.

own hand get lifted away like a hot pan taken off a burner. But then his eyes grew keen, sort of bright with a weird joy he seemed to want kept secret. But I’d seen it before—we all had, at one time or another. With Gavin, you never knew what you were going to get—sadism or whimsy, Hook or Peter Pan. But, however he did choose to behave, it was always with a wild leer like that, trying to be hid, trying to be—harnessed.

      Sometimes he was the alligator, too. Endless appetite, never too far.

      Shrugging off that small invasion of his personal space, he gave a sharp whistle to grab the dog’s attention, and after giving chase around the pickup a little while, managed to horse collar Bullets. “Sit down,” he commanded, and twisted the collar until the dog did as told. Just as quickly, Gavin’s mind changed.

      “Move, dumb dog,” he said, and dragged Bullets back over to the truck, where he leashed him up again.

      “Go easy…” Vince said. I could tell he spoke before thinking, the way he studied the dirt after the words left his mouth.

      “I know, I know,” he replied, sorry as a cardinal caught whoring, as he got up from his feet with a little whine, came over to us, and loped a long sweat-slick arm over Vince’s shoulders. He began walking Vince around, talking to him. Casual as can be. Vince even let him do it at first, even when Gavin got real close and was whispering into Vince’s ear.

      “I love the dog, I do. Lot of responsibility in raising animals. You have to be firm…”

      When Vince tried shrugging Gavin’s arm off his shoulders, it became a headlock. The snare was triggered. Though he was much taller than all of us, his body was somehow both gangly and obese, like a tortoise in a too-big shell. Gavin worked him, smothering Vince in his armpit. Then he pivoted our way as Vince grunted, doing what he could to break it.

      Gavin, playing the heel, mildly staring at me and Ray as Vince toiled under his flabby hold. Bullets, going into hiding under the pickup.

      The seconds under that ugly gaze of his felt twisted and— outside of time, though it must have been only a moment, him watching us with this lazy, sleepy face, relishing our helplessness. Vince bucking madly then, throwing elbows into Gavin’s doughy paunch. Ray starting to cry.

      And then Gavin, grating his knuckles back and forth over Vince’s scalp, muttering “keep fighting,” bringing the whole thing to a hard boil until he finally quit it.

      Vince, deep red and sucking air, turning away to smear off the sweat.

      “We’re just playing around, don’t be scared,” he said to Ray, this idiotic leer on his face. And as if it would prove his point, Gavin snatched at Ray’s towel. There was a brief mock tug of war. He gleefully hammed it up a little, then released him, chuckled and scratched at his prickly throat.

      “It’s too hot,” said Gavin, himself out of breath. “Parents, cops—you tell anyone, you’ll be sorry…”

      We all edged away until reaching the road. Gavin, bent double, hands on knees, watching us like a cross bull in the shade, before wandering around off to the backyard again, leaving the spilled trash all over the failing grass, where a couple Styrofoam plates cartwheeled from a weak breeze into the shrubs.

      I took a final look behind me and there was Bullets, who barked some happy barks of goodbye before loping off to thrash around with the beach towel Ray’d left behind.

      We walked most of the way back in a shaky, hyper, post-fight rush of disbelief. Vince smoked about ten cigarettes along the way. In a few days, there would show, along his neck, his clavicle, a swath of soft gray bruising, the imprint of Gavin’s arm where he’d gripped him. He said not a word about it. Sometimes bruises are a badge.

      The subdivision was a ghost town. As we passed the wood sign reading “Orchard Park” at the turn-in, it felt recently evacuated, which I took to mean the power had returned. Vince said nothing at all for a long time, until he noticed Ray had gone silent too.

      “You good?” Vince asked.

      Ray nodded. “Thanks, man,” he whispered, and making his limp arm into a kind of swung weapon, playfully thwacked at Vince’s side. Little dude code for love you.

      “Next time it’s your turn.”

      Ray studied the grass, sounded a nervous moan. He looked to me, his expression—Is that so? But I ignored it as though he wasn’t there at all.

      Still, he kept looking, his hands wringing themselves.