“No. Absolutely not. Uh-uh.”

He took this calmly. I could say it was because he was stoned on OxyContin, but I knew better. He could see I didn’t mean to just walk out no matter what I said. My curiosity (not to mention my fascination) was probably sticking out like porcupine quills. Because part of me did want to know the specifics.

“I see I can skip the introductory material and get right down to business,” Al said. “That’s good. Sit down, Jake, and I’ll let you in on my only reason for not just taking my whole supply of little pink pills at once.” And when I stayed on my feet: “You know you want to hear this, and what harm? Even if I could make you do something here in 2011—which I can’t — I couldn’t make you do anything back there. Once you get back there, Al Templeton’s a four-year-old kid in Bloomington, Indiana, racing around his backyard in a Lone Ranger mask and still a bit iffy in the old toilet-training department. So sit down. Like they say in the infomercials, you’re under no obligation.”

Right. On the other hand, my mother would have said the devil’s voice is sweet.

But I sat down.

3

“Do you know the phrase watershed moment, buddy?”

I nodded. You didn’t have to be an English teacher to know that one; you didn’t even have to be literate. It was one of those annoying linguistic shortcuts that show up on cable TV news shows, day in and day out. Others include connect the dots and at this point in time. The most annoying of all (I have inveighed against it to my clearly bored students time and time and time again) is the totally meaningless some people say, or many people believe.

“Do you know where it comes from? The origin?”