“Your tattoo...” he said. “Does it mean something?”

“No, well, yes, well, fuck. I don’t know,” Stojan said.

He sat across from Mia and rubbed his hand across his neck, over the large cross and the black letters above it that spelled “Respect.”

“I mean, is it a sort of identification?”

“Well, it’s not a gang tattoo, if that’s what you’re suggesting.”

“We know you used to belong to a gang.”

“But the tattoo doesn’t have anything to do with that.”

“M-16? Was that what you were called? Weren’t you guys close to the Black Cobras?” Mia asked.

Stojan didn’t answer, looking instead out the window.

“You got into things pretty early, didn’t you?” she continued.

He looked at her. “Yes. I was eleven. Are you guys here to talk about that?”

“No, we want to talk about your cat,” Mia said wearily.

“I don’t have a cat.”

“Exactly.”

Stojan looked confused.

“Why do you want to talk about cats? I hate cats.”

“Fuck cats, now talk.”

“Oh, I get it, you were kidding, right? You knew I didn’t have a cat.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake... Come on now, genius, we don’t have all afternoon.”

Mia pointed to her bare wrist, as if to show that time was passing on a watch that wasn’t there.

“Chill out, Christ!” Stojan said, leaning back. Then he shrugged his shoulders.

“Okay,” he said, “I started early. Drank just as much as my dad.”

“Was he an alcoholic?”

“He was a fucking idiot, that is what he was. Didn’t give a shit about me. Then it went how it went. Didn’t go well in school because they thought I was too much trouble, fought too much, talked back too much, so it was better to hang out with the gang. Better to get their attention than none at all.”

“And the narcotics?”

“What about them?”

“You got caught for possession.”

“I sold a little bit, I admit that. Everything happened so fucking fast. Tried a little new shit, hung out with new buddies. Looked for a place to sleep at night. Temporary places where people did drugs, fucked, slept, ate and shit. It didn’t matter where I ended up, whether it was at a buddy’s house or in a park, a stairwell or a trash room, as long as I got my fix.”

“And now? Are you clean?”

“I’ve distanced myself from all of it. Some respected that, some wished me luck and others didn’t say anything. But everyone has just let me be since then. No one’s tried to get me to come back. It’s as if they all know that I’ve made up my mind. I don’t want to do that stuff anymore, want to do something else with my life.”

“Like what?”

“Go to school. For economics, maybe.”

“So when did you get clean?”

“Three years ago.”