A few tourists look up, smiling hopefully, as if her song might redeem their wasted morning. The Alamo can be the ultimate anticlimax, the guaranteed disappointment to end all disappointments, at least for those who dream of wind-swept plains and a Davy Crockett who looked like John Wayne. "It's so small," outsiders always complain. "And there's a Burger King across the street." Personally, she likes the way the mission is plopped down in the middle of real life. Home of the Whopper meets the fort of the whopper, with all its little lies, all those stories told to make it cleaner, better, nicer. Davy Crockett swinging old Betsy, Jim Bowie groaning on his cot with a broken leg, William Barrett Travis drawing the line that separated the men from the boys. Death made people so pure. Did it matter if none of it was true? Did it matter if all of it was true?

"Maybe I should sing a few bars of the ‘Yellow Rose of Texas.' Bet I'd make some money before the Daughters kicked me out."

He isn't amused.

"If I help you, then you have to listen to me, do things my way. You have to stop doing shit like this. Nice and normal, remember? That's how you fly under the radar. Nice and normal."

"Who wants to be nice? Or normal?" She drops her makeshift accordion, begins breaking apart a scab on her calf. It reminds her of bacon, the way it crunches in her fingers. She scratches her shin, drawing fresh blood. Normal is giving up. Normal is everybody else, going on with their lives. Normal is the real sickness, the pretense that lets your body live while your soul shrivels inside. Besides, she wants him to know she's back in town, wants him to be aware of her. She wants him to sit up in bed at night, wondering if he just felt her hot breath on his neck. Tienes sueños, pobrecita?