Raymond got us both a cold beer and we chatted while I wrote up fictional fender-benders and minor wrecks. Raymond hadn't managed to graduate from high school, whereas I attended three whole semesters of junior college before I lost heart.

"Why'd you quit, though? You're smart."

"I never liked school," I said. "High school, I was smokin' too much dope to do well. College just seemed to be made up of all this stuff I didn't like. I was too rebellious back then. And it's not like I had a 'career' goal in mind. I couldn't see the point in learning things I didn't want to know. Poly sci and biology. Who needs it? I don't give a damn about xylem and phloem."

"Me neither. Especially phloem, right?"

"Yeah, right," I said, laughing on the assumption he was making a joke.

He smiled at me, rather sweetly. "I wish Bibianna were more like you," he said.

"Forget it. I'm a mess. Divorced twice. I'm not any better at relationships than she is."

He cleared his throat. "You know, in my experience? Women are no fuckin' good. The average woman will take you for everything you got. Then, you know what they do? They leave your ass and walk off. I don't get it. What'd I ever do?"

"I don't know what to tell you, Raymond. Guys have left me and that doesn't make 'em bad. That's just the way life goes."

"They break your heart?"

"One or two."

"Well, now see... that's the difference. You get your heart broke like I do, it's hard to trust, you know that?" He stared at his beer bottle, peeling a strip of the label with his thumbnail.

I felt myself go still and I chose my words with care. "I'll tell you what somebody told me once. 'You can't make anyone love you and you can't keep anyone from dying.'

He stared at me, his dark eyes nearly luminous. There was a silence while he digested that. He shook his head. "Here's what I say. Somebody don't love me? They die."