Gesh had spent the afternoon digging holes, and he was stretched out on the couch like a corpse, a hot toddy in one hand and Book One of The Ravishers of Pentagord—Phil’s trilogy—in the other. From the front bedroom I could hear Phil strumming his guitar and moaning softly. “What is it?” Gesh said. “What have you got—drugs?” My throat thickened. I didn’t think I could get the words out. “It’s an article. In the paper. Come take a look.” Gesh sighed, pushed himself up and started across the room. I was poised over the gray newsprint, scanning the article for the twentieth time, each insidious phrase poking at me like a hot scalpel. Gesh was in no hurry. He paused to refresh his toddy and slip a tape into his cracked-plastic battery-powered tape player (he’d unearthed two cassettes in the glove compartment of the Jeep Vogelsang had left us—something unidentifiable that sounded like a diva gargling in the shower, and an ancient Grateful Dead tape that repeatedly stuck on “Truckin’.”
