"Thanks for the interview," he says. The kid sounds nervous.

"Sure thing." She sucks on the cigarette. After an exhale of smoke in his direction, she adds, "I don't mind talking about it. It's not a secret. It's just that nobody listens."

"I'm listening."

"I know. You bring me what I asked?"

He pulls a crumpled brown bag, sets it down in front of her with a thunk.

She snaps her fingers. "It isn't gonna unwrap itself, is it?"

Paul hurries to pull the bottle of scotch – Johnny Walker red label – from the bag.

"For me?" she asks, waving him off. "You shouldn't have."

She unscrews the cap and takes a swig.

"Our 'zine – it's called Rebel Base – gets, like, a hundred readers or something. And soon we're going to be on the internet."

"Welcome to the future, right?" She fingers the moist rim of the scotch bottle. "I don't really care, by the way. I'm just happy to talk. I like to talk."

"Okay."

They sit there, staring at each other.

"You're not a very good interviewer," she says.

"I'm sorry. You're just not who I expected."

"And who did you expect?"

He pauses. Looks her over. At first, Miriam wonders if maybe he's hot for her, wants to jump her bones maybe. But that isn't it. On his face is the same look one might have while marveling at a two-headed lamb or a picture of the Virgin Mary burned into a slice of toast.

"My Uncle Joe said you're the real deal," he explains.

"Your Uncle Joe. I would ask how he's doing, but…"

"It happened like you said."

Miriam isn't surprised.

"I haven't been wrong yet. For the record, I liked Joe. I met him in a bar. I was drunk. He bumped me. I saw the stroke that'd kill him. Fuck it, I thought, and I told him. Every detail – that's where the devil lives, you know, right there in the goddamn details. I said, Joe, you're going to be out fishing. It's going to be a year from now – well, technically, 377 days, and it took me some noodling around on a napkin to get the number and the date. I said, you'll be out there in your hip-waders. You're gonna catch a big one. Not the biggest, not the best, but a big one. I didn't know what kind of fish, because, fuck, I'm not a fishologist–"

"I think it's an ichthyologist."

"I'm also not an English major, nor do I care to become one. He said it would probably be a trout. A rainbow. Or a largemouth bass. He asked me what kind of bait he had on the line, and I said it looked like a shiny penny, one flatted by a train so it makes a smooshed oval. He called it a spinner, said that's what he used to catch trout. Again, I'm not an ick, uhhh, ithky, a fishologist."

She taps the cigarette into the ashtray, crushing it.