It had been nice for November. Mild. He grabbed his denim jacket instead of his down coat. See, that’s why he had the rubber hose in his pocket. Not because he was planning anything. It was just there, from the last time he had worn the jacket, which shows how long it had been since he had siphoned anything, weeks and weeks. If it had been colder, if he had taken the other coat, if he had gotten that hit of gasoline he was going for…but he didn’t. Don’t tell me what might have been, Ruthie always said.

He walked up to Latrobe Park after the guy at the gas station chased him off. Were the wheels turning? He really couldn’t tell what was inside his head and what was outside anymore. Maybe he never could. His words felt like sand in his mouth, like he’d taken a tumble in a wave at Ocean City, swallowed half the beach. But he wasn’t going to drink that fucking Pepsi, no way.

“Henry?”

He went to Latrobe Park, and that’s where he saw her.

The fat cop sat up straighter in his chair, the pretty one unfolded his arms.

She had looked like a kid, at first. Maybe it was because she was on a swing. Or maybe because her legs had no shape, no shape at all. And her hair was stuffed into one of those knitted caps, like some goddamn Rastafarian, although the pieces that straggled out were straight and fine, dark brown. There was something about her face that made you want to look at it. Not sexy, not sexy at all, more like a flower in a vase. He hadn’t expected that.

She had been cool to him at first, scared beneath the cool, but he had expected that. He turned it on, not boy-girl style, but brotherly. She said she was hungry-said it like it surprised her, like he should care-and he had his opening. A little bottle of glue from the store, he told her, nothing more. A little bottle of glue, and she could use what was left over to buy what she wanted. They’d have themselves a party back at his house.

You have a house, she asked. Yeah, he had a house.