“You come here a lot?” Brazil swirled beer in its dark brown bottle.

“Whenever. You hungry?” Axel grinned, displaying his very nice white teeth.

“Sort of,” Brazil said.

They got up and moved into the crab shack, which was no different than the raw bar, except there were captain’s chairs at the tables and the ceiling fans were working so hard they looked like they might take off. Jimmy Buffett was playing over intercoms. A candle and Tabasco sauce were on their table, which rocked, requiring Brazil to fix it with several packets of Sweet & Low. Axel started by ordering a Shark Attack with lots of Myers’s rum, and he convinced Brazil to try a Rum Runner, which had enough liquor in it to turn the lights out in half of Brazil’s brain.

As if Brazil were not in enough trouble already, Axel ordered a tin bucket filled with iced-down bottles of Rolling Rock beer. This was going to work just fine, the music critic was sure of it. Brazil was a puppy and could be trained. Axel was stunned to suspect that the guy might never have been drunk in his life. Incredible. What did he grow up in, a monastery, the Mormon church? Brazil was wearing another pair of slightly too small jeans left over from high school days, and a tennis team tee shirt. Axel tried not to think about what it might be like to get those clothes off.

“Everything here’s good,” Axel said without looking at the menu as he leaned into candlelight. “Conch fritters, crab cakes, Po-Boy sandwiches. I like the baskets and usually get fried scallops.”

“Okay,” Brazil said to both Axels sitting across from him. “I think you’re trying to get me drunk.”

“No way,” Axel said, signaling for the waitress. “You’ve hardly had a thing.”

“I don’t usually. And I ran eight miles this morning,” Brazil pointed out.

“Man,” Axel said. “You’re sheltered. Looks like I’m gonna have to educate you a little, pull you along.”

“I don’t think so.” Brazil wanted to go home and hide in bed. Alone. “I don’t feel too good, Tommy.”

Axel was insistent that food would prove the cure, and what he said was true to a point. Brazil felt better after he threw up in the men’s room. He switched to iced tea, waiting for his internal weather to clear.

“I need to go,” he said to an increasingly sullen Axel.

“Not yet,” Axel said, as if the decision was his to make.

“Oh yes. I’m out of here.” Brazil was politely insistent.

“We haven’t had a chance to talk,” Axel told him.

“About what?”

“You know.”

“Do I have to guess?” Brazil was getting annoyed, his mind still in Dilworth, really.

“You know,” Axel said again, his eyes intense.

“I just want to be friends,” Brazil let him know.

“That’s all I want.” Axel couldn’t have agreed more. “I want us to get to know each other real well so we can be great friends.”