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want to ask you.” I said, “I just sort of…need a…date.”
    James sat up taller on the bike. “I’m your man,” he said.
    I felt a desperate need for a disclaimer. But I really had none. There is never an attorney around when you need one. I should put one on retainer for life in general.
    I said, “It’s just a onetime thing, though.”
    He said, “That’s one more time than you’ve ever offered me before.”
    I said, “I don’t know, though. I feel funny about it. Like I’m using you.”
    I guess I thought if we really clarified that I was using him, then it would be okay that I was using him.
    He said, “Use me. I’m begging you.”
    That seemed like enough clarification. No lawyers required.
    I looked past him to his house, and I wondered again how he ended up back in this same rented house after two years away. I’d wondered that before. So, a thought out of place, I guess, but there I was wondering it again.
    He must have sublet it. I’d always half wanted to ask him why. But it’s so self-explanatory, really. Why ask when some part of you already knows?
    He wrote me a letter nearly every week while he was away. I wrote him twice in all. Maybe I said that already.
    Five or ten minutes after I went back into the house I looked out the window and there he still was. Straddling the bike in his driveway. Rocking it ever so slightly back and forth. My name between his legs.

    Journal Entry _________________________
    Day I’m writing this: Twenty-seven days after “The Day”
    Day I’m writing about: “The Day”

    It’s not the easiest thing in the world, telling a faceless emergency dispatcher over the telephone that you’ve misplaced James Stewart. You will inevitably be required to follow with something like, “That’s right. James Stewart. Like the movie actor.”
    If you’re really unlucky, like I was, the dispatcher will say, “But not
the
James Stewart.”
    Which is a ridiculous statement. Because
the
James Stewart is dead. It’s a statement that gave me a little insight into James’s world.
    Maybe it’s not such a wonderful life.
    “
The
James Stewart is dead,” I said to the dispatcher. Hoping they weren’t both.
    She said, “Oh, that’s right. He is, isn’t he? What a shame, too. He was so good in
It’s a Wonderful Life.
I love that movie. No accidents reported along that stretch. No motorcycle accidents in the county in the last twenty-four hours.”
    I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know if I should call back.
    I said, “Should I call back?”
    She said, “If you want to report him missing, you’ll have to call back day after tomorrow morning. But leave your name and number anyway. If we get an unidentified motorcycle accident victim, we’ll want to contact you.”
             
    Not three hours later, there were two uniformed Highway Patrol officers. Knocking on my door. Just standing there, looking at me. Like they knew it was me or something. Like I had a big sign on my forehead.
    And I swear to God I knew.
    Later I backtracked. Told myself, and others, all kinds of stories. I was a veritable fountain of alternative theories. But just in that moment I had the distinct sensation that life as I had known it was over.
    And, by the way, the journal thing is just to keep Dr. Grey happy. No way I would do a fool thing like this on my own. Believe me.

    Journal Entry _________________________
    Day I’m writing this: Twenty-eight days after “The Day”
    Day I’m writing about: Two days after “The Day”

    I’ve been through a few phases. There was this strange, brief no-man’s-land where I reasoned there was still time to save myself. Because nobody had to know. This was evidenced by the fact that the Highway Patrol let me walk away free. They didn’t know. They figured I’d been nice to the guy, been a decent friend, and he’d done this crazy thing anyway. Only Randy knew.
    So I called Randy and told him that James had skidded out on a turn. Told