While Ian drove to the little white house on 1610 Allen Street, he told Mackenzie what Roy had said to him last night.
“At first I wasn’t sure if I should say anything, but then I thought you’d understand,” Ian said. “He’s like my brother. I guess he’s like how Vaughan is to you. You know? And so I watch out for him. And I kind of want him to know he’s not just tagging along. That he is wanted,” Ian said as they approached the little house.
Ian did not hit the horn, which surprised Mackenzie. He got out of the car and Mackenzie followed.
“I’ll give him shotgun,” Mackenzie said.
Ian smiled, “All that’s not necessary. Plus, you better give Vaughan shotgun since we both smoke, and it’ll bother you two.”
Race wasn’t home. As soon as Roy found his pea coat he was ready, and he looked to Mackenzie like one of the four children from Narnia going into the wardrobe. Mackenzie just kept murmuring, “Turkish Delight, please,” and Ian looked up at him, amused and confused.
“Ever read The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe?” Mackenzie asked as they all climbed back into the car.
“No,”
Mackenzie said, “Then never mind.”
When they got to Vaughan’s house, he bitched for about five minutes about how long they had taken though the other three boys noted that he still wasn’t dressed, and then when Vaughan looked at Roy, he turned to Mackenzie and said in a British accent, “Turkish Delight, please?”
Ian shook his head.
“You all share the same brain. It’s scary.”

They drove across the river for lunch. They found a Chinese restaurant in Canaan, and Vaughan said, “Maddy told me she and Rodder went here, and the food was great.”
Ian looked doubtful as he took his seat.
“Actually,” Vaughan amended, “she said it was authentic.”
“Well,” Mackenzie allowed, “it does look like a communist country in here.”
“I think it’s the cinder block walls,” Ian noted.
Roy said nothing, Vaughan said, “Maybe we should go somewhere else.”
Mackenzie beetled his brow and stuck out his lips.
“We’re here.”
The tea was bad, only to be outdone by the egg drop soup, the egg fu yung, and the fried rice.
“Oh my God,” Roy said, and because he spoke so infrequently, they all turned to the blue eyed boy.
“There’s a roach in my egg roll,” he commented.
At this Vaughan stood up, and slowly left the restaurant. The other boys waited for him to return, and then Mackenzie lifted a finger, and went out to the parking lot. Vaughan was sitting shotgun.
“Well, get the others,” he told Mackenzie.
Mackenzie obeyed. A minute later Ian was the only one standing outside of his car.
“We haven’t paid.”
“All the more reason to get in this car and drive like the wind before someone comes out and tells us that,” Vaughan said.
And so they did.
It was a block before anyone, Vaughan included, felt free enough to laugh. Vaughan lit a Lucky Strike, and passed it to Ian. They both shared it, and Ian laughed till his sides hurt.
“Where shall we go now?” he demanded.
“Fort Wayne?” Mackenzie suggested from the back.
“Excellent suggestion,” Ian said, taking a drag off the cigarette and passing it back to Vaughan.
“I was so not serious.”
“I know,” Ian said. “But I am.”
And he turned the car around to head for the highway.

It was as if they had not stopped laughing all day when the boys came into the kitchen of the house on Logan Street. Kevin, happy at his victory, addressed them generally and jubilantly as, “Hey boys.”
“Where have you all been?” Aileen demanded, sitting at the kitchen table, one leg crossed over the other with a smoldering cigarette and a gin and tonic before her.
“Fort Wayne,” Mackenzie said, grinning stupidly.
“What the hell’s in..” Aileen began, and then shook her head, and pulled her son closer to her, tussling his hair. “Mackenzie, sometimes I don’t get you. It’s the Vaughan rubbing off on you.”
She looked at the Black young man who only raised an eyebrow.
“How ‘bout you introduce us to your friends?”
But before Mackenzie could say anything, Kevin said, “Roy, how are you?”
“Good, sir-- um-- Mr. Foster.”
Kevin was about to say, “No need for that! --”, but then this other boy beside him, Race’s nephew, would want to call him Kevin too, and this would be too strange.
“Mr. Foster,” Ian nodded and stretched out his hand to shake Kevin’s manfully.
“This is Ian Cane,” Mackenzie said, checking his voice to make sure it didn’t rise or go stupid pronouncing the other boy’s name. “He’s in band with me.” Then he added, including Vaughan, “he’s our friend. And this is our other friend Roy... Whom Dad obviously knows.”
“Mr. Foster’s my gym teacher,” Roy clarified.
“Well, speak, Ryan,” Aileen prompted her son, and he said, “Hello.”
“Are you all staying for dinner?” Aileen said. “Or are you going over to Cedric’s to see what he’s doing with biscuits?”
“I’m biscuited out,” Vaughan confessed.
“You could stay here and eat,” Aileen told them. “And then you could clean up the kitchen and let me rest.”
They heard the door swing open, and then Lindsay came up the little steps with Derrick in his Starter jacket.
“Great game, Derrick,” Kevin said.
“Yes it was, Coach Foster!” Around Kevin, Derrick’s eyes always bugged out, and he went hyper in his need to impress his coach and the father of the girl he was dating. Aileen inhaled the last of her cigarette, and grinned at the boy.
“Is it alright if Derrick stays for dinner?” Lindsay asked her father.
“If your mama says it’s alright. She’s the one cooking.”
Lindsay looked to her mother. Aileen took a sip of her gin and tonic. “If Derrick wants to learn how to scrub pans when he’s finished eating...”
“Sure, Mrs. Foster.”
Vaughan turned to Ian thinking Derrick seemed a little too eager to be trusted with a Brillo pad.
“Great,” she said and swilled back the last of her drink. “Tina should be home in a few minutes. She’s bringing Luke with her.”
Lindsay looked enraged. Vaughan looked to Mackenzie, amused, and Kevin grumbled, “Who’s Luke?”

“I’ve never had you in one of my classes, Luke.”
“You teach biology, right?” said Luke.
“Um hum.”
“I took chemistry. Had Rafferty.”
“More potatoes, Luke?”
“No, Mrs. Foster.”
“What time did you leave the O’Muils?” Ian asked.
Luke gave him a look. Ian blenched.
“The O’Muils?” Kevin said, pasting a smile on his face.
“Yes,” Aileen said, “My family. What’s wrong with them?”
“Nothing honey. Alright. Have some more meatloaf, Ian.”
“So why couldn’t you talk to me at the game today?”
“What?” said Lindsay.
“Tina,” said Derrick, clarifying,” I mean, why is it you said you weren’t allowed to talk to me.”
“Oh, my God,” muttered Aileen.
“I was just joking,” Tina said. “It was a great game. You were great, Derrick.”
“Tina!”
“What, Lindsay? He was great. Everyone was great. The team was great. Ian, Mackenzie, the band was great. Vaughan, you were great.”
“I was in my room.”
“You were still great.
“Thank you.”
“Was Ashley great?” Mackenzie asked.
“No.”
“Where is Ashley?” Kevin said.
“Probably getting laid.”
“Tina!”
Tina shrugged. “Want another roll, Luke?”
“I’m good.”
“That’s good. Derrick, you know Ashley?”
“Not really well,” the boy replied. “She’s a good cheerleader. And she’s popular.”
“I’m popular,” Lindsay said, wounded.
“Yeah, but she’s really popular.”
“Ouch,” Aileen murmured, and turned to Kevin, who said nothing.
“Popular Ashley,” Tina murmured.
“Well you are too,” Derrick said to be kind.
“That -- I most certainly am not. And I will never speak to you again if you continue to say such things,” Tina told Derrick.
“But Ashley’s that kind of popular,“ Derrick went on, “Where she can always find a guy. No matter where she is... There’s a guy.”
“They say the same thing about hookers,” Tina commented, and Aileen gagged on her food while Kevin stood up to slap his wife on the back.
“Breathe, Mom,” Tina commanded.
“Ashley’s a taker.” Lindsay said.
“That’s enough about your sister,” Kevin said, instructing Aileen, “Take a little water.”
“Yeah, Derrick, you’d better watch out,” said Tina, “a cute thing like you--”
“Martina,” Aileen tried to say in a low voice, but she was still having trouble breathing.
Derrick was blushing like an idiot.
“Mackenzie,” Vaughan said. “Ian? Where’s Roy?”
Tina looked around and then said, “Where’s Ryan?”

“SO I’VE READ TWENTY THOUSAND LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA, Sea Wolf and Treasure Island,” Ryan Foster was telling Roy. “Just because I was on a sea kick. I wanted to see how many books about water I could read. And I even made songs up about ‘em. But I won’t sing them cause they’re stupid. You just get lots of time on your hands to make up stupid stuff when you don’t have that many friends.”
Roy looked at Ryan from Ross’s side of the room, covered in football pennants. Ryan’s wall was filled with books and held a globe and an astrolabe.
“You go to Catholic school?” Roy said.
Ryan nodded.
“I went to Tyler Elementary, then Jamnia Junior High. I always thought Catholic school would have been neat.”
“It sucks,” Ryan said.
“I didn’t have any friends at Tyler or Jamnia, so don’t feel bad,” Roy told him. Then he said, “Why don’t you have friends?” as if this made no sense to him.
“I have Tourettes. I say stupid stuff a lot. People get a little scared.”
“You haven’t said anything stupid around me.”
Ryan shrugged.
“Sometimes,” Roy said. “Does it ever feel like nobody notices you and you just don’t fit in at all.”
Ryan looked suddenly very old, and he raised an eyebrow, and nodded.

v i i

Rodder Gonzales pointed out that Jamnia was probably as full of country roads and lakes and barns as it was actual city.
“It is sort of hard to tell where Lawrence County Limits ends and the city begins,” Madeleine agreed.
“Look at that sky,” Rodder said. It was an ice blue above the browning landscape. Madeleine lay back in her passenger seat and watched the sun turn the tree limbs golden.

“The saddest sight my eyes can see
is that big ball of orange sinking slyly down the trees
sitting in a broken circle
while you rest upon my knee
this perfect moment will soon be leaving me.

“You ever thought about going back into music?” Rodder asked her.
“No,” Madeleine said. Then, “Yes.” Then. “You mean outside of the choir of Our Lady of Jamnia?”
“Yeah,” Rodder looked at her as if she was stupid.
“No, I...” Madeleine stopped. They kept driving. Then she kept singing to the CD.

Suzanne calls from Boston,
the coffee’s hot,
the sun is high
and that same sun that warms your heart will suck the good earth dry
with everything its opposite enough to keep
you crying
or keep this whole world spinning with a twinkle in his eye

Rodder bammed down on the dashboard, and joined in, they shouted:
Get out the map
Get out the map
and lay your finger anywhere down
we’ll leave the figuring to those we pass on the way out of town
Don’t drink the water
there seems to be something
ailing everyone

I’m gonna clear my head--: Madeleine.
I’m gonna drink that sun--: Rod.

I’m gonna love you good and strong,
while our love is good and young!

They couldn’t stop laughing, and Madeleine did not think they’d had this much fun together in a long time. No other boy had ever sung to the Indigo Girls with her-- except for Vaughan.
“Yeah,” she said, at last. “I think about it. I think about being in music. I haven’t seriously been thinking about it for a while. I’ve been trying to be sensible. Think about school, you know.”
Rodder nodded, and then said, “Well, I’d help you out.”
“Would you be my back up?”
“God no!” Rodder laughed. “You’re the only person I’ll ever sing in front of you. But... I’d be your support.”
They were on the state route, approaching Holy Spirit, the brick monastery on the hill to their rights. As they drove past, Lake Clare, silver blue today, winked into sight.
“If you’re serious, I’ll help you,” Rodder said again.
She looked at him.
“I’m serious,” he told her.
“Well then I guess I’m serious too,” Madeleine replied.

Ian was surprised when Roy called, though slightly disappointed and unable to determine why.
“Hey, Cuz?” he had been reading for social studies, and looked out of his window onto the barren rows of brown cornstalks. “What’s up?”
“I just wanted to know,” Roy was sounding unusually peppy, “if you were going to visit Mackenzie or anything.”
“No, I hadn’t planned on it.”
“Well, he’s your friend, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t you go to see him? And Vaughan?”
“Well... On weekends.”
“This is the weekend.”
“But we all just hung out yesterday. You just don’t keep on popping over to someone’s house if you don’t really know them that... I mean, if you all are just becoming friends.” Then Ian said, “Roy, what are you getting at?”
Roy gave a long, dramatic sigh which was unlike him, and then said, “I just wanted to know if you were going to Mackenzie’s house. If you were, I wanted to go with you. It’s not like I can drive.”
“What are you going for?” And then: “You and Ryan hit it off!”
“He’s right,” Roy said. “No one does notice either one of us.”
Ian, who had spent most of his life not feeling noticed, said, “Look here, Roy. I’ve spent most of my life trying to notice you--”
“I know,” Roy said. Ian stopped the rest of his tirade. “And it’s good... How you look out for me and all. But yesterday I kinda got to look out for someone too.”
Ian, who had been idly thumbing rolling papers, pushed away the cedar box he kept his weed in, and pulled over a fresh pack of cigarettes.
“Tell you what?” he said, at last, as he cashed the pack of cigarettes against the palm of his hand, “We’ll get up and go, right now. How’s that?”

About twenty minutes later, Ian rolled up to the white house on Allan Street, Roy was trying not to bounce on his toes and rock with excitement.
“What’s gotten into you?” Ian demanded, harmlessly. “You’re a real freak, this afternoon.”
The sky was turning pewter grey as they threaded their way through town, past Jamnia High School, and stopped at the Fitzgerald’s. Ian told Roy, “Wait right here.” He wanted to say high to Vaughan. Vaughan was just stepping out of the house in his green parka, and he said, “I just called you.”
“You did?”
“Don’t look so shocked, Ian. We’re friends.” Vaughan gave him an amused look.
“I was going over to the Fosters.”
“So were we. I mean-- Roy asked me to go.”
“He and Ryan hit if off?” Vaughan said. They were coming down the steps. “Yeah, I noticed that.”
“You notice everything,” Ian said.
“I try.”
When they reached the house, Vaughan could hear his sister wailing from the living room.

What you gonna do?
What you gonna do?
About meeeee?
What you gonna do?
What you gonna do?
About meeeeee?

And Tina was slamming away on the guitar.
They stopped. Rodder rose up to cheer and informed the new arrivals, “Madeline Fitzgerald can be heard at the stylish white Victorian on 1959 Michael Street every day but Sunday.” He passed an invisible mike toward her.
“My newest record is coming to a shower near you,” she said, smiling cheesily, and Tina trilled on the guitar.
“Where’d you learn to play that?” Ian asked her.
“Luke.”
“Teach me?”
“One day,” Tina shrugged, and then shouted up the stairs, “Kenzie!”
A few seconds later, it was Ashley who came down looking like a pissed off cat.
“Would you not scream, Tina!”
“As long as you’re here,” Tina said, non-plussed, “when you’re going back up, tap on Kenzie’s door.”
Ashley looking resentful, turned around and sauntered back upstairs. Tina shrugged. Before Roy could think of a tactful way to ask for him, it was Ryan who came bounding down the steps ahead of Mackenzie.
“Roy!” he said, unashamed to be excited.
When the two boys stood, together, Vaughan raised an eyebrow. They looked like a pair of mendicant elves. If he and Mackenzie were nothing alike, then these two were nothing different.
“Wanna see the rock garden?” Ryan asked, as if this were the most exciting thing in the world. Roy nodded, and the younger boy dragged him out.
“That’s why I came,” Ian said to Mackenzie. Then, “Well, it’s not the only reason I came. But Roy really wanted to see Ryan. I mean, not that I didn’t want to see you...”
Mackenzie just tilted his head, and smiled wistfully at Ian.

Outside, Ryan Foster began twitching, and jecking his head. It seemed like it lasted forever. When it was finished, Ryan did not want to look at Roy. Finally, he realized he had to, and the other boy regarded him calmly.
“It throws people off,” Ryan said.
“It’s not your fault,” Roy said casually.
“Does it freak you out?”
Roy shook his head. “Not really.”
Ryan did not say anything for a while. Then he said, “Tina says that we’re divided up into the three normal ones, and the three oddballs,”
Roy screwed up his face, and did some thinking. Then said, “Is Lindsay supposed to be the oddball?”
Ryan shook his head gravely. “It’s Kenzie.”
Roy seemed a little amazed. Mackenzie had never seemed very odd at all.

When Ian brought Roy home, Race Cane rose up from her chair in front of the television. The whole house was bathed in the blue light of the boob tube, and the curtains were shut.
“I wish the two of you had called. I’ve been worried sick.”
“Sorry, Aunt Race,” Ian said, and she shut up immediately. She’d been ready for an argument, and was caught off guard at the realization there would be none.
“Yeah, Mom,” Roy said, disappointing her for a second time. “Sorry. We ate though.”
“Where’d you go?”
“To the Fosters.”
There was a long silence, and then Race said, sounding a little more cheerful than she ought to have, “Kevin and Aileen?”
“You know them?” Ian seemed surprised.
Race turned on the light. For the first time Ian saw his aunt’s face.
“Of course I know them. We’re the same age. There’s only one high school in town.” She turned to Roy. “How did Mr. Foster treat you?”
“He’s really nice.”
“Yes,” Race nodded. “And Aileen?”
Ian noticed Race did not call her Mrs. Foster.
“She’s really nice,” Roy said. “And pretty.”
“She’s held up well,” Race agreed, “after shooting out all those kids.”
Race seemed to be pondering something else for a moment, and then she said, “Well, go finish your homework. You need to get home, Ian. Your folks are worried.”
“They’re always worried.”
“I know.” Race smiled, at last. “Humor them.”
“Goo’night, E,” Roy said to his cousin, and went back to his room.
Ian was quiet. He finally lifted his eyes to his aunt, and said: “How do you know them?”
“The Fosters?” said Race. “I told you.”
Ian just continued to regard her steadily with his brown eyes.
“Oh, alright, already!” Race said. “I used to date Kevin in high school. Before Aileen snatched him away, and got knocked up for her troubles. Is that all? Or will you continue with the third degree?”
“No, that’s all,” Ian said. “Goo’night, Aunt Race.”

“Look!” Madeleine called.
Rodder, on the couch before her, and Cedric, in his easy chair looked up.
Madeleine left the living room going out onto the front porch. She stood there for awhile in her jeans and grey sweatshirt. Rodder came out in the white turtleneck and jeans that Cedric always associated, a little wryly now, with the loss of his daughter’s virginity, and wrapped his arms around her.
“The first snow,” she said, and pointed.
“I can’t see,”
Madeleine reached around and swatted Rodder on his buzzed head.
“That’s because you don’t have your contacts in. Make sure you put your glasses on when you drive home.”
“I hate my glasses.”
“I’d hate to know you drove off the side of the road and broke your neck because you couldn’t see.”
They were quiet like this for a long time. Madeleine watched the new snow fall gently to the sidewalk beyond the yard where it melted away almost immediately.
“If I tell you something,” Rodder began, “will you promise not to scream?”
Madeleine turned around and looked at him.
“It depends on what you’re about to tell me....”

MADELEINE SCREAMED AS SHE RAN into the house.
“Daddy!”
Vaughan came running down the steps at the sound of the scream.
“I’m gonna be at the Chopin!”
To both of their credits, neither Vaughan nor his father said, “What’s the Chopin?”
Rodder, who had been smiling broadly behind his girlfriend, looked from Vaughan to Cedric.
“The Chopin,” he explained. “Is a theatre in Canaan. They have contests every two weeks. Winners get jobs performing regularly.”
“Does the Chopin have age limits?” Cedric said.
“You have to be twenty-one,” Madeleine said.
“And you figured, why let a little thing like being seventeen stop you?”
“I’m almost eighteen, Daddy,” Madeleine reprimanded. “Besides,” she looked up to the stairwell her brother was hanging from, “I thought Vaughan could whip up a fake for me.”
“A family of criminals,” Cedric lamented. “How do you know Vaughan can make a fake?” Then he looked up the stairwell to his sober looking son, standing there innocent in pajama bottoms, and a tee shirt.
“You can make a fake, can’t you?” he said to the fifteen year old.
Humbly, Vaughan nodded.

Cedric Fitzgerald was not ashamed of the way his children had turned out, so he could not say that he blamed himself for them. He could say he was, in part, responsible for them. But blame was a another word with a whole other set of connotations.
Cedric remembered a morning he’d taken the kids to Mass with him. The babysitter had walked out when Madeleine dropped gum in her hair. Vaughan had consented to being lifted up, dandled, and made much of. Then, smiling gleefully, he had pissed all over the babysitter’s lap.
“There was malice in him,” she swore to Cedric. “He meant to do it.”
“Of course he meant to do it,” Cedric replied, reaching into the cradle for his son. “He’s a baby. He had to pee.”
And this was Cedric’s logic. It was his logic whenever he was reprimanded for his children. When the nuns at Our Lady of Jamnia had come to him and said, “Madeleine won’t kneel with her back straight, and she won’t fold her hands straight in front of her for Communion,” Cedric had asked why it mattered. When Miss Pruitt had said that Vaughan was untamable, Cedric had said, “Why would I want to tame my children? If Black people had been less tame, maybe it wouldn’t have taken so long to get off the plantation.”
But right now Vaughan was only a year old. Madeleine three. Cedric marched up the steps of the brick church, holding a hand of each while they gabbled to each other.
“Maddy. Vaughan,” he said as they reached the brass doors covered by done panels of saints and doves.
The two round, brown faces looked up at him expectantly.
“Shush.”
Once in the vestibule, Vaughan gabbled some nonsense to his sister, and Madeleine said something back in broken English. This time he gave them both the look, and neither dared to say a word until they were all out of church.
That was the secret. Cedric would see Kevin and Aileen stuggling with their mess of sticky, dirty, and ill mannered children every Sunday, going red in the face, and Cedric was sure that it was because the two of them had never learned the power of The Look. The promise of pain in The Look was so full that it rarely had to be delivered.
Cedric could count on one hand the times he had spanked both of his children. His mother had once lied to him and said, “This will hurt me more than it hurts you.” He knew this was a lie because Cedric had known his mother pretty well, and now he knew himself, and spanking his children had not been a particularly painful experience on his part. Worn out, exhausted by naughtiness, it had actually proved to be quite satisfying for him.
And that was why he had never done it again.
They were at Mass early. Confession was going on. Cedric, sitting in the half light of the church, saw Kevin Foster walk in. He was marching with purpose, his blue jumpsuit on, covered with oil, his cap in his hand. He stopped by the confessional in the arcade. He looked up. The light was green. He pushed the door and went in. The confession was not long, and then Kevin left, and Ralph came out in a white robe. It was Cedric, a few old people, and the children sitting in the dimly lit church waiting for Mass to begin. Ralph went to the altar, knelt, and then went into the sacristy beyond to get dressed for Low Mass.
After everyone had departed, Cedric did not leave. He and the kids went to the rectory, and they tormented Father Brumbaugh who considered such torment to be “play” and bad children to be “cute.”
“I’ll have to bring them here more often,” Cedric said. “You got any juicy gossip from the confessional?” Cedric said, only half joking. The truth was that more than one tale slipping from Ralph’s mouth had led to a poem or an off Broadway play, the occasional t.v. show manuscript.
“Didn’t have any,” Ralph shrugged. “I only had one confession today. Some boy, probably twenty or something came in carrying on about how he was having an affair.”
Cedric almost dropped his burning cigarette.
“It happens,” Ralph said.
Ralph was sworn to keep the confessional a secret, but in the priests mind if no names were attached it wasn’t gossip. And Ralph didn’t know who had been in the stall. Cedric did, and in his mind, to give out that information was to turn an almost harmless story into gossip.
Ralph’s green eyes widened. He looked like he’d just committed murder.
“You saw the one... The one who’s having the affair. Didn’t you?”
Cedric nodded.
“Well, now then that’s your confession. You’re the priest today. And that means you can’t tell me who it was.”
Once again, Cedric could only nod.

v i i i


THE OTHER DAY MEGHAN BERGHEN has driven north with her sisters to visit their cousins by Lake Erie. She came back with a pile of rocks, and now was sorting them out at the table, thinking to herself how drab they looked out of the lake, and how much nicer they would be in a vase of tap water. Yesterday, Alice had tossed pebbles out into Erie, and Ida had commented, “I guess they’ll be back here in a thousand years or so.”
“But we won’t,” said Meghan.
“We might,” said Alice. “You don’t know how things work. We might be here again to toss them back.”
Meghan shrugged. Alice had always been like that. Then, Meghan confessed, she didn’t really know that she wouldn’t be back in a thousand years.
“That’s a cool rock collection, Mrs. B.”
Meghan looked up, startled to see Money Caroll standing beside Kirk. Money Caroll was the new thing in his bed and, as much as Meghan hated to admit this, it seemed like she would be the thing to last. She didn’t hate her. Not really. Money was a pot head -- this went without saying. But she was a petite girl with a round, full face, and wide hazel eyes, and she spoke in a high, raspy voice that Meghan did not think was intentionally sensuous. Money was a charming girl, even with those dreadlock things.
“Thanks, Money,” Meghan said. While shaping the pebbles into a triangle, she told them what Alice had said about coming back in a thousand years.
“You could all come back together,” Money said, and Meghan was not sure if the girl was serious.
“Like in that jati thing we learned about in class. Remember, Kirk?”
Kirk nodded, but Meghan was sure her son had not come to talk about jatis. Whatever the hell a jati was.
Harv Berghen had come from that Eleventh Street group of Labanese, Iraqui and Arab people who now, mysteriously, all had Anglo-Saxon names. Kirk was skinny, and a little over medium height, the way his grandfather had been. Lately, Kirk looked like the old man. He had a sort of serious face, and he had grown a thin beard and moustache. His hair was black, and it needed to be cut. He was looking as if he were waiting to say something important.
Meghan raised an eyebrow, and waited for her son to speak.
“It’s Luke,” Kirk said, at last.
“What about him?”
“He lives in a silo, Mom.”
Meghan went back to sorting her rocks, and then asked Money to, “Be a dear and get that glass vase under the sink.”
Money did, and Meghan told her son, “We’ve known that for some time.”
“Well, I don’t think people should live like that.”
“Your cousin Tina’s feeding him all the time,” Meghan said. “Trust me, Luke won’t go hungry, and... He obviously likes living in a silo. Or a factory... Or whatever it is.”
“Well,” Kirk considered this a moment. “I don’t think I like it.”
“I don’t think I like it either, but this is the way of things. Thanks, Money.” Meghan began to fill the vase with pebbles that tinkled against the bottom.
“I’ll put some water in that, Mrs. B,” Money said.
“I can’t believe the two of you!” Kirk stamped his skinny, blue jeaned leg.
Meghan cocked her head. Here came the social justice lecture. Usually it came when Kirk was about to get high, and forget all the troubles of being human. Meghan confessed she liked her son better when he was stoned.
“Well, damnit, what do you want me to do?” Meghan demanded.
“We should have him stay here!”
“He doesn’t want to stay here!” Meghan said. “We’ve been through this before. Right after his mom died.”
“Well, something should be done,” Kirk decided. He slammed on his feed cap, took out a cigarette, and stuck it in the corner of his mouth. Then he turned around and walked out the back door. He almost bumped into Ida coming in with a grocery bag.
“What was that about?” Ida asked her sister.
Meghan shook her head, then she said to Money, “They really do look all pretty and shiny with the water. Thank you, Money.” She stopped, and looked up at Ida. “What is this all about? I don’t know. Kirk’s got a heart and shit. I heard a rumor that he was giving away weed for free.”
“He’s having a sort of... spiritual renewal,” Money said. The tired expression Money gave Meghan was enough to seriously make her consider liking the girl.
“It’s like a combination of Christianity, karma and Alice walking around handing folks sunflowers and joints.”
Ida raised an eyebrow: “Jesus Saves? Life is short? Rock it out?”
Money nodded. “Something like that.”

Back in the garage, Kirk was looking out of his window onto the Denhams’s yard, hand on hip, twitching nervously, his cigarette smoldering and ashing all over the concrete floor.
“Kirk, baby,” Money murmured by way of admonition, “You’re getting weirder and weirder.”
“Something should be done,” Kirk said.
“If he wants to live in a -- ”
“People do not live in silos,” Kirk turned around, and stated as if this were an immutable law he had read somewhere and were quoting. “Grain does.”
“Actually the grain doesn’t, either,” Money pointed out. “It lives in fields. Then they gather it up into silos.”
“That-- ” Kirk declared loudly, lifting a finger into the air, his eyes burning, “is EXACTLY point!”
Money considered getting very high very quickly.
“I’m gonna get someone who’s got vision to help me talk Luke out of the silos. I’m gonna get someone with a sense of justice, and right, and humanitarianism. And together we’re gonna make Jamnia a more human city for Luke -- for my friend -- to live in!”
“Or your name’s not Peter Pan?” Money commented.
Kirk, missing the irony as usual, said, “That’s right!”
And finished his cigarette thoughtfully.

Cedric jumped out of his seat as the three boys pummeled on the door of his study.
“If you do that again--” he started looking at Vaughan, Ian and Mackenzie, all in the their winter coats, grinning like idiots.
“You’ve got a visitor,” Mackenzie told him.
They parted ways to let Mr. Fitzgerald through. To Cedric the young man at the door looked like a cross between Ian and Mackenzie. Ian left the doorway, and then Cedric realized it was Kirk Berghen, come out of his garage at last.
“Sir,” Kirk said, manfully, “if you have a moment, I’m here to talk to you about the state of the city, and one Luke Madeary.”
Cedric was perplexed, but intrigued. So he said, “Follow me.” He went back toward his study. Kirk came after. He scribbled a few more lines of what lay on his desk, sighed, and then scribbled something on the bottom.
“That’ll do,” he murmured, and then turning to Kirk, said, “Now let’s talk.”
When Kirk sat down, he leapt up again because Vaughan was screaming.
Ian grinned behind Vaughan, who, eyes wide, was shaking snow from under his shirt.
“I certainly hope,” Cedric commented, “that someone intends to clean my floor.” He turtned to Mackenzie who was chuckling, “How about you?”
Mackenzie stopped, turned red, and said, “Yes, sir.”


Right before the snow began, and right before Derrick was leaving, Tina came into the house with Luke.
“Tina! Luke!” Derrick said, still filled with an awe of their coolness.
“Derrick,” Luke commented. And this was a lot for someone cool as Luke to say.
“Derrick, how are you?” that was a lot for Tina to say. God, she even smiled, and looked concerned.
“I’m good, Tina.”
“That’s great. Drive carefully. Oh, by the way, Derrick,” she said, laying a hand on his shoulder, and watching him shudder, “I really hope you and your friends will be coming to Madeleine’s show on Friday. She’s going to be great.”
“Yeah, “ Derrick said, nodding feverishly. “We’re all coming!”
“That’s great,” Tina smiled. “I wasn’t sure if you’d be into that sort of thing.”
“Yeah, “Derrick said. “We -- me and Lindsay. Right Lindsay = all our friends like... all sorts of stuff.”
“Renaissance man,” Luke commented.”
“Very catholic,” Tina murmured.
“No,” Derrick said, suddenly alarmed. “I’m Episcopalian.”
Tina tried not to laugh.

“LOOK, TINA, I’M NOT GOING to tell you again,” Lindsay brandished a piece of fried chicken, “Keep your hands off my man.”
“Watch out,” Ross pointed to the drumstick. “She’s armed and she’s dangerous.”
“I’ll club you too, Mr. Joe Football,” Lindsay said, biting fiercely into the chicken.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” On her end of the table, Tina, unconcerned, scooped a lump of potato salad onto her plate.
“All this, oooh Derrick, I hope you’ll be coming to the shoooow!”
“I’m just trying to drum up business for Madeleine.”
“Madeleine can get her own business,” Lindsay returned. “You’re just trying to flirt with Derrick.”
“Firstly,” Tina said, beside Luke, “I would never want Derrick. Secondly, he’s an Episcopalian.”
Ian choked on his water. Vaughan laughed, and Mackenzie said, “Ian’s an Episcopalian.”
Tina shrugged, ignoring Ian as he struggled for breath. “Not his fault.”
“Very gracious of you, Tina,” Aileen commented. “Are you alright, Ian?”
Red faced, Ian nodded, taking in deep breaths.
Ryan, beside Roy, in a bid to be ecumenical, said, “Grandad was a Presbyterian.”
“Grandad was an asshole,” Tina stated.
Kevin turned her a dangerous gaze, but Ashley, who had remained silent the whole meal, and sat beside Aileen said, “Amen!”
“Well, he was,” Tina continued. “Till the day he died he was pissed off I wasn’t aborted.”
“Tina,” Aileen said in that false grown-up voice.
“And I’m not saying I haven’t often felt like Ashley might have benefitted from being aborted--”
“You hag!” Ashley snapped.
“But,” Tina pressed on, non -plussed, “I certainly don’t want to be aborted.”
“Well, don’t worry, Martina,” Aileen said smoothly. “I promise I’ll never abort you.”
“Thanks, Mom.”

The snow was falling steadily when both cars arrived at 1959 Michael Street, Rodder’s Escort coming from the east and Tina’s LTD from the west. It was too cold to exchange greetings beyond a wave and a smile. Even the simple insults that spilled from Tina’s mouth like water froze on the wind and made her shut up.
When they entered the house, Tina was startled to see her cousin Kirk sitting in the living room in the easy chair across from Cedric, both men smoking furiously, and talking in earnest as the ghosts of Pall Malls and Monarchs rolled from their mouths and nostrils like fog.
They both looked up at Madeleine, Vaughan, Tina, Mackenzie and lastly, Luke, then at each other. Old Coconut was barking outside the door.
“Let that damn dog in,” Cedric told Madeleine. Then he turned to Luke. “Is it true you live in a silo?”
“It’s not a silo. It’s the factory over the tracks on Michael Street,” Luke said, and immediately he sounded stupid to himself.
The dog came in, yapping and banging its yellow tail about everywhere.
“Well, you’ll be staying here tonight,” Cedric said.
Before Luke could open his mouth, Cedric said, “Yes, I know, community is a huge imposition. I’m sure you’re used to having your freedom and doing whatever people do in abandoned factories and warehouses. But tonight all you’ll be doing is freezing. So you’ll stay here.”
Kirk looked on, smiling fiercely, full of approval for the way events were being handled.
“In fact,” Cedric said. “You’ll winter here. We’ve got an extra room on the first floor, most of the second floor and the attic are never used. The basement is a maze of rooms, most of them empty. Tomorrow you can splash around and find your place. Tonight I suggest you sleep in the spare room next to the library.”
Luke, for once caught off guard, stood in his beaten up suede coat, still quiet until Cedric said, “You may speak, now.”
Luke sought for words, opened his mouth. Nothing came out. At last he said, “Thank you, Mr. Fitzgerald.”
Cedric only shrugged.

There are no rules here, none that I can tell.
What made it easy to live over the tracks, and hard to live anywhere else were rules, or how I felt about them. And I guess how I felt about them was how my mother felt about them.
She never said why she married my dad, though I always thought it was because he got her pregnant. Bur I know she didn’t stay because of Rules. I don’t know if he was really strict, or if this was just the way I thought he was from what she said. She feared rules like I feared them. When I was with my mom we were free. And then she died and i was at the house on Windham for a little bit. Then I left. Dad came looking for me.
Back then I used to think we’d gone a long way off to flee from Dad, and he was some monster. Now I think he may have only been a mini - monster, and I realize that we did not flee far. We just left Eleventh Street. It was also a long time before I found out why my mom and Meghan Berghen were friends, why I spent so much time in Kirk’s shadow. It turns out my dad was a cousin of Meg’s husband -- Kirk’s dad. And they all grew up together on Eleventh Street. But I didn’t learn that from Meghan or my mother or anyone but Mr. Stearne of all people. I can’t remember why he told me.
I can remember what my mother would tell me.
“I grew up the youngest of three girls,” she would say. “We lived in my Grandfather’s huge house, and he treated us poorly because my mother, his only daughter, had married an Irishman against his will. Grandfather was a Lebanese doctor and never spoke English when he was home, though often he spoke French. When my father was killed in a car wreck, my mother came home with us, but only under the terms that she remain in black at all times and never speak. It was the sixties, but she was not allowed to speak, and not just because she was a woman, but because she was declared dead. Her father had done this the moment she’d married against his will.
So the Sixties was going on everywhere except for in our house on Eleventh Street. The time came when Mother had to retire to the attic, and she never came out. Meals were placed at her door. We could come and see her, but she could not come out.
Then, one day we went in and she wasn’t there. I didn’t find out what happened to her for another five years.”
But my Mother never tells me what did happen to her.
“From that time on, from when I was seven years old going to Our Lady of Jamnia, and then in high school going to Saint Mary’s, up until I went to college and found my mother again, I lived in a house where women never sat with men. They brought in food, they left, they kept silence, and Grandfather and the uncles would laugh and say, “Women, what do they know?”
This is what she knew of home and rules. What else could she pass on to me?
I told Mr. Fitzgerald, who likes to be called Cedric this, and he laughed.
“We run by Crawford Street Rule here,” he said.
I must have given him a look that said I didn’t know what he was talking about.
He explained.
“We always thought yawl on Eleventh Street might be crazy. We were crazy too, up on Crawford, Only a block away and a world of difference.
“I grew up in my grandmother’s house. And it was my grandmother’s -- not my grandfather’s. She had five kids, none of them ever moved away. And there were always cousins, more for the summer than at any other time. Most of them came from Louisiana.
“I remember Beanie and Daisy and Reval. They were all light skinned and had straight hair and thought they were really pretty. They came from Oklahoma and whenever they were here they were high as kites. My mother used to say they were trash and tell me to stay away from them. Daisy was a little older than me, but she was my aunt, really a child of my grandfather’s from one of his women. The one time my grandfather raised a hand to rule his house it was at Daisy, after she’d gotten pregnant again, “You shan’t shame me. You shan’t!” I remember him thundering, and her on the floor, cowering and weeping with fear and shame.
“But she did shame him. To the tune of at least two more illegitimate kids. All of them went through the house on Crawford. There were cousins I didn’t know how I was related to.
“I didn’t know about my father’s family either,” Cedric told me. “Because I didn’t know who he was until I was almost too old to care. My mother was a dancer and club girl and a club singer, and she was fast and free. That’s the morher my sister never knew. Even after Gladys cleaned her act up, and we got our own apartment (it was down the street, right at the junction where Crawford turns to Eleventh), the old crowd still came by...
The old crowd.... When they came to my grandmother’s house, she locked herself in her room and spent the night praying the rosary... Miss Cody- - who was the fiercest drag queen this side of San Francisco, all the gay men who lived over in Boystown, and went to Chicago all the time. They were always here. And my father brought his friends over and they gambled and smoked all night and sometimes he took notice of me, then he stuffed my pockets with money. Later, when I was older, I made him take notice of me so that he always stuffed my pockets with money.
I asked Cedric what happened to him.
“He did the decent thing in the end,” Cedric told me. “He was incapable of being anything admirable. There was scarcely a drop of love in the son of a bitch. When I was about fifteen, he got drunk one night and he and a train met each other -- right in front of your precious factory -- which is where he worked when he worked-- it was in operational back then. When my mother told me, she was dry eyed. So was I. I couldn’t pretend to be injured. I thought, believe it or not, well there go my wads of money every two weeks. But looking back I think it was a grace that he died before I was old enough to resent him.”
So Cedric amazed me. I looked up at him for a while. He was expressionless. At last he said.
“So live and let live, and stay out of folks ways,” he said. “That’s Crawford Street Rule.”

MADELEINE WAS THINKING OF WHAT she’d tell her father even as she was pulling up her black stockings. There was a thump[ at the door.
“I’m not dressed yet,” Madeleine shouted.
Rodder opened the door and came in anyway.
“Rod!”
“I already know what you look like,” he said.
“Well, as long as you’re here, zip me up.”
“Uh oh,” Rodder murmured, coming behind her to zip the black strapless. “Is Cedric gonna let you out of the house in this?”
“I’ve already thought about it,” Madeleine said. “And if he says no, I’ll just have to explain that I’m a grown woman, and I’ve got to look like one, and this is a very tasteful dress given the setting.”
“There you go,” Rodder said, kissing her on the neck and stepping back. “But what if he still says no?”
Madeleine wrinkled her nose and said, “Then that’s when I cry.”
“You look wonderful,” Rodder told her.
“Yeah,” Madeleine agreed. “I always think it’s the height of taste to know when you look good and when you don’t. Speaking of... you look rather dashing yourself, Mr. Gonzales.”
“Am I sexy?”
“Always.” Madeleine came closer to him, then backed away at the thump on the door.
“It’s me,” Vaughan said.
He opened the door without admission, still shaking the card dry.
“Here’s your ID. ” He showed it to Rodder first. “It would have been done sooner, but I was busy.”
“Doing what?” Madeleine asked.
“Having a life.”
“This is professional,” Rodder nodded, impressed, then passed it to Madeleine.
“Oh, Vaughan, I could kiss you,” Madeleine said. “In fact I think I will.” She kissed her brother. He said, “Enough of that.” Then: “Nice, dress. Where’s rest of it?”
“Don’t start,” Madeleine warned her brother, still shaking the ID dry. “I’ll get enough from Daddy.”
The doorbell wrung downstairs, and when Madeleine, Rodder and her brother came down there were Mackenzie, Tina and Ian. Madeleine was surprised by how beautiful they all looked. Tina was actually wearing a burgundy wrap and she had on a deep red gown.
“Ten dollars at the consignment,” she whispered to Madeleine. Tina’s hair was a red gold fire in this light, and her eyes were sparkled wickedly.
“Wow,” Vaughan said, looking at both Mackenzie and Ian.
“I know,” Ian said, pointing to Mackenzie. “Doesn’t he look great!”
Mackenzie went red and tried to stop himself from running to splash his face with water. He didn’t know if he was supposed to blush when a guy complimented him.
“You don’t look so bad yourself,” Vaughan said, jumping in before a lapse could enter the conversation.
“Daddy,” Madeleine began, taking her coat off, knowing he would see the dress before long anyway, “I know this is short, and that you--”
“Oh, who gives a damn!” Cedric said. “The judges need a little leg.” He struck a match, and lit the cigarette that was clenched between his teeth.
“Show ‘em what you got.”

As they drove across town Madeleine’s heart was racing. As they crossed the river into Canaan, and drove all over the city, she wondered if they might even be late. They were not. Backstage she drank lots of water and Rodder paced back and forth and told her she’d do fine. She loved him, but wanted him to shut up. Madeleine felt claustrophobic with the largeness of Rod’s physical presence in that hot little dressing room.
When it was her turn, Madeleine strutted out onto the stage. Tina popped up with her guitar. Madeleine Fitzgerald looked all around her. There was Daddy and Vaughan. And Aunt Louise had shown up with Claudia. Claudia had dragged Hakim with her. Ida was here. So was Meghan Berghen. And what was Derrick Todd, silly looking thing, doing here? And Lindsay beside him, looking as if she’d just swallowed a lemon. Mr. Stearne was here too? And Ian and Roy and Kevin and Aileen, Mackenzie. Nearly everyone in her life was right here. The majority of the crowd was this huge web cast over Jamnia by the Fitzgeralds. She was filled with an emotion that approached awe more than love, or maybe this was love. Whatever it was she couldn’t imagine them all here just to see her sing.
So she closed her eyes, shut the world out, gave Tina the motion to start playing, and then opened her mouth to sing.