And then he surprises himself by laughing—a slightly crazed, crow caw of a laugh. Suddenly he has remembered where he last smelled that particular sweet odor of geraniums. If his father knew half of what was in his head, he might not think clozapine was such a bad idea.

His father frowns, but then the doors to Motorsports Madnezzz open and Connor emerges. He has a big white fifty-gallon tank of liquid nitromethane. A man in a Lynyrd Skynyrd shirt follows him out, carrying a tank himself. Hank gets out and lowers the tailgate, and they pile the tanks in.

“I got two more for you,” says the guy in the Skynyrd shirt. He has a grungy little beard and oily hair sticking up in odd places. “I can’t wait to see you racin’ again, Connor. ’Bout time you saddled up. When are you putting tires on the track?”

“Look for me at Caledonia in August. But don’t blink or you’ll miss me.”

“Same Road Runner? I always thought that ride was the bomb.”

Connor grins. “Brother, you got no idea.”

13.

The sow has had piglets, and in the afternoons Jack likes to go out and throw scraps to them, to watch them dance on their little trotters. More than once he has dozed off in the sweet grass outside their enclosure, their shrill, girlish shrieks following him into sleep, a sound like children being skinned alive. He feels a bit sleepy now, leaning over the fence, feeding them pork rinds out of a bag, and doesn’t notice for several minutes that they are one piglet short. There are four hopping beneath his feet, grinning their hobgoblin smiles, when there should be five. Their mother, all 630 pounds of her, snores on the far side of the pen. One ear twitches at flies.

He hops the fence and ducks into the hog house, a long, open-faced shed. The interior is ripe with the green smell of pig shit. He kicks at the hay the sow uses for her bed, wondering if he will find a dead piglet with a black face. It wouldn’t be the first time the sow has accidentally sat on one of her young and suffocated it. But no.

Jack steps back out into the bright glare of the day. He has a crowd of piglets underfoot, hopping at his ankles, grunting for attention and hoping he will drop more rinds. He ignores them and walks the length of the fence. As he approaches the far southwestern corner of the enclosure, the piglets fall away behind him, let him go on alone.