Alive! Alive! You could get so holy high. This air that turned into sky. Magic! Oh blue! Oh white clouds! The comical way they bumped and shoved each other. His own little giggly heaven. Nobody would ever guess. Him one smart guy. Sweet grass underneath his head, cool breeze in his hair. Who needed anything but this? He meant, the alive part. Something like that. It didn’t matter. He knew what he knew. His mind unminded. Unwinded. A windup toy, a monkey in a jaunty little bellboy’s cap, banging on a drum. Slower. Slow. er. “Ray! Jesus, Ray, what’re you doing out there?” His eyes opened. Grass was in his mouth; he spat and rubbed it away with the back of his hand. Deb was standing at the back door with a look on her face. “Fell asleep.” “In the dirt? There’s chairs out there. Christ. I thought you were dead or something.” “Just relaxing.” His mouth had gone dry. He didn’t want her to know he’d been smoking up, or at least, he didn’t want her to know it right away.
