Since Danny’s arrest, loneliness had been a steady companion. It started the summer they’d moved from Nebraska to Illinois after getting run out of their hometown. Nothing was more lonely to a kid than a summer move. Friends were hard to find. School was out, the neighborhood kids away for camp or vacations or jobs.

Movies had been Matt’s refuge. He’d spent the first half of the summer watching Scorsese and Hitchcock and Kubrick and Coppola and Nolan. Concerned, his mother pushed him to go outside, get some fresh air. She’d goad him out of his room, and when Tommy was napping, they’d quietly play board games or talk in whispers, and pretend things were normal. One of the guys at his father’s new office belonged to a country club and secured Matt a job as a golf caddie for the second half of that summer.

Matt loved the job. It was where he’d met Chad, the caddy manager. Chad was a former pro golfer who’d gotten through life on his smile (and trust fund). The caddies spent much of the day sitting in the caddy shack, waiting out the rain or the lulls on the green, listening to Chad dispense his wisdom, watching him flirt with Angela, the big-chested college girl who drove around in a golf cart selling beer from a cooler.

Chad would give Matt and the other teenagers advice. About bringing girls home (“Have a Glade PlugIn air freshener near the door; they’ll think the apartment is really clean”). About their customers (“Don’t bother sucking up; they give the standard tip unless they’re trying to impress a business client or a girl”). About higher education (“College is a snowflake factory for woke morons; the only reason to go is for the chicks”). About life (“My dad was rich, a CEO with a room full of awards, and no one gave one shit when he died”). Matt found himself jumping out of bed, eager to make his shift. Not for his love of the game—carrying golf bags in the sticky Chicago heat was hard work. But because he was part of the gang.

Then the morning came when someone had whispered in the country club manager’s ear that Matt’s brother was in prison. For murder. And Chad, his eyes downcast, asked Matt to turn in his hat and smock. Matt never saw Chad again, but imagined he was still there, doing what he loved, lusting after golf cart girls, giving advice to sad fourteen-year-olds.