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“Everything all right now?” Sully said when he climbed aboard.

Rub shrugged. Everything was not all right, though he would’ve been hard-pressed to explain exactly what was wrong. Part of it was his terrible, almost visceral need for Sully. It was this, together with the knowledge that yet again his friend had forgotten him, that had driven him up into the tree that afternoon, half hoping he’d have an accident with the chain saw. If instead of the tree’s limb he managed to prune one of his own, Sully would blame himself, wouldn’t he? If he was the one to find Rub’s severed leg at the base of the tree? Surely then he’d realize it was all his fault. Eager to atone, he’d toss Carl Roebuck out of the old lady’s house and move Rub in, so he could be sure his friend had everything he needed. They’d eat meals and watch TV together. Over time Bootsie would come to regret how mean she’d been to him, and she, too, would want to move in, but Sully would draw the line at that. It would be just the two of them. Their days would be full of long hours, plenty of time for Rub to tell Sully whatever he wanted, and Sully, chastened, would be devoted to getting him back on his feet. Well…foot. Okay, Rub wasn’t crazy about the idea of losing a leg, but if that was the price of friendship, what choice did he have but to pay it? Sully’s pal Wirf had gotten along fine on one leg, and if he could be happy on just the one, then Rub supposed he could, too.

But unfortunately there’d been no accident. The tree surgery had gone off without a hitch, unless you counted Rub’s being stranded in the tree for hours, thirty feet off the ground with no hope of getting down, as a hitch. At some point, though, certain facts, as hard and uncomfortable as the severed nub of tree limb he was sitting on, began to intrude on his pleasant dismemberment fantasy. For instance, if Rub had managed to sever his own limb, he’d likely have bled out long before Sully showed up and discovered his leg at the base of the tree. In fact, the leg probably would’ve disappeared. That close to the dump there were plenty of feral animals around, and one of them would likely have dragged this prized discovery off into the woods. In all probability what Sully would find at the base of the tree was Rub himself, because when he passed out, from pain or loss of blood, he’d almost certainly tumble from his perch onto the hard ground below, and if he wasn’t dead already, the fall would kill him. In the wake of such real-world considerations came equally cruel psychological realities. When, for instance, had he ever known Sully to blame himself for anything? If Rub had maimed himself, Sully would place the blame squarely on him for being an idiot. Nor would he kick Carl Roebuck out of the old lady’s house. It wouldn’t be Sully who nursed Rub back to health but a resentful Bootsie, who’d probably grow tired of her duties after a few days and smother him with a pillow so she could go back to reading her romance novels. And even if he somehow avoided this fate and recovered, he’d be chasing Sully all over Bath on one leg instead of two.

“Well?” Sully was saying. “You good now, or do you need some other fucking thing to make you happy?”

Rub sighed. “I just wisht they’d hurry up with my burger.”

Sully nudged him, like he always did when attempting to improve Rub’s mood.

“What?” said Rub, who didn’t necessarily want his mood improved until he improved it himself.

“You said ‘burger.’ ”

“So?”

“Usually, you say ‘buh-buh-burger.’ ”

Rub didn’t want to, but he could feel himself giving in, and when Sully nudged him a second time he smiled sheepishly. Because it was good to have a barstool, and not just any stool but the one he’d been coveting. And he had said “burger,” without stumbling. There was no word that gave him more trouble, probably because he loved burgers and would’ve been content to eat nothing else for the remainder of his days. For some reason he recalled his father’s question all those years ago: Why don’t you just give up? That, he realized, was what he’d been feeling up in the tree that afternoon. That maybe he should just give up.

“Here comes your burger now,” Sully said as the door to the kitchen swung open and Janey emerged. She set Rub’s plate of food in front of him, along with a fork and knife wrapped in a paper napkin.

“You again,” she said, regarding Sully.

“Me again,” Sully agreed.

“Spreading cheer wherever you go.”

Which meant she’d been privy to the whole business with Spinmatics Joe. By the time he arrived at Hattie’s in the morning, Ruth would know all about it. On the other hand, there was no law that he had to go there. Hadn’t Ruth given him full permission to stay away just a few hours ago? “I try,” he told Janey weakly, but she was already bustling back into the kitchen.

“Try harder,” she suggested, the kitchen door swinging shut behind her.

She had a point. Today, he’d goaded two profoundly ignorant men to within an inch of violence. Both dickheads but the point remained: for what? Had he succeeded in getting them to lose their tempers, they’d have made short work of him. He was too old for bar fights, but even if he weren’t, what had he been trying to accomplish? Each time the urge had been pressing enough to suggest a purpose, but now, once his dander settled, he couldn’t imagine what it might’ve been.

Next to him, Rub sighed. His burger sat before him untouched.

“What’s the matter now?” Sully said.

“There’s no buh-buh-buh—”

“Bacon?”

“Bacon,” Rub repeated flawlessly.

Next to Rub, Jocko was chuckling. “Weird,” he said. “He’s really got a thing about that word.”

“ ‘Bacon’?” Sully said, assuming he must be talking about Rub.

“No, Joe,” he explained. “ ‘Hispanics.’ Poor bastard just can’t say it.”

“Hispanics,” Rub repeated clearly, even though he’d decided, as he always did in the end, to make the best of things and taken a big bite of burger. “That’s not so fuh-fuh-fuh—”

“So fuckin’ hard to say?” Sully suggested.

“Fuckin’ hard to say,” Rub agreed.

Sully couldn’t help smiling. For some reason, when Rub’s mood improved, Sully’s often did, too, as if their emotions were wired in parallel.

“Because he could just say ‘spics,’ ” Jocko continued. “That would solve the problem.”

“Or one of them,” Sully offered.

Rub apparently agreed, too, because he thumped his tail on the floor.

Embers

RAYMER AWOKE TO a sensation he remembered both vividly and fondly, Becka running her fingers lightly through his thinning hair, barely touching his scalp, mere proximity causing the hair to lift in yearning toward her touch. He smiled, enjoying the feeling, unwilling to open his eyes. There’s something I need to tell you, she murmured.

I know, he told her. I’m going bald.

Because this had been her favorite thing to inform him about in moments of intimacy back when they were still in love, as if the shower drain hadn’t already eloquently confirmed that diagnosis. How am I going to do this when you don’t have hair?

There’ll be plenty on the sides, he always assured her. I’ll comb it over.

You will not.

I’ll get implants.

Negative.

Then you’ll just have to—

Find another man — this one with hair. Yes, that’s what I’ll have to do.