Harry pretends he hasn’t heard this last remark. He moves on to a photograph of Kobe Bryant.

Loudermilk is pulling on a pair of ratty, toffee-colored cargo shorts, to which he adds a white polo. He swipes Old Spice. He strokes his chin, contemplating Harry. “To the mall?”

“See you when you get back.”

Loudermilk is firm. He says, “Those Orange Juliuses aren’t going to drink themselves, friend.”

“I don’t feel like it.”

“But, Harry”—Loudermilk employs humanitarian tones—“trying new things is how we learn.”

“Thanks but no thanks.”

“Remember how I’m supposed to be helping you here? Working on your little problem? Can you please just let me do that?”

Harry frowns.

Loudermilk drives.

They go by cornfields, and there is a sound from insects like a low alarm. There looms THE REDVILLE MALL. Contractors have fixed for it a treeless, dusty plateau.

Loudermilk wants a mattress and linens and an Orange Julius and some panfried dumplings and is getting sort of manic. They move among hearty Alpines and a few Nordics whose genetic traits, Loudermilk loudly proclaims, as if in a bid to have his front teeth abruptly removed by a nearby fist, have been largely selected out of the East Coast pool.

Loudermilk buys red towels; he buys five, all the same jumbo size. Loudermilk buys navy sheets. He buys two mattresses. He makes Harry go with him to the sporting goods store, where he lights on a pair of plastic camp chairs with built-in beer cozies. They peruse the handgun options and watch as someone with acne receives a miniature duffel across the glass counter.

“You see, the mall is good,” Loudermilk says. “Look how Zen you are.”

Harry is pouring the last sweet kernels of a cone of kettle corn into his mouth. He does not respond. They turn into an electronics store where Loudermilk picks out a pair of midrange handheld recorders that take mini-tapes. “For when I go to class—one for recording, one for you to listen,” he tells Harry, indicating that the fancier, digital recorder he already possesses will be reserved for personal use. Loudermilk picks up a cordless for the house and a Sprint PCS Picture Phone with Built-in Camera for himself. He shakes hands with the salesman.

Near a giant glass atrium that is the main point of entry and exit, on the concrete dais outside, are girls in black jeans and Doc Martens who smoke cigarettes, squatting and jumping and gesticulating all the while, as if it is a form of calisthenics. The girls are in high school and Harry supposes you could believe they have been released from their place of remedial education for the day. They wear band shirts and fistfuls of silver rings and train knowing, kohl-lined eyes on Loudermilk. One leans over and whispers something to another. The other girl laughs, levers herself off the wall. She starts speed-walking toward Harry and Loudermilk.