For all his newfound extroversion, Richard was nervous about being downtown once they got there. How overwhelming it all seemed without Mom! And he hadn’t told her he was coming here. But Charles seemed to drink it all in. The grown-up men and women walking the streets in their suits and dresses. The bums, buses, street vendors, and storefronts. The magic shop, the zoo, the stores with souvenirs, all of which featured mini-Shermans, topiaries in the shape of every known name a tourist might have.

And the Goblin Police, in their pale-gray uniforms, patrolling the city streets in that sluggish way that marked them.

“They move like…the dead,” Charles said.

Richard opted not to talk about them at all. They passed a sign that read keep goblin pristine! toss your trash here! Richard pointed out dog walkers, coffee stands, the proprietors who invited you in with a few words, and the people handing out flyers concerning shows coming to town.

“A circus!” Charles said. “Wow!”

But both boys were more interested in other things.

“What’s that?” Charles asked, indicating a purple-painted theater ahead.

Richard followed Charles’s finger to The Milky Way.

“It’s the adult theater,” Richard said. “Mom gets mad at me for just looking at it.”

The way his mom put it, Richard imagined a horde of drooling, hairy men within, their pants at their ankles. The marquee read (to the point):

XXX

“Let’s sneak inside,” Richard said suddenly. His stomach dropped at his own suggestion. But the thrill of a new friend, and one who seemed so strangely open, overwhelmed him.

“Do you mean it?”

“I do.”

The obedience to youth took hold of them and the pair started through the theater’s gravel lot before they had any real courage or conviction behind them. Their hesitant steps became an excited trot and they raced to the purple brick side, out of view of the foggy glass ticket booth where an ancient woman smoked long cigarettes.

There was a small side door.

“Open it,” Richard said.

“Me?”

“Come on.”

“It must be locked.”

“Oh, Charles. I’ll do it.”

Then Charles pointed to something in the bushes. “Look,” he said. “A key.”

The two crouched and Richard pulled the bushes apart, and they saw, yes, a wooden key in the dirt.

“That looks two hundred years old,” Richard said. Neither touched it.

“It’s a toy,” Charles said. “It’s—”

But Richard was already up and pushing the door.

It opened without resistance.

“Holy crap,” Richard said.

“Holy crap, indeed.”

Charles left the key in the bushes, got up, and met Richard at the open door.

They stared down a long and dark hallway. And from deep within they heard the sounds of women moaning.