He also discovered the fine art of poolsharking, albeit by accident.

After a particularly long day hauling railroad ties for a huge private landscaping project, some of the men decided they wanted to go “…grab a few brews…” at a local bar, and Ronnie—without being asked—came along.

He was feeling sad and sick because the night before he’d had to take the Hurting away from a seven-year-old boy he’d found lying beaten and bloody in an alley not far from the motel where he was staying. He’d been coming back from the previous day’s work (railroad ties, all week long it had been the same landscaping job with the railroad ties) when he heard a trash can bang up against another one and turned to see a small arm flop out into the mud.

The alley had only a single source of light—a dim bare bulb suspended over the back kitchen door of a Chinese restaurant—so at first Ronnie was uncertain if he was seeing a real arm if it was just piece of trash from the restaurant that looked like an arm.

You should take a look, Ronnie, whispered Suzanne.

For a moment he just stood there, staring down into the dim, dank, dark alley, not wanting to move any closer.

What is it?

—It’s been so long, Suzanne. Almost a whole year. I dunno if I can…if I can…

Shhh, there, there…maybe it won’t be anything.

—Maybe.

But you’re my Ronnie, aren’t you? You love me, you love all of us. Our Ronnie wouldn’t just walk away, now, would he?

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, held it, and then released it in a slow, steady stream. Sometimes—not very often, just sometimes, every once in a while—it really bugged him when Suzanne said those kinds of things, We all love you…Our Ronnie…You’re my Ronnie…We all know we can depend on you to do the right thing…—but he’d never let her or the others know that. He never wanted them to feel bad or guilty for having to sometimes give him a little push to Do The Right Thing. Still, sometimes, like now, right now, it did make him feel guilty, because he was never sure if he was doing it because he knew it was right, or if it was because he didn’t want to disappoint Suzanne and the others or if—

—oh, well, darnit! Who was he kidding? The truth was it had been almost a year since he’d last had to take the Hurting away from another kid, and in all these months Ronnie had been sleeping better than he could ever remember. He’d been getting out of bed every morning looking forward to the day, not dreading what might happen If.

But that was selfish, wasn’t it?

Yeah, it sure was.

Ronnie?

—Huh? Oh, sorry.

And he walked into the alley, pulling his flashlight from his jacket pocket. He’d discovered after the first week that it was a smart thing to carry a good flashlight with you in the morning. It made it easier to see all over the field or big yard or building site where you were going to be working when you first got there, and also because a lot of the guys brought along newspapers to read during the ride but there wasn’t a lot of light to read by at four-fifteen in the morning (the streetlights were spaced too far apart to be much good, that’s what one of the guys told Ronnie when he asked to borrow the flashlight), so a flashlight went a long way toward making Ronnie fast friends on those rides.