I knew I needed to apologize, that now they would all think I was weird or crazy, that I was some kind of psycho loser kid with a screw loose, that they would reject me same as everybody else, maybe even kick my ass for what I’d just done, for telling them about my visions.

Cass grabbed me and pulled me to my feet.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t know why I said all that.”

But Cass wasn’t angry. Cass kissed me.

It was my first kiss, wild and electric, and I felt it down to my toes.

When she pulled away I felt weak and blubbery, like my knees might give out and I’d fall crumpling to the dirt.

“That was art,” hollered Jack. He jumped down from the roof and grabbed me by both of my shoulders. “It was the Spirit moving, man, flowing straight through you. It was like poetry, you know? Something beautiful. That’s how I want my music to be.”

I couldn’t believe it. There was no higher compliment.

“Poetry?” I said. “Really?”

“Hell yes,” he said. “It was like I was there, you know? I could feel it, I could see it just the same as you could.”

That’s when I finally understood it.

I didn’t have to turn my visions into art, into poetry. My visions already were art. Maybe the Spirit could speak my visions through me, same as it did for Jeremiah. Maybe if I couldn’t write my visions down, I could talk them, write them in the air with my voice, cast them like lightning through the sky. Maybe, if I spoke them just right, I could scald them into the brains of everyone who heard me. I could change them forever. Isn’t that what poetry was, really, what all art was for? To make people see what you see and feel the hot burning life you feel?

Yes, that was it exactly. That was exactly what I was born to do.

“I feel like I finally know my purpose in life,” I said.

“Goddamn,” said Stephens. “Somebody get this man another drink.”

So I took another Budweiser. And then another one.

I think I drank a lot of Budweisers. And also some clear liquid straight from a bottle. And then some other things.

That’s when the night started to get a little blurry for me.

I remember dancing by myself while Stephens played the banjo.

I remember trying to sing my mom’s favorite Kate Bush song a cappella and failing miserably.

I remember being inside the tenant house and Cass pulling me onto her sleeping bag when everyone else went outside to smoke. I remember kissing her frantically, my mouth all over the place, trying to make sure I got her on the lips.