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across the front of his T-shirt; Willie looked as if he had been blasted in the face with a double-barreled shotgun. Andy tried to recall the last hours of the evening, but all his mind could retrieve was a vague image of falling over a table … and not his table.
    He dropped his clothes on the floor and limped to the bathroom. The anesthetic properties of the Coronas had worn off; his left knee burned with each step. He turned on the hot water in the shower then relieved himself of the beer and brushed his teeth. He stared at his reflection in the mirror.
    He looked every bit as bad as he felt.
    He walked into the living room and found Max stretched out on the couch. The Keeshond bolted to the front door and barked an I need to pee! Andy opened the door and recoiled from another bright, sunny day. His front porch looked out onto the Texas School for the Deaf campus across the street, which made for a quiet neighborhood. His neighbor was walking her little white Lhasa Apso past the house; while the dogs sniffed each other's butts, Liz called over to him.
    "Nice look you've got going there, Andy."
    He had forgotten he was naked.
    He waved lamely to Liz and returned to the bathroom. The hot shower brought most of his brain cells back to life, but there would be no quick fix for his body. The red scratch marks across his face made him look like Geronimo with his war paint on. Nasty scabs had already begun to form on his elbows and knees. His left knee was swollen. The feeling had returned to his right arm, but he couldn't raise that arm above his shoulder. He would hurt for a week, but all in all, it wasn't that bad. If you can't take the pain, don't go extreme. Stay at home and play pretend bowling on your Wii.
    His home was a one-bedroom, one-bath rent house on Newton Street just across the river from downtown in the part of Austin known as "SoCo" because it straddled South Congress Avenue. Newton paralleled Congress two blocks west. The other houses on the street had been renovated by urban frontiersmen and women like Liz and her husband, young professionals who drove Vespas and Mini-Coopers and had braved the neighborhood back when SoCo's leading citizens were hookers and addicts.
    Now SoCo was a hip and happening place to be, a highly-desired and highly-priced in-town location. The houses on either side, nothing more than cottages, were valued on the tax rolls at over $300,000, and the one a few doors down was on the market for $600,000; his place was still awaiting renovation and so was valued at only $87,500. Andy's landlord had been transferred to California six years ago by his high-tech employer; he hoped to return to Austin one day. Andy hoped he wouldn't because he was charging only $600 in monthly rent, way below market for SoCo.
    Andy dug through clothes piled on furniture until he found a pair of jeans and a clean shirt with a collar. He tried to shake the wrinkles out of the shirt—he didn't own an iron—then got dressed, grabbed his electric razor, and went outside. The remains of his trail bike lay on the front porch like the aftermath of a tornado. Andy Prescott felt like a man without a reason to live: he had no mountain bike.
    He was a gutter bunny—he commuted to work by bike—but he had always commuted on a mountain bike. His only mode of transportation that day was an old Huffy BMX that Tres had lent him until he could replace the Schwinn—but who knew when that would happen. He sat on the Huffy and sank; it had a flat tire.
    Figured.
    He went back inside and found a pump. He inflated the tire then climbed aboard again. He strapped on the helmet, inserted his sunglasses, and rode down the porch steps and the front sidewalk to the street. He stopped and looked both ways. He could turn south and take James Street, which was more direct, or he could turn north and take Nellie Street, which held the promise of an early morning adrenaline rush.
    He turned north.
    No doubt he looked like a dork riding a