JFK brought it back and I tossed it onto the lawn again. He hung his head, looked at me like I was an asshole, and laid down at my feet. I wanted to see Kimmy. I wanted to do more than that. I longed to fold up in her arms and beg forgiveness, but only if she would give it to me. I knew she wouldn’t. I would stand there exposed and empty and begging and she would stare at me with no idea of what to say or do. Her eyes would be steamed with years of tamped-down puzzlement and hate. Scooter would jet around and I would want to call her my girl. I had apologized to my old man for leaving, and now the urge to run was starting to overwhelm me again. In thirty or forty years my brain would turn to tapioca and I’d die in front of a television, watching cartoons and muttering about a dream I’d once had of carrying a woman to the top of the lighthouse. I sniffed and smelled Mal behind me, standing in the screen door. I hadn’t thought anyone was home. He was a damn good creeper even though his talents lay on the grift.
