I hadn’t heard from him since. If he was alive he’d be sixty-three, and the older I got the more I wished I could see him. We’d have something to talk about now that I’d made every mistake he had.

Once I was living with a psychologist and she started ribbing me after she saw how I took such good care of the Gibson. Better take Mr. Good to soccer practice, she’d say, or Mr. Good says he wants to order Chinese. If she hadn’t been so good-looking I wouldn’t have put up with her—she’d come home after counseling all day and make astrology charts on her clients and smoke pot. She finally drank enough coffee one morning to think to ask how I got the guitar. I told her the story about my dad.

"That’s cute," she said.

I just stared at her.

"What is it?" she said.

I shook my head.

"No, what is it?" she asked, almost hysterical.

"Nothing," I said. "Just looking at your hair."

* * *

It was cold. I was in Purcell’s lot, smoking, drinking coffee, half-listening to the Spanish talk all around me. I had seven hundred dollars in my socks—after getting paid today I’d have enough to get the Gibson back, and after Monday and Tuesday I’d have enough to go back to Dallas—and then suddenly an angry shout came from behind the trailer, then another. The lot quickly fell silent. Then the Spanish started up again and most of the men walked over and looked behind the trailer but as soon they did they started leaving, some running, and in about two minutes the place was deserted except for me.

I kept watching the trailer, about fifteen yards away. Nothing. I couldn’t hear anything either but the hum of the arc lights. I didn’t know what to do. I was kind of scared, but I had to try to work that day, no matter what, so I decide