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tying his shoe on the sidewalk.
    The unmemorable man touches the boy gently on the back as he passes me on his way to the men’s room.
    “Have we met?”
    “You don’t recognize me?” he asks.
    I strain to move the blood through my head, so the heat and light will coax a memory out of hiding. The bar lights surge and the jaws of an electric dog clamp onto my back ribs. I see storm clouds and smell pear blossoms for a heartbeat before my knees turn to wax.
    On my back. Turning over but my legs won’t move. My arms tingle and burn like they’re asleep. Need to watch for the shattered lemonadeglass. Trying to crane my neck. All I can see are the man’s shoes and shins. Spit hangs from my lips. I can’t keep from drooling, and the shoes look expensive so I need to be careful.
    “How about now?” he says.
    The tingling in my arms rages with a second surge from the dog’s teeth. I hear a thunderclap and feel the first drops of hot rain on my face before I collapse again onto wet grass, the chrome leg of the pinball machine the only thing in my field of view. I smell summer, dirt, popcorn from the bar, the stench from the toilets, stale smoke, pear blossoms, lemonade, smoking bark, my own cooked and blistered skin, then nothing.

    seven
    G RASS STABS MY NOSTRILS AND EYES AS RAIN SLIDES DOWN MY CHEEKS . T HE drops climb through my hair and ears, foraging beneath my collar. It’s not raining. Beetles swarm from the dirt and pick me apart, scrambling for the precious patches of thin skin, fighting for the wet tissue inside my mouth and beneath my bandages. Antenna codes rebound from drone to drone in the space of a wing flutter until the machine-forged workers deep down catch the signal. The six-legged drill bits burrow up through the dirt to pick my cartilage clean with surgical steel mandibles until nothing’s left but my brittle bones for the hot rain to hammer into the mud. You say my name, your voice muffled with static. Flash. One thousand, two thousand, three thousand. Thunder. Wiggle your toes. I don’t have any. Other people have toes, I have shoes. Wiggle your shoelaces. Nothing. I can’t run from the legions of whoever or whatever are charging through the splintered door I can’t see. Open your eyes.
    I’m buckled into the passenger seat of a minivan. The stranger in the peach golf shirt is driving.
    “That’s what we call a Simi Valley speeding ticket.” He reaches for my face. With his thumb on my cheek, he stretches my left eye wide open. “You there?” He lets go of my face and takes the wheel. “The question is,” he says, “can you do it again?”
    My fingers crackle. My motor control thaws as I rub my palms together. A voice behind shouts for ice cream, a child’s plea comingfrom a grown man.
    “We’re going to get some ice cream right now, son,” the driver says. Then to me, “What happened to the hard-ass I used to know? Only a couple of weeks ago you were pure brains and attitude. Now, you’re a shivering wreck.”
    The taste of metal lingers. My tongue won’t move and I can’t swallow. I might choke on my own spit. The windows are up, the air conditioner blows the faint lemon and pear blossom smells away with cold, empty air.
    “Ice cream.”
    “Settle down, son.”
    Wherever I am, it’s far from the Firebird’s part of town. We drive among the houses I’ve seen in the distance from my window, box-shaped insect hives the color of sand, with red tile roofs behind high walls or iron fences. They cover the hills like barnacles. The Summit. Shady Pointe. Vista Acres. Groups of Mexican men trim hedges and lawns every half mile. The brightest color is the manicured grass that’s never seen a picnic blanket, lawn chair or baseball game. I don’t smell anything.
    “I’m sorry about the shock,” the man says. “My son likes his toys and I’m a big believer in a strong offense. You used to know that. That’s my boy back there. You’ve met him before, many a time.”
    He gauges