I was too drunk to be doing this, and I wanted Ken to tell me not to bother, but he just said, “Besta luck,” and knelt down to find a new record. I went out the back door and into the woods, calling out her name and clapping. I heard my claps echoing back at me, sure, but when those faded I heard, or willed myself to hear, a faint howling in the distance. I walked in that direction, and immediately lost any sense of where I was.

I must have wandered a while in the darkness, clapping and calling—I have no idea how long or far I went—but I do have a clear image of Kiki emerging from the bank of a pond, soaked to her essential skinniness, grinning. Oh, my fucking dog, I thought. My life.

I bent and picked her up, all fifty pounds of her, and hugged her to my chest as she squirmed and tried to jump away. I didn’t know where the house was, obviously. My arms were already aching with the weight of the dog and my shirt was soaked through, but I wasn’t about to put her back down. I paused, hoping for some kind of sign, some hint of recognition as to the right way to go, but it wasn’t forthcoming. I picked a direction and walked.

Deep Cut

“Naw, you don’t have to worry about me,” Thomas said, after his mother had finished her characteristically perfunctory warning to us about drugs, alcohol, and rough-looking types. “Paul thinks he’s cool now, though.”

“Paul, when did this happen?” Mrs. Rickley said.

She wasn’t a hip mom, exactly, but she got points for not caring particularly about what her children or their friends got up to. She was a physics professor at Princeton and had consistently made it clear that she did not need this shit.

“I just woke up one morning wearing Ray-Bans,” I said. “I guess it was for an album cover shoot, and it kind of spiraled out from there.”

“He’s trying to impress girls now,” Thomas said.

“Oh, God forbid, Thomas,” his mom said. “Maybe you should try to impress a girl. After your hair grows back. And don’t be a smart-ass, Paul.”