I dropped my bag and helped him pick up the trash, but I did so absently because the only thing I could think of was my father’s words I had so casually repeated. Work didn’t affect me the way it did him. Just because I had repeated one stupid thing he always said didn’t mean I was becoming him. Not even close. I wasn’t my father. I was nothing like him.

“What the hell are you doing?” Gene asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re poking at the same spot on the ground with that stick.”

I shrugged and, with the end of the stick, lifted a used condom that lay stiff in the grass and held it up for him to see.

“This yours?” I asked.

“What do you think?”

“It’s sure as hell not mine. These things went out of style in the eighties.”

Gene laughed. “Well it looks like we have ourselves some kind of mystery then.”

I dropped it into the garbage can. We worked quietly for a time. Gene raked while I picked up what little was left and tried taking my mind away to some benevolent place, but of course my father’s words were the only thing I could think about.

“You okay?” Gene asked again.

“Yeah, I’m fine. What happened to the siding?”

“Tore it down. Going to have a crew come in here and fix up this old wreck of a building.”

“What are you having done?”

Gene studied the building with his hands cupped over the rake’s rounded handle. “Give it a facelift, and fix all the broken parts. New roof and siding, maybe have all the windows replaced. Make the place look respectable, or at least try to keep the piece of shit from falling down on us.”

“Nice,” I said, loving the idea of windows that’d reduce the noise of the trains.

“So how’s the book coming?”

“Ugh. I’m burned out, Gene. I don’t think I can keep going at this pace. I need a break in the worst way, especially with my current schedule. I worked fifty-one hours this week.”

“Sure, you can keep going.”

“It’s making me stressed and irritable as shit. I don’t know how Carolyn puts up with me.” I sighed. “I’m getting pretty close, though. Just don’t think I can go much further without taking a break.”

“Eh, you can always go further than you think you can. You just need to discover what gives you that extra push.”

3

I was bothered all night by my father’s words, and I moped around the apartment until Carolyn came home. I was wide awake when she walked through the door, though I pretended to be asleep. When she fell asleep herself, I was still awake, and I stayed that way for hours before finally passing out.