‘These are the Guards.’ Fred points to each person. ‘Donnie, Samson, Zara, Kyle and Cedric. Now, repeat all that back to me.’

He’s kidding, and everyone laughs.

‘Sure.’ I point. ‘Donnie, Samson, Zara, Kyle, Cedric.’

Fred raises an eyebrow. ‘Not bad.’

Memorising names is easy. Sometimes I use celebrities—Donnie, one of the two brawny Xbox players, looks a bit like Mark Wahlberg, and I know Mark has a brother named Donnie, so that’s easy. The other player, Samson, has shoulder-length hair. I visualise him as the Samson from the Bible, a servant girl hacking off his locks as he sleeps.

Other associations also work. Zara, the elegant woman in the cocktail dress, has the same name as an upmarket shoe store in Houston. I used to beg for change on a nearby street corner. I imagine this Zara as the owner, shooing me away, threatening to call the cops.

The more emotional the connection is, the better it works. After my parents were shot, I was put in a group home, and one of the other orphans was named Cedric. We weren’t friends, but no one adopted either of us, so I knew him for longer than most of the other kids. We both knew that when we turned eighteen, we’d be kicked out. The day before his birthday, Cedric hung himself with the cord of his bathrobe.

That Cedric was a white, heavy-set teenager, while this Cedric is in his mid-thirties, thin and black. But if I picture a ring of bruises around his throat, the association is there.

I don’t know any Kyles, so I go for a rhyme. This Kyle, the teenager on the beanbag, has a Hitler-youth kind of look. Pasty, square-jawed, keen to follow orders. I imagine him at a rally, yelling, ‘Sieg Kyle!’

I don’t need any memory tricks to remember Fred’s name. The human brain has evolved to remember dangerous people.

This isn’t the first time I’ve assumed someone else’s identity. Once I dressed as an electrician so I could sneak into a half-constructed house for a shower. Another time I donated sperm for cash using a borrowed ID, because I was too young to do it legally. But now the stakes are higher. If there’s one thing rural Texans love, it’s guns. I could be the only person in this room who isn’t carrying. One word wrong, and I could get a bullet in my skull.

Donnie, the bulkier of the two gamers, holds out his hand. I shake it. His grip is crushing.

‘Cold hands,’ he says.

‘Cold hands, warm heart,’ I say.

Donnie smiles. ‘My mom used to say that.’

‘What do you bench, bro?’ I don’t know what this means, but I’ve heard gym junkies say it to each other like a greeting.

He shrugs modestly. ‘Two hundred, back in the day.’