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pole—if a telephone pole had pierced ears, I mean.  His hair is messy, tawny; coupled with the giant eyeglasses, he makes me think of an owl.
    He must notice my unfamiliarity.  “We go to school together,” he says.  “Kory Cohen?  I’m the sculptor guy?”
    “That’s…”
    “I hang out with the sociopaths?”
    Oh.  “Oh!”  Cavalieri’s a big school; in any given class, you’re sitting with eighty or more students.  But the sociopaths—right, there’s this group of boys, very self-absorbed; they sit around pondering absurdism and nihilism and they all address the teachers by first name.
    “I saw your name on the mailbox,” Kory says.  He steps right past me, inviting himself into my apartment.  That’s a sociopath, alright.  “Rozas isn’t exactly a common surname, is it?”  He pinches the bridge of his eyeglasses and gives me a Look, as if to suggest that I had better agree with him.  “I saw what happened to you.  It’s all over the news.   Unsurprising, of course.  There are more than five million car wrecks in the US every year.”
    My hand drops at my side.  I push the front door closed with a click.  Here comes the gravity again, trying to pull me down.
    Kory’s face fluctuates with concern.  “That pretty singer girl; she’s really…”
    “Yeah.”
    “And your hair.  It’s so short.  You look like a cancer patient.”
    I try a smile.  “That’s what I said.”
    Kory looks around.  “Can I have some coffee?”
    I head into the kitchen and turn on the coffeemaker.  Minutes later I join Kory in the sitting room while he admires the paint splashes on the wall.  I hand him his cup and he blows on the surface.  He peers at me carefully, like he’s a scientist and I’m a quark.
    “What is it?” I ask, trying to be polite.  I sit on the floor.
    “I think I feel sorry for you,” Kory says.  “It’s strange…  I’ve never felt sorry for anyone before.”
    I know what comes next:  He starts quoting Camus.
    He doesn’t quote Camus.  “People will ask questions, you know.  Curiosity, that’s the nature of the beast.”
    “Yeah…”  I grip my knees.
    “Are you ready for that?”
    “I don’t…”  I don’t know.  I can’t even paint.  How can I go to school?  How can I face those questioning stares?
    Kory nods, as if I’ve confirmed his suspicions.  “Then I’ll have to provide you with my services.”
    “Uh…”  I draw a blank.
    Kory sips his coffee.  “I do consider myself a Good Samaritan, you know.  Human beings are so frivolous, but if we don’t safeguard those frivolities, the propagation of our entire race is at stake.  This coffee is disgusting, by the way,” he tells me cheerfully.
    There’s a sociopath in my sitting room, asking to be my bodyguard.
    “That’s it exactly,” Kory replies.  But I haven’t said anything for him to reply to.  “I’ll deflect the attention off of you and onto me.  Personally, I like attention.  I don’t know why.  Another frivolity, I suppose.”
    “Y-Yeah.”  Sociopath.  Why?
    “So, then,” Kory says.  He puts down his drained coffee cup.  “Anything I can do for you in the meantime?”
    “Actually—”  Well, he’s here, isn’t he?  “I can’t find my paintbrush.”
    “Come again?”
    “My badger brush?  It’s…”  This is a little silly.  “It’s fan-shaped.  I was painting—”  No, I wasn’t.  “—and then the headache, and then I…misplaced it, I guess…”
    “You don’t have another brush?”
    “I do.”  A sable brush.  “But—”  This really is silly.  “Different brushes have different effects.”
    “Hrm,” Kory says.  “Let’s look for it, then.”
    He doesn’t sound enthused.  I can’t blame him.
    We turn the apartment upside-down looking for my badger brush.  The only place we don’t search is Judas’ room, because I’d like to give my brother at least a little privacy.  It’s like the brush disappeared.