weightless.

“She kept asking you to roll your Rs. But you wouldn’t stop talking about this other girl.” He scratched his ankle.

“Oh. Yea. I do that sometimes.”

“Me too. Not the best play.”

We broke out into a shared laugh again. I rejected another hit, and he went to work on finishing it as we continued to stare out.

“I got me one of those.”

“One of those?”

“You know. One of those. The one.” He motioned with his hand out at the field.

“I mean I don’t know, I don’t think this is the one. I hope not.”

“Believe me, man. Me neither. But I’m not sure that’s something we can control.”

I turned to look at him. He blew out and then turned to me.

“Do you think we can control that?”

“I don’t think about what I can and can’t control.”

“Smart man.”

He put out the remainder of the joint in the ash tray, then brushed his pale chest, and picked at a small mole on his top rib.

“So tell me about her.”

“Only if you do too.”

“Hey I probably shared enough about her last night.”

He laughed.

“You’re right. Also you’re welcome, cause I stopped you from texting her.”

I suddenly remembered the bruise. I tried to let my eyes drift over, but he had already placed his hand over it, as if he’d been waiting for me to look. He had on black mesh shorts, grey slides on his feet.

“There’s not much to say. Usually if there’s lots to say it’s cause…I don’t know. There’s like not anything else left.”

“Mhm.”

“I met her when I was 16. Right after my mom passed. She lives in Wapato. Little town on the reservation near Yak.”

He scratched the back of his left arm.

“Stormy girl. With these gorgeous green eyes.”

I continued looking at him, but I knew there was no way he was going to look at me.

“No one gets me like she does. But nobody believes that. They think she brings me down.” He motioned behind him, with a flick of the wrist and a yawn.

“She was supposed to get married last month, but I—she broke things off.”

“So you’re together?”

“Sort of. Not really.”

“What’s stopping you from being together?”

“Now that’s the million dollar question isn’t it?”

He finally turned to me and smiled. It was then that I noticed a painting over his shoulder, on the small piece of wall to the right of the balcony. If it came loose, it could fall to the bushes below. The background was a creamy, sunny sorbet haze and the woman in the painting was shades of yellow outlined in black. She had orange, panicked eyes, and a blue headed swallow caught in her mouth, its wings flapping. The way her hand was raised I couldn’t tell if she was trying to keep it there or take it out.

“That’s a crazy painting.”

He turned to admire it.

“It is, isn’t it?”

He stood and walked towards it, then reached out to touch the woman’s hair.

“It’s my mom’s. She was a painter. She gave me this. It was her last one before, you know.”

He gave me a forced smile and looked down, hands on his hips. I didn’t know what to say.

“That was my best friend. I still pray to her everyday. You pray?”

He sat back down and proceeded to produce another joint from his pocket. The bruise on his thigh was mostly green, with some purple swirling out.

“I started to. Recently. It’s real nice.”

“It’s the best.”

Against my better judgement, I smoked half of this new joint with him.

“The tattoo, I like. It.”

He looked down at his wrist.

“Thanks homie. 27 club.”

He grinned.

“What’s this about moving to Chicago with Leo?”

His grin disappeared and he waved this off.

“Leo gets all these big ideas.”

A long pause.

“I’m not saying I won’t go, but he’s so desperate about it being right away. Like I’m gonna be stuck forever if I don’t get on the next plane.”

“He really loves you you know.”

“Oh I know. He ought to love himself first though.”

“What do you mean?”

“You don’t think he has his own demons? I love the kid but he does a good job of making everyone feel like he’s got it all under control.”

I contemplated this. I had never seen a real crack in Leo’s armor.

“So you do or don’t wanna live with him?”

“Of course I wanna live with him. That’s my fucking brother. But I don’t want him to make me feel like it’s do or die. Like he’s doing me a big favor.”

“I don’t think he thinks about it that way man. I think he just sees, like how amazing your life could be away from all this and he just wants to make sure you get there.”

Max scratched his chest.

“He’s so obsessed with getting out of here. Ever since I met him. Sometimes I think he’s embarrassed of us.”

“That couldn’t be further from the truth. He was dying for me to meet you guys.”

“You’re the first one of his friends not from college that we’ve met.”

I had no response.

“He ever tell you about his depression?”

“He mentioned it once.”

“He tell you why?”

“Something about moving away from home.”

“Uh huh. Yea. Sure. You know he almost went to NYU?”

“Yea it was one of the first things he told me. He said he didn’t get enough scholarship money.”

“That’s what he told you.” He blew out a long trail of smoke.

“Yea.”

“Figures. He didn’t go to NYU cause his high school sweetheart didn’t want him to. She was staying in state and wanted him to stay in state.”

“What happened?”

“You’ll have to ask him that. Another time though. I don’t want to ruin this weekend.”

By this point I couldn’t feel my arms and legs, only my eyelids and how heavy they were. Max invited me into his room, and we tiptoed over the masses of bodies. He handed me headphones and played me tracks from a mixtape he was about to release. I couldn’t tell if I liked the guy that much or it was the weed, but I was buzzing.

“You’re an artist aren’t you?”

“Huh?” I wondered if Leo had seen me writing in DC, and passed this along.

“You just got that vibe you know. Like the way you look at people and shit.”

“I mean yea I like writing.” My face flushed as I said this.

“Oh hell yea. That’s fire bro. You gotta show me some stuff.”

Behind his monitor, I noticed a stack of postcards. He saw my eyes dart back and forth. He grabbed the top one from the pile, flipping it over so I couldn’t read the writing on the back, only see the abstract desert illustration on the front.

“Just a little tradition. You know how Leo writes postcards to his mom?”

“Yea.”

“Well who do you think taught him that?”

The rest of the day floated in and out. Once you start smoking in the morning, you sort of drag on, like a Dali painting. We stopped in Spokane, where Joaquin threw up in the river that snaked through the downtown. He got vomit on his shirt and we walked to the Carhartt store for him to buy a new one. He kept grumbling about how expensive it was and how he needed to get a better job.

We made it into a Mexican spot that had walls covered with Loteria. I was unable to understand how Max kept smoking throughout the whole day and appeared completely sober. He kept ambushing me with Snapchat selfies, which he would send to the same list of girls over and over again. The check came with a postcard attached on a paper clip. Leo and Max’s eyes flicked over it.

“You take it. I’ve sent—you know, I have one from here.”

Max nodded, eyes down and unclipped it. He placed it between his hands in a prayer formation.

Joaquin and Marco had a rattling chain between them. At first I thought it was just their baseline being exacerbated by the hangover. On the way back to the car, they got into a tripping contest that ended up with them grappling one another to the ground. Max and Leo grumbled as they broke them apart.

As we all buckled into the car, Max explained that Joaquin was mad at Marco for encouraging their girlfriends to go together with a group of friends to an EDM show in Vegas. Apparently, Joaquin thought his girlfriend was hoping to be around a guy she had previously hooked up. Marco said he was a jealous insecure loser and Joaquin punched him in the balls, next to me in the backseat. I got a stray elbow as Marco folded over. Leo and Max told them to knock it off and we rode in silence back to Max’s apartment.

Then my eyes shifted to Max and Leo. We were originally going to take both cars to Coeur d’Alene. I didn’t even know CDA was part of the plan, nor did I even know it existed. Marco laughed and told me to look up the election results for CDA.

86% for the president.

Max and Leo were conferring privately in his room. Leo came out clenching his jaw and said we should get on the road. That Max wasn’t gonna join us. Max called out, his voice shrill.

“Oh don’t be a baby. I didn’t say I wasn’t coming. I just said I can’t go now.”

“Why?” Joaquin was playing MLB again.

“I just got some shit to take care of.”

Marco looked at me and raised his eyebrows.

“Come on Joaquin.”

Leo walked over to the TV and bent down to turn off the PlayStation.

“Hey what the fuck?”

Leo’s glare shut up Joaquin and we all shuffled out. I was the last one out and looked back inside, hoping to catch Max’s eye. I could make him out lying on his bed, one arm over his eyes, the other hand slow through his hair, twirling his curls.

V. INDEPENDENCE DAY

Joaquin and Marco and I smoked a joint out of the sunroof. We ended up at a roadside restaurant, one where we had to order on iPads chained to tables. I don’t remember what I ate, only that we kept taking iPad selfies to set them as the lock screen. We tried to outdo one another and vote on if a photo was worthy of becoming the screensaver.

Then we were in Idaho. To my surprise, I awoke from a cat nap in front of a beach. Shoes off.

“Wake up bro. We’re in Florida. You’re home.”

I blinked, spiraling to in a bright haze and looked around. Digging my toes in, I realized I was in sand.

I looked across the way and saw it was a large lake, with sand all around this end, and a forest on the other. A kid next to me slathered in sunscreen knocked over his brother’s sand castle. The little brother began to cry and their mom came over and dragged them both off. I laid down in the sand, and dozed off again.

When I woke up, Joaquin was sitting a few feet away from me, his jeans rolled up and his feet in the water. I approached him from behind, asking him where Leo and Marco were. As I knelt to try to make sense of his mumbling, I noticed his shoulders moving up and down as he turned away.

“What’s up? What happened?”

He kept his body squarely facing the lake. I sat alongside him and slowly lifted my own pants from the bottom, to stretch out my legs.

“She’s…the…only…thing…that’s….mine.” The words came out in waves of shuddering.

“Who is?”

“Alyssa.”

“She’s the only thing that’s yours?”

“Yea. Yea she is.”

“What makes you say that?”

“My parents don’t give a shit about me. My brother is in prison. My sister’s knocked up. None of the guys would notice if I died tomorrow.”

I let my feet dig deeper into the damp sand, kneading mindlessly.

“And I’m, I’m” he was almost heaving at this point, still facing away from me.

“I’m gonna lose her.” Finally he turned, not at me, but at least staring straight ahead, drawing his knees up to his chest.

“What makes you say you’re gonna lose her?”

“Cause she doesn’t love me. She’s just waiting to leave.”

“You’re just saying that. You don’t know how she actually feels.”

He sniffed and looked down at the sand.

“I know. Believe me I know.”

The final words were barely audible.

“Everyone leaves me.”

I wanted to place my arm around him, and after a minute of deliberating it, I finally did. He didn’t pull away. We sat there for another ten minutes silently, me rubbing his back. The only sound to make out was that of the families around us tittering, babies crying.

Joaquin grabbed a handful of sand and let it run down through his fingers. Then he stood and we sat on a bench waiting for Marco and Leo to come pick us up, our socks and shoes in hand.

Our first stop of the night was a bar that exclusively served drinks in elaborate ceramic containers. I had a watermelon margarita served in a light green toilet bowl with a crimson interior. There were string lights hanging everywhere, dangling above us like vines. To my surprise, Wade, Sierra, Cody, Casey and some of the girls from the night before walked in to join us.

“Look who it is. New York!”

It was great to feel Wade’s hand slapping my back. Despite having little recollection of the day before, we all relaxed into a camaraderie. Leo asked if Max was on his way. Cody and Casey looked at each other and shrugged.

“His door was closed when we left, but his car was in the parking lot.”

Wade whispered to me, “you wanna talk about a married couple? People give Sierra and me shit, but Leo and Max are worse.”

He took a swig of his beer, one he had demanded to have served to him in a traditional glass.

As the sun was setting, we walked a few blocks over to the main bar in CDA. The city was bursting with people, and true to its voting bloc, they looked as if they hadn’t seen the sun much. But to my relief, there were no active glares. More stumbling and chest thumping than anything.

The bar we ended up at felt like a boxing ring. The bar was a square in the middle, slightly raised, and was the only well-lit section. People milled about the edges, and some in the back where the pool tables were.

Take me down to the paradise city

Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty

Oh won’t you please take me home

I saw Joaquin and Marco conferring by the red and white jukebox, as Leo and I were playing pool against Cody and Casey. Marco called over Sierra, who pulled out her phone and then shook her head, eyes rolling. Joaquin chewed on the inside of his mouth. A cowboy hat wearing man walked near them, and Joaquin made a big show about the guy stepping on his shoes. Marco patted the guy on the back as he apologized, then snatched the beer from Joaquin’s hand and threw it in the trash next to them.

Wade let out a big whoop and I turned to catch Max’s entrance through the swinging doors.

It wasn’t long before I was by Max’s side, swallowed in the vortex of limbs and alcohol he created. As we kept throwing shots back, our group grew and I found myself hooting and hollering with a couple of guys from Utah as Max was chatting up a tall curly haired blonde. She shouted in Max’s ear that she was a tattoo artist, and traced the tattoo on his wrist. I remember explaining to the Utah guys that New York was actually a nice place and no, no gay guy was going to come out of nowhere and molest them, that was stupid. I don’t know if they really believed me. Max was pulled away from a makeout session with the blonde, and now our group was back to its original quintet from the morning.

I got in Max’s car, as I wanted to avoid the tense shoulders Joaquin and Marco were carrying with them. We bumped Max’s music during the short ride to the motel, windows down. Max would occasionally drop his sunglasses at a stoplight, pat the side of his car, making the girls in the car next to him laugh as they rolled down their windows and asked where we were headed. I caught my reflection in the side mirror. My eyes were more sunken in than I had ever seen them. I looked up at the sky and saw the final streaks of dark pink being swallowed by the deep ocean night. The perfect canvas for the fireworks that started to pepper the air.

When Leo pulled in with his minivan, we could see Marco twisting in the passenger, hand raised to the backseat. We couldn’t hear anything, but we caught sight of Leo’s twitching mouth and narrowed eyes. The three got out of the car silently. Max had checked us all in earlier, and dolled out keycards.

Joaquin snatched his. Marco shoulder checked him when he did this.

Their girlfriends hadn’t texted them in hours. They should have landed four hours ago, and the concert was due to start in 30 minutes. Sierra said she hadn’t heard from them either. The plan was to change and head to the lake to watch the fireworks but Leo, Max and I weren’t dying to go upstairs with Joaquin and Marco. They were busy locking horns as they walked away, so we sat on the curb and smoked a joint.

“Are they always like that?” I asked them.

“Worse sometimes.”

“Way worse. One time they got the cops called on them.”

“Jesus.”

“But they’re fine. Marco loves Joaquin. Joaquin is too stubborn to admit it but he loves him too. Marco is the closest thing he has to family.”

We heard footsteps on pavement. Marco panting.

“Joaquin is fucking tripping bro. He starts yelling at me saying it’s my fault our girls are dogging us. Then I lose my shit and say it’s not my fault he lays mid pipe. Next thing I know he’s reaching in his duffel looking for his gun, and I just ran out of there.”

I felt the hair on my neck stand up as I stood and scanned over his shoulder at the motel lobby. I could spot the front desk, unmanned, alongside the vending machine and the elevator doors. The red number above the elevator ticked up to our floor.

Max took one last puff, then tossed the joint. Leo told Marco to get in the car and drive off, throwing him the keys. As he opened the minivan door, Joaquin sped walk through the lobby doors towards us, his hand in his pocket.

“Yo Joaquin, Joaquin, let’s talk okay.” Max stood his ground and had his hands up as he kept his voice even.

“J, J for real, let’s relax okay.”

“Get the fuck out of my way. I don’t have a problem with you two.”

He marched towards us, and kept his eye on Marco who was in the minivan driver’s seat, fiddling with the key, trying to get it in the ignition.

“GET OUT PUSSY.”

“Will you relax bro?”

I stood there with my arms crossed, wondering if I should reach into my pocket and dial 911.

Joaquin pulled out his gun, and pointed it in the direction of the driver’s side window. It was a small black piece.

“Joaquin.”

I didn’t have anything more than that. He looked my way and I could see his eyes were all pupil.

“Stay out of this.”

Max had closed the distance to him and twisted his wrist, the gun dropping to the ground. Leo was close behind and kicked it towards me, it spinning underneath a parked car to my left.

“Levi GRAB it and don’t let anyone have it.”

I sprinted and kneeled under. Everything in my field of vision was abundantly detailed. I could see the pebbled and cracked asphalt clearly, smell the oil leaking under the car.

“LET ME GO.”

Marco stepped out of the minivan and ran towards Joaquin, kicking him in the ribs as he struggled up out of Max’s grip.

“Marco stop.”

“FUCK HIM. WAVING A GUN IN OUR FACE?”

The two began to scrap, elbowing Leo and Max out of the way. I looked around and wondered how no one was witnessing this. The parking lot was half empty, but up above us I spotted a couple laughing and closing their balcony door as they turned to go back inside.

I never expected to hold my first gun in Idaho.

It was heavier and colder than I dreamt it would be. The moonlight caught my hand. I could see my tendons shifting as I caressed the barrel. I traced the underside along its curve and to the magazine. They designed it to be held one way and I resisted the urge to do so.

We were in a motel parking lot in Coeur d’Alene.

Red. White. Blue. The colors ran like wet ink. They bled into the dark water of the night sky. The air smelt of smoke. It rattled with pops and sizzles. In the street behind us, there were honks and hollering, beer bottles being smashed. An upside-down lawn chair was strewn in the bushes beside our parked cars. The balconies above us were empty. Only silhouettes gliding behind the curtains, backlit.

My phone vibrated in my pocket.

In front of me were two men with buzz cuts swinging at one another, and two curly haired men trying to keep them apart. When the gun was wrestled away from the shortest one, it was handed to me and I was instructed to keep it from everyone. This was because I was their guest of honor.

I had just met three of the four men 48 hours ago. They were two duos of best friends.

The taller combatant was pinned down by the one man I did know. The shorter one escaped the restraint of his own detainer and instead of taking advantage of his enemy lying on the ground—he turned and ran towards me.

I hopped on to the open bed of a truck, one leg springing up the other. I did not trust my hands with anything but handling their cargo.

“Give ME my FUCKING GUN BACK!”

I raised the gun high over my head as he tried to climb up. Then I kicked him square in his spit covered jaw.

A new round of fireworks began. I knew I could make the shot blend in with the pops. Or I could wait until the sizzle and make it stand out. Just once.

After all—they designed it to be used one way: to give final answers.

But they didn’t tell you which questions to use it for.

The two finally tired themselves out scrapping. Leo and Max were able to get them to sit down, their t-shirts torn and their faces cut up, bleeding.

“Sierra just texted me. She said they’re calling you. Congratulations you dumb fucks.” Leo waved his phone in front of their face.

Max turned to me and asked for the gun. He took it and told Joaquin he was going to put it in the safe in his car and give it back to him tomorrow once he was cooled off. He grabbed Joaquin up by the back of his t-shirt and dragged him to his car, told us he was going to take him to his apartment to sleep.

Leo, Marco and I walked up to the rooms. I rubbed the banister in the elevator, fingering the indent of a missing bolt. Marco entered his own room, the one he was meant to share with Joaquin. Leo played with the door handle, then leaned in and almost fell as he shoulder checked it open. I made for the shower. When I stepped out of the steam, Max was sitting on the bed and they were already at it.

“Oh stop with that shit. You know that’s how these two end up.”

“Not like this. This isn’t normal.”

“We’re not normal. That’s why we’re friends.”

Leo was pacing the room, banging on the wall and Max was slapping the bed, spit flying.

“Do you not see why you have to get out of here?”

“Fuck you and your crusade. Not everything is a sign to get out. Maybe you shouldn’t give up so easy on your friends.”

“These friends are gonna get you killed bro. Can’t you see that?”

We heard a knock on the door, which I answered, still in my towel. It was someone from the hotel asking us to keep it down. I apologized and closed the door.

“I know this has nothing to do with me, but I don’t think there’s…there’s any constructive conversations to be had tonight guys. Everyone is way too rattled.”

We could still hear fireworks outside.

Leo and Max looked at me, they looked everywhere in the room but at one another. Max stood up abruptly and walked through the door between the rooms to sleep in Marco’s room. Leo and I remained there, the sound of the AC sputtering as the fireworks finally died out.

Next morning, I expected a debrief first thing. Leo and I were still in bed when Max and Marco said goodbye with blank faces, sunglasses on. Max smacked Leo’s ass under the covers and the two giggled as he spun. They were going to pick up Joaquin and then head to the airport to pick up the girls who were due back from the concert. We were to meet them in Cheney later. When Leo finally awoke with a long stretch and groan, I tried to broach the topic.

“Yo what the fuck happened last night?”

“Don’t even get me started bro. Do you see why?”

He grabbed his phone and turned over. I grabbed my own and without looking up from his own, he asked me,

“Who ya texting?”

We hit a snag leaving CDA when the streets were closed off for the annual July 4th parade. The highlight of which was the world’s largest potato. There was no way this potato was real. It really pissed me off that they tried to pass it off as real. The potato was guarded by veterans shuffling along, saluting everyone. They were flanked by older women, wearing pink MAGA merch head to toe, and swinging batons. It took us half an hour to wait out the procession.

I vowed that I was going to stay sober that day. We made it to a house party in a sprawling suburb, none of the houses remotely the same architectural style, a mix of wood and brick, all with porches and fences. In a backyard full of tree stumps, Wade greeted me with a condensation covered glass of beer that read SOMEONE GET THIS BEER A GUY. I shook my head.

“I guess you’re not that guy.”

“Not today.”

We stood off to the side, near the wooden fence that had planks missing. There was a group of thirty or so Wazzu kids, running through sprinklers, playing beer pong and then crowding around for a die game on this rectangular wooden table. As I waited for them to explain it to me, I asked Wade if he knew what happened last night.

“Oh yea, the little tussle.”

“Little? Joaquin came out, fucking, Punisher style.”

“Ah. Well he wasn’t gonna shoot him.”

“I don’t know. The fact that it was even a possibility is insane.”

“What? You never seen a gun?”

“Not pointed at someone no.”

Wade reached down to his waistband and pulled out his gun. A silver revolver.

“Here. Point it at whoever you want. You’ll see what I mean. You won’t shoot it. You wouldn’t even dream of it. Unless you absolutely had to.”

I took the gun from him slowly, as he finished his beer. I looked down the sights and pointed it at him, my finger alongside, not on the trigger. It was heavier than Joaquin’s.

“Bang!” He laughed as he picked up the glass intended for me.

“See?” He said as I handed it back to him.

No—I didn’t see.

The day melted away as I discovered a prolific talent for this die game. You had a hand painted table with green, white and red target areas, like a dartboard. The player in possession jumped up and threw a single die in the air, hoping to make it bounce no more than two times and land in the opponent’s target areas, to score points. There were solo cups of beer in each corner, that netted you extra points. If it bounced off the table, the other team could juggle it on their foot and into their hand to force you to chug a beer. Wade and I paired up and ran the table for a good half hour.

“Who knew New York was gonna be so good at this?”

The group winnowed down and we migrated down the block to a park, where we ran 3 v 3 basketball for an hour. Someone was grilling in the house across. It turned out it was Cory’s stepdad’s house. They were away for the weekend.

Girls would run over burgers and hot dogs and soda. We’d play for 15 minutes, sit on the grass and munch on some food, brushing the crumbs to the side. Then someone would start dribbling lazily, someone else would join them shooting and rebounding, and 10 minutes later we’d be running another game. Rinse and repeat.

I was dying for a nap and at one point ended up sleeping in a hammock draped across two trees next to the court. In and out of consciousness, I caught fragments of a conversation between two of Wade’s frat brothers.

“Dude she got so pissed at me for faking a nut.”

“Why would you fake a nut?”

“I was dry. From before.”

“Dry dick. No nectar.”

Then endless laughter as I drifted back.

By the time I woke up it was already nighttime. There were stacks of brightly colored boxes on the lawn. A group had gone to do a big buy of fireworks. They offered me a few, but I recalled my childhood neighbor who had lost a thumb in an accident and passed. Marco shared my conviction and we stood by a tree as everyone got together in the cul-de-sac to start the ceremony.

“How you doing today?” He asked me.

“I should be asking you that.”

“Me? Nah. I’m used to that.”

“I can’t believe that’s something you can get used to.”

“Believe me in Yakima you can.”

“You mean all of you grew up like that?”

“Yea. Mostly. Leo a little less. I think all of us always wanted to protect him so we tried to help him avoid situations like that.”

I leaned against the bark and stretched my back, contorting my spine. The ridges digging in brought deeper and deeper exhales.

“I don’t know. I mean I’m fine. I just don’t know how you guys stay friends for so long with all that hanging over your head.”

“What hanging?”

I changed the topic. “It feels like Leo and Mark are always at each other’s throats.”

“You shoulda heard them earlier.”

“What happened?”

“Mark thought Leo got some bullshit call at the end of a game and pushed him. Then the two started swinging at each other, and Leo said he was sorry he ever invited him to live in Chicago together. Mark said as if he ever was going to go.”

I felt my throat tighten.

“Don’t worry about those two. They always make up. They’re inseparable. Even if Leo isn’t here, they’ve got each others back.”

“But do you think it’s good for Max to stay here?”

I now felt Leo’s anxiety in my own chest.

Marco picked up a couple crushed beer cans from the lawn.

“I don’t think Max’s problems have to do with where he is. I think they’re in his head. Yea maybe moving could help...but it could also make him worse.”

Cody and Casey ran out of the house with drivers. They left the front door wide open. As Wade and co. lit the fireworks, Cody and Casey started ripping golf balls towards the mountains. They would fly over the chain link fence of the park and disappear. The girls cheered at each swing. The sound of the iron thwacking against the ball sometimes lined up perfectly with the pops of the fireworks.

I went inside and found a dirty, sagging sofa in the basement to keep sleeping. At some point I was stirred by the sound of Leo’s and Max’s voices. Laughs.

They stumbled through the basement and flicked on the lights.

“Who’s this?”

“Who is this?”

The two were holding each other up.

“Ahhhh we were looking for you.”

“You fucker. What, you can’t hang?”

I gave them a drowsy smile and they tumbled onto the sofa along side me.

“Why don’t you two stay here and take a breather?”

“Nah.”

“Nah.”

“Gotta keep moving.”

“Let’s go find those girls from ZTA.”

“Good idea.”

“We’re coming back for you later.”

“With friends.”

“Dimes.”

Their voices rang out as they climbed the steps. I heard one of them slip and their laughter rang out. The lights were still on, but I found it easy to sleep.

Leo woke me up early the next day. He had slept in the bedroom in the basement, huddled next to Max. It got exceptionally cold down there and I was lucky to pillage some towels from the basement bathroom midway through the night.

I went to go say goodbye to Max, who lay there shirtless in his briefs, and had a crazy case of bedhead. He sat up immediately when he heard my voice, although he was swaying.

“Brother. I hope you know what you saw was a trailer.”

“Jesus, I think I might have to tap out then.”

“Oh come onnnn. You’re a Florida boy. I thought y’all went harder.”

“Believe me, we got nothing on you guys.”

“You got Joaquin and Marco?” Leo appeared in the doorway. Max rubbed his eyes and nodded.

“Hey, listen to me. I wanna read some of that writing man.”

“You will, you will.” I tried to keep my voice down.

“What writing?” Leo called out.

“Shut up. And look. I know you don’t need it, but good luck with the startup. Try not to forget us when you’re rich.”

“Oh come on.”

“I’m serious. And same with this guy. Make sure he doesn’t get a big head.” He pointed at Leo.

“I think you’d do a much better job than me at that.” I looked him the eye.

He kept his eyes steady.

“No, no I think I’d hold him back. For now at least. I got some things to take care of here and then I’ll join up with y’all.”

“Well if you ever need to talk, to you know, someone who isn’t part of your world, I promise I’m your guy. I mean it Max.”

He gulped and pulled me in. I noticed a tattoo of a swallow on his collarbone. I traced my finger on it. He smiled and nodded.

I left Max and Leo alone to say their goodbyes. In the living room upstairs, Joaquin and Marco were on the half-deflated air mattress. I shook them awake gently, and told them we were leaving.

“Do me a favor you two. Try to keep each other alive. The world is fucked up enough as it is without your best friend trying to kill you.”

“This pussy would never have the balls to kill me.” Marco smiled as he dapped me up.

“I’d skin you alive.” Joaquin shook my hand.

“Ay, you ever come back out here, you come kick it with us homie.” Marco grabbed my wrist.

“And when you guys make it East, hit me up.”

The two looked at each other and smiled, then rolled back into bed. Leo made it up there, his eyes glassy and bonked their two heads together like coconuts.

Later that day we made it back to Yakima, and after dropping off our luggage and showering at Leo’s house, went to go pick up his friend Teddy and head to Spurs, one of two bars in the town.

“Teddy is uh, he’s you know.”

“What?”

“I don’t actually know what he has. He was born premature and I think he’s got some other, disabilities. He’s a sweetheart.”

He was indeed a sweetheart and was impossible to beat at in Uno and Connect Four. We sat there sipping beers, watching the locals play pool and stand around and smoke as they looked up at the TVs playing local news. The bar was massive, taking up half of the warehouse it sat in. The other half was a Lays distribution center.

“So Leo. Chicago huh? You and Max?”

“I don’t know if Max is coming Teddy. Not right away at least.”

“What man? Why?”

“I don’t know. He said he has to take care of some stuff.”

“Oh that’s bullshit. You know it.”

Leo finished his beer.

“I don’t know it Teddy. And even if I did, what would I do? He’s a grown man.”

“Drag him out of here. Don’t you think he should drag him out of here?” Teddy tapped me on the shoulder.

“Hell I’ll help him.”

“See, he’ll help him. And me too. I’ll grab him by the dick.” We laughed.

“Tell you what Teddy. You help me get him out of here. Next time he comes to hang out with you, tell him he needs to leave.”

“You’re damn right.”

We dropped Teddy off and made it just in time for Leo’s friend Luis’s campaign event. It was hosted at the only brewery in town, with dozens of beers on tap on the wall and stools made out of casks. Luis was a year older than Leo, and running for city council. I cornered him into a conversation about adding a Chipotle to the town, which he took seriously and pledged to me even after I revealed I was not a constituent.

“No you have a point. It really puts us on the map as a serious place.”

“What do you think of Leo wanting to leave Yakima?”

“Hey. To each his own. I love it here and I can’t ever imagine leaving. I want to be part of making this as prosperous as it can be.”

I looked around as he shook hands with a few donors who were leaving.

He turned back and leaned in to me.

“Plus the girls here? I take them to the hotel one town over, where I know the owner and get a deal. And if I really get tired of them, then I just fly down to Mexico City and I got my connect there.”

Leo and I ate our final meal together in Watopo. We had a birria pizza, sitting at the only table, under a creaking fan, facing a big sign that read QUE DIOS BENDIGA MIS CLIENTES, MI FAMILIA, MI RESTAURANTE, MI COMUNIDAD, Y MI MUNDO. I believed them.

I thanked Leo for the weekend. He nodded and scarfed down the last slice, his mouth staying open as he breathed out the heat.

“How you feeling?”

He pursed his lips. “Fine. Ready to get out of here.”

We sat in the restaurant a little longer, scrolling on our phones.

VI. DEPARTURES

I sat in our office in New York two years later, approving the compensation packages for three new hires when I got a call on WhatsApp.

It was Marco. Other than a few photos sent back and forth the week after my trip, I hadn’t talked to him since then.

I picked up and looked out of the window at the Brooklyn skyline, the sunset draping over McCarren. Fiddling with a green crystal on my desk, one my mom had gifted me when we moved into the office, I listened.

Max had used a shotgun, a gun I had not held yet.

He had done it in his apartment in Portland, where he had moved six months before with the girl from Wapato. They had both lost their jobs the week before. His girlfriend had left him alone for the afternoon to go score.

He had called the police to let them know, so they could arrive before she did.

The final video he posted on his TikTok was of his dog, a beagle that looked as if it was the recipient of all the final reserves of goodwill and selflessness. Shiny coat, bright eyes. He was out on their lawn, sniffing a dead bird.

We hung up and I tapped over to Leo’s contact. The call rang and rang. I put the phone down, and could feel the crystal warm in my hand.

It took me two months to get Leo to respond back to me.

When he did, he said we could remain friends so long as we never spoke of it again. I honored his wish, but now I wonder what he will say of this when he reads it.