“You ain’t gonna make me feel guilty. Drink a beer and sit down a minute.”

“I don’t have time,” said Isaac.

Poe glanced around the yard in exasperation, but finally he stood up. He finished the rest of his drink and crumpled the can. “Alright,” he said. “I’ll ride with you up to the Conrail yard in the city. But after that, you’re on your own.”

* * *

From a distance, from the size of them, they might have been father and son. Poe with his big jaw and his small eyes and even now, two years out of school, a nylon football jacket, his name and player number on the front and buell eagles on the back. Isaac short and skinny, his eyes too large for his face, his clothes too large for him as well, his old backpack stuffed with his sleeping bag, a change of clothes, his notebooks. They went down the narrow dirt road toward the river, mostly it was woods and meadows, green and beautiful in the first weeks of spring. They passed an old house that had tipped face- first into a sinkhole—the ground in the Mid- Mon Valley was riddled with old coal mines, some properly stabilized, others not. Isaac winged a rock and knocked a ventstack off the roof. He’d always had a good arm, better than Poe’s even, though of course Poe would never admit it.

Just before the river they came to the Cultrap farm with its cows sitting in the sun, heard a pig squeal for a long time in one of the outbuildings.

“Wish I hadn’t heard that.”

“Shit,” said Poe. “Cultrap makes the best bacon around.”

“It’s still something dying.”

“Maybe you should stop analyzing it.”

“You know they use pig hearts to fix human hearts. The valves are basically the same.”

“I’m gonna miss your factoids.”

“Sure you will.”

“I was exaggerating,” said Poe. “I was being ironic.”

They continued to walk.

“You know I would seriously owe you if you came with.”