Peter also knew that Deschutes had long ago loved the same girl as Peter’s father—a dancer they’d referred to in drunken conversation as Slinky, either because they didn’t want Peter’s mother to hear the girl’s real name or because saying it out loud hurt too much. The name came from a story in which the girl, wearing nothing but dime-store flip-flops and a cowboy hat, tumbled backward down a flight of stairs, breaking both of her big toes. These were stories from 1970s San Francisco—somebody was always naked and falling. What Peter really wanted were stories about his father. Had he killed people? Had he watched children die? But his father was a private man and could hardly say “bless you” without straining an emotional muscle. It was Deschutes who had the stories and a loose mouth to go with them. All you had to do was feed him liquor and he’d spit out secrets like they were sunflower shells. Once—this was when Peter’s father was still in the hospital—Deschutes took Peter aside and told him that his father may or may not have impregnated a woman in Vietnam. It was a warning: if word got to this woman that Peter’s dad had died, she might come looking for money. At the time, Peter had cast it aside as a drunken joke. And yet, more than three years later, he still found himself waiting for a long-distance phone call, a letter addressed from across the world.

Peter hadn’t seen Deschutes since his father’s funeral, where Deschutes—wearing sunglasses and a powder-blue leisure suit—had burst out singing the chorus to “Free Bird” during the service, and so it came as a surprise when, on an otherwise ordinary Friday afternoon, the old man hobbled into the shirt store where Peter worked as a graphic designer. The job was a last resort for Peter, who had found no better use for his degree in graphic design since graduating the year before. Sometimes, when he thought about all of the T-shirts he’d borne into the world (BAD SPELLERS UNTIE, MY SPIRIT ANIMAL IS WHISKEY), he felt a deep sense of shame, as if he’d been caught masturbating outside an elementary school. He tried, mostly, not to think about it.

Deschutes charged toward Peter without a word of greeting and demanded a shirt with a princess on it.

“What kind of princess are we looking for?” Peter asked, hoping to make things quick. He had other work to do—design a logo for a kick-ball team, check the online orders—and besides, Deschutes depressed him. He had the same style as Peter’s father: chambray shirts and abalone necklaces half-hidden by chest hair. He employed the same worn-out lingo: Right on. Don’t have a cow. Get real. Even his mother had sometimes mistaken Deschutes for Peter’s father—putting a hand on Deschutes’s shoulder at a restaurant, handing him her purse (Hold this for a second, will you?), calling out to him, Could you take a break from sitting on your ass and help me with the lawn mower?