He kept the beat with his head, endlessly banging it against the hallway bulkhead.

“Dinah won’t you blow . . .”

Johnnie-O, who had very little patience to begin with, would have pulled out his hair, were it possible for an Afterlight’s hair to come out.

“Dinah won’t you blow . . .”

Johnnie squeezed his oversized hands into fists, wishing there was something he could bust, but having spent many years trying to break things, he knew more than anyone that Everlost stuff didn’t break, unless breakage was its purpose.

“Dinah won’t you blow your horn!”

“Dammit, will you shut your hole or I swear I’m gonna pound you into next Tuesday and then throw you out the stinkin’ window where you and your song can drown and sink down to the center of the earth for all I care, so you better shut your hole right now!”

Charlie looked at him for a moment, eyes wide, considering it. Then he said: “Someone’s in the kitchen with Dinah!”

Johnnie groaned.

“Someone’s in the kitchen I know-oh-oh-oh!”

Unable to take it anymore, Johnnie grabbed Charlie and dragged him down to the starboard promenade, where the windows had a dramatic view of the clouds, and the shimmering Atlantic Ocean below.

“I’ll do it!” Johnnie-O screamed, but Charlie just kept on singing. Maybe that’s what Charlie wanted, or maybe he was just so far gone, he didn’t even hear Johnnie anymore. Johnnie had seen spirits go like that. He had seen souls who were so ready to leave and complete their journey, that they had fallen into an endless loop, happy to pass the time, however long it took, until the tunnel opened before them. If that were the case, Charlie would be at home at the center of the earth, waiting for time to end.

But Johnnie-O, tough guy that he was, couldn’t do that to him. He couldn’t give Charlie a coin either. He knew he should, because Charlie was clearly no longer afraid . . . but then if he did, and Charlie went down the tunnel and into the light, Johnnie would truly be alone.

So he put Charlie down, and they sat in the lavishly decorated starboard promenade, and waited for happenstance to take them where it would.

Then, the day after he almost threw Charlie out of the window, Johnnie saw something in the distance that wasn’t ocean. He shook Charlie in excitement.

“Look!” he said. “Look! It’s China!”

Johnnie-O wasn’t an expert in geography. He knew, however, that China was called “the Far East,” and he assumed that their eastward journey would take them there. What he called China was actually the coast of Spain.