The art room’s posters and Crayola materials were more suited for kindergarteners than for teenage suicides and meth-heads. He’d hoped he wasn’t the only one who found humor in their daily hour of Sesame Street crafts, before swapping horror stories in group during the two o’clock block of their schedule. Michelle’s cuticles were raw, scabby, and when she went to squeeze the eighth seam, he reached for her hand, pretending to help. An excuse to brush fingers, to touch. That gasp of contact was all it took to get him hard.

A counselor reminded them of the elbow-length rule. Then, when he’d spotted their knees angling toward each other beneath the table-top, he sent them to opposite ends of the art room.

No outbound phone calls, no cussing, no outside food or drink, no shoelaces, and absolutely no—zero, zip, nada—touching.

A half hour ago, when they’d returned Henry’s ziplocked outfit, Michelle knelt beside him, helped thread a shoestring into the eyelets of his right sneaker. A chance to say good-bye, though they didn’t say much of anything. Handing him the shoe was as close as they got to a handshake, let alone a hug. All she said was, “Eight folds,” and then, slyly, she spread her fingers and dropped a pebble of folded paper into the shoe.

The paper Papa now stuck in front of Henry was only folded once. Longwise. A slender, pale green canoe.

For the first time since Henry’d climbed into the passenger seat, Papa looked at him directly. “Take it.”

$20.00

“Happy birthday,” Papa said.

Henry unfolded the bill. The crease left a bandit’s mask across Jackson’s eyes. Henry muttered thanks, while his mind weighed the bill’s buying power. Two liters of bottom-shelf liquor, or a twenty-four-pack of beer. A half-eighth of weed, or, if he went through Al, he could score at least three points, maybe even a half gram of—

“Know what that is?” Papa asked.

“Double or nothing you’re gonna tell me right now.”

A skull smack. Henry’d asked for it.

When Papa’s right hand settled back onto the steering wheel, his index and middle fingers remained extended, making a V.

“That,” he said, “is almost two hours of my life. And before taxes, ah.”

The bill turned to lead, sinking Henry’s hands into his lap.

“Sixteen now. Time to get a job. That’s your bus fare till your first paycheck.”

Henry didn’t say anything because what could he? Meanwhile Papa grumbled about hours, his time, his life, before the last couple breaths snarled into curses in Tagalog. Papa’s right foot crushed into the floorboard, accelerating the truck to overtake other cars on the freeway. He was rushing them home, now that he’d said what he’d wanted, had taught what was needed.

$77.41

“Where are we, Pa?”

Henry calls it a hotel. Then he says, “Surprise.”