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crazy. "No," he said. "Those are his sons. There are two of them. They used to look just alike till one of them shaved his head; now I can tell them apart. Captain Tom is the older one—he's their dad. There are other guys in and out of there all the time." He cut his eyes at me and smiled. "And girls too."
    "You just told me not to look over there. It sounds like you look over there all the time."
    "That's because I know what I'm doing, and I got a fuckin' Glock strapped on just in case."
    I laughed. "You do not have a gun. Do you?"
    "No, but I know how to look through the crack without getting caught. Y'all bitches are too emotional. You gonna make too much noise and get yourselves caught."
    "No I'm not," I said, challenging him. He was so full of hot air. There was no reason he should be allowed to spy on them and none of the rest of us could. "Well, this happens to be a fun distraction for me, so you're gonna have to just share." I crossed my arms indignantly and he looked at me smiling.
    "It's Drake you're looking for—the guy with long hair."
    "I'm not looking for him particularly, I just thought it was intriguing when Megan told me you said they were pirates."
    "Megan just wanted you to see the guys. She doesn’t even fuckin' believe me that they're pirates."
    "I believe you," I said wistfully. I held my mug and stared straight ahead. "I wish there was a way we could make that hole bigger."
    Steven made a noise of disapproval and shook his head at me. "See? That's exactly why you don't need to be back here. Didn't you just hear what I said? They'd kill you if they found out you were watching them."
    He had said that before, but for some reason it was just sinking in. "Do you think they'd seriously try to hurt us if they knew we could see into their yard?"
    "Well, it depends on what we fuckin' see, duddent it?"
    "They're never gonna notice," I said. I pointed at the hole. It was almost imperceptible in the huge, stone wall, and looked to be even smaller on the other side.
    "Yeah, but you can't be doing shit like trying to make it bigger."
    I just sat there, knowing he was right. "Did you say his name is Drake?"
    "Yeah. Kelly"
    "Huh?"
    "Drake Kelly. That's his name. His dad's Tom Kelly, the pirate. I'm telling you the truth. That's for fuckin' real over there. He was named for Sir Francis Drake. England saw him as a hero, but the Spaniards knew him for the bloodthirsty pirate he was."
    "Which one was he named for," I asked, "the hero or the villain?"
    He cut his eyes at me as if I must be playing dumb on purpose. "The pirate, obviously. The villain."
    "How do you know all this? You sound like you did a report on him or something."
    "My friend Alex knows someone who's told him stories of first hand accounts. It was someone who'd seen all this stuff with his own two fuckin' eyes, and he told Alex and them some of it—like the way he carries around that skull."
    "That's so weird," I said.
    We sat in silence for a few seconds. "You have to wonder how he went about, you know, cleaning it."
    "You mean getting the fuckin' brains and shit out?"
    I cringed, but nodded. "Yeah." A big smile crossed my face, and he glanced over at me.
    "You think it's funny, cutting heads off and carrying them around with you?"
    "No," I said defensively. "I was smiling at something else, and you don't even know that story is true."
    "Yes I do, and what were you smiling at?"
    "I was just thinking that it's been a while since I had something to take my mind off… " I hesitated. "Did your sister tell you about—"
    "That you're not playing piano anymore?"
    "Yeah. It was a big, on stage catastrophe—a nightmare. I've sort of had a hard time forgetting about it." I shrugged. "Anyway, it's just nice to get my mind off of it, and shirtless pirates have been a nice distraction."
    Steven smiled at me, and I could tell he cared about me and hated that I'd been having a hard time, but didn't know what to say.
    I smiled back at him. "So does this mean