Harry’s impressed by the enthusiasm of the shirtless for beer at this hour. A person comes out of the house behind them with a BB gun. It has a bright orange muzzle and is instantly trained on everyone. “Liquor run!” the gunman bellows. He points the rifle at one person, then another, then a third. Target number 3 flinches. The barrel drops, and there is a clapping sound as its mechanism is discharged in the direction of feet in massage sandals.

“Goddamn!” the target squeals, hopping back. He’s wearing a white visor and attempts to tug it down, in order that it serve as a makeshift face shield. “Goddamn it!” The visor wearer tumbles awkwardly as the gunman marches purposefully down the lawn and takes aim once more.

“It’s time for a liquor run,” the gunman intones.

Other beanbag participants are getting out of the way, forming a handy chorus. One of them obligingly chants, “Lick or run! Lick or run!”

“Everybody get ready,” the gunman announces.

“Nooooo,” the visor moans. “C’mon guys!” His breasts jiggle.

“Everybody get set,” the gunman continues. “You have a count of five on my signal, bitch.”

The visor gulps and moans once more, but he orients his body in the proper direction.

“Now,” quoth the gunman, “GO!”

The visor takes off, rubber soles slapping desperately against the pavement. Those on the lawn begin a count: “ONE, TWO, THREE.” Here the running boy’s hands are lowered to cradle his balls. “FOUR.” The gunman hops into the street, plants his feet, squares his shoulders: “FIVE!”

There is a popping noise, a keening yowl. The visor hobbles on. The gunman is furiously pumping his weapon. When he takes aim again Harry sees the gunman’s chest heaving, from exertion or excitement, Harry is not sure which, and the visor drops, windmilling like someone on ice.

“Got him in his thigh,” the gunman judges, lowering his weapon. He moves down the street toward the wounded boy, rifle slung carelessly over one shoulder, a hunter spent.

The crew on the lawn descends. They approach the trembling, desperately self-examining form in the road.

The gunman says, “Someone get him in the house. I’ll take my truck.” The gunman tousles the hair of the injured party, whom others bear away. The gunman crosses the street, now scratching his shoulder blades with the inverted gun barrel.

The gunman approaches Harry. He wears an undershirt and a simple necklace of wooden beads. He glistens with sweat, all the way out to the tips of his black hair. He assesses Harry.

“What are you looking at?” the gunman wants to know, and without waiting for a reply gets into a new truck, parked just a few spaces up and painted a metallic green like the head of a mallard.

Harry watches this person drive off. He recalls, from a dreary senior-year Freud survey, that the sadist is both the source of the law and the one who transgresses it.