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stairs. He stood at the top and held the door for me. The reflection in the windows above Jerry was as bright as the real sun. As I walked up the steps my face pounded under the skin, I could feel the blood thick and sticky on my clavicle, and I stared right into the burning center of light.

Killing Animals
    Birds, and birds, and animals, and things; with slingshots, and BB guns, we killed ’em, and killed ’em. We killed so many.
    Every once in a while one of my friends would get a BB gun and we would go on a spree. We’d shoot anything that moved.
    When we were in seventh grade, Ronny Feldman and Ami and I slept over at Saul’s house. Ronny brought two slingshots. They were black metal in a scary Y shape; the arms stuck out farther forward than the base. Tied to the arms was plastic tubing that you stretched back, and a soft, greasy little moleskin pad where you put the thing you were firing.
    At Saul’s we had pepperoni pizza from Domino’s and watched
Colors.
We all had three pieces of pizza except Saul—he had five.
    Saul was the biggest. He had hair on his belly, balls, and back.
    In
Colors,
the Bloods and the Crips were fighting over turf. Blue and red were important to them. The cops were trying to stop the gangs, but the gangs kept fighting. We watched very closely, we couldn’t help it.
    The movie made me so depressed and I knew the world was ending.
    After
Colors,
we watched
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
It was a movie I liked when I was younger, but after watching
Colors
it was silly. It was silly but I still watched. I tried to forget about the gangs.
    Ronny said he liked Michelangelo because he was the funniest.
    “I like Michelangelo,” he said. “He tells all the jokes.” It made sense that Ronny liked Michelangelo because Michelangelo had personality. Ronny himself wasn’t very funny, but he was wily.
    I liked Michelangelo too, but I was even less funny than Ronny. And I wasn’t wily. Leonardo was the leader, Donatello was a scientist, and Raphael was a great fighter. I was none of those.
    After the Ninja Turtles, we all arm wrestled on the coffee table. Ronny could beat Ami, and I could beat Ronny. I was surprised, because Ronny was tough even though he was little. It felt good to beat him.
    Saul said, “Ryan is stronger than he looks.”
    Saul could beat everyone at arm wrestling. But it wasn’t fair wrestling with him because he was so much bigger. His dick was seven inches. He showed us.
    I had no hair under my pits. At the beach, I held my arms down at my sides before I got in the water.
    I thought I had no hair because I masturbated so much. But I couldn’t stop doing it.
    At midnight the house was quiet. We quietly slid open the paneled glass door at the back and left. There was dew on the grass in the backyard, and the air moved slow and cold like a spirit. No one spoke, and it was very quiet. It felt like birth.
    We crept to the front yard, and out to the street, and we were away. We were free with the slingshots.
    The streets were an empty stage set. All the rules of the daytime were gone.
    Each block was lined with gray light posts, with ovate lamps at the top, which cast white-yellow beams onto the cement. The center of the beams, where they hit the pavement, was like nougat.
    We passed through the milky light and into the shadows.
    Bushes were sentient, and trees shook their leaves in bunches like animals shaking their hides. The wind came in languid gusts like whispered reminders.
    We heard cars drive in isolation down Oregon Expressway, in the gray zone, out of sight.
    The atmosphere was a held breath, and the shadowed house fronts were sleeping dogs.
    *   *   *
    We shot rocks at a streetlight two blocks from Saul’s house, but the light didn’t break. It was made of plastic.
    We saw no birds and we wandered.
    In front of a low, wide one-story house, a skinny calico cat picked its way on sharp points across the dewy lawn.
    “Please don’t,” I whispered. “Please,