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building. “Bad boys is down in thirty-two,” he says, pushing his sweaty Notre Dame baseball cap back on his crown. “Best hurry if you want a good seat.”
    Bo thanks him and starts down the long, unlighted hallway.
    â€œHow’d you get yesef in with that bunch?”
    Bo turns. “Just lucky, I guess.”
    â€œWell,” Don says, “that kinda luck, I wouldn’t spend my allowance on lottery tickets. I know you—Brewster, right?—an’ you’re trouble, but you ain’t that kind of trouble.”
    â€œTell Mr. Redmond that.”
    A look of acknowledgement crosses Don’s face, and he laughs. “Naw, that’s okay. Redmond’s a prick. Firstfew years I done this job, had this little rat-lookin’ dog I couldn’t get housebroke. Used to leave him in Redmond’s room while I cleaned the rest of the school. I’d still be doin’ that if Redmond wouldn’t a’ started blamin’ the kids. Bunch of ’em he thought done it got a three-day vacation. Hell, I ain’t said a word to him since I dropped outta tenth grade. That there’s a philosophy you might wanna adopt.”
    Bo doesn’t argue. Don’s been head janitor almost fifteen years and most of the students like him, though they have dubbed that portion of his ample posterior that peeks over the back belt loops of his low-slung jeans “the crack of Don.” Don has seen a lot at Clark Fork High over the years that he has kept to himself, as if he knows the kids need at least one person over twenty-one on their side.
    Bo gazes into room thirty-two with great apprehension. It is too much like his dream. Mr. Nak sits cross-legged atop the teacher’s desk, with more than a dozen students, ranging in age from fourteen to nineteen, seated in a circle. Anger seems heavily male, as there is only one girl—the one he saw working out in the university weight room. Small world. All eyes fall on him in the doorway.
    â€œAha,” Mr. Nak says in his slow Texas drawl,“everbody present and accounted for.” He motions Bo to the one empty chair in the circle.
    Bo breathes deep, and moves slowly toward the seat.
    OCTOBER 11
    My dearest Larry,
    I think anyone who wants to get his temperament firmly under control should stand in the doorway to Mr. Nakatani’s anger management group for about sixty seconds or so, and let the member felons cast their gaze upon him. What you say to yourself at that moment goes something like this: Dear God, I will never again raise my voice in anger against anything—living or dead—on your sacred planet, I will besmirch not one of your creatures no matter how disgusting, not even my brother or his puppy-mill cocker spaniel who watches television seven hours a day and gets so excited when he snatches food off your unattended plate that he pees all over the floor; and I will eat leafy green vegetables as the main course of every meal with a smile on my face if you will please, oh please, just turn back the hand of time to the moment I did whatever I did to get me here and make me be a good boy.
    It seems God doesn’t answer your prayers without first taking them under lengthy advisement, and I didn’t havetime for that because Mr. Nak motioned me to my place among the thieves and murderers.
    He said I must be Bo Brewster.
    I said, “Yes sir.”
    Two or three of the inmates snickered, and Mr. Nak said that was because they hadn’t heard anyone called “sir” since they were last in juvenile detention.
    Mr. Nak said the group was a little short on manners, as I could probably tell, but that everyone would introduce themselves shortly. “Shuja,” he said, nodding toward the only black kid, “why don’t you tell Bo how things work in the early mornin’ here on the ranch?”
    â€œWhy, I’d be right proud to,” Shuja said. He’s a big, strong, good-looking kid