“I got to be there at the first flush of day, Gareth. I promised him, you know.”

“Will Roy be dead too when you get there?”

“I don’t think he will ever die, if you ask me.”

“What did you say you did to him?” Gareth was wiping his eyes with the freshly laundered pillowcase.

“Roy said I had to do it, that’s why I called him the coach who always made me do (remember?) things I couldn’t do, like climb without ever having practiced that big rope that led up to the gym ceiling, go through all those spine-­twisting tricks on the horse, run round the stadium till I puked for an hour from my lungs being turned inside out, so when this new coach says, ‘You have to nail me to the barn door if we are ever either of us to have any peace or rest or go on our separate ways, for this has been going on for nearly ten years, long enough for a man to marry and be raising his own kids,’ I said, ‘I can’t do it. I mean my fingers won’t obey me even if my brain said Do it,’ and the New Coach said, ‘Well, I’m in your brain then and your fingers and your heart and your kidneys and bladder and all your organs put together, see? and I do say, Nail me to the door, and save the both of us . . . But fetch Brian with you . . .’ ‘Brian is dead, you motherfucker!’ ‘All right, fetch him just the same!’ he answers. ‘Don’t you believe in death?’ I yelled at him. ‘No,’ he answers, ‘and I don’t believe in time neither . . .’ ”

“So I will go back with you then to Sturtevant’s place,” Gareth said very quietly, more like he used to speak when he had been very sick and was so dependent on Sidney.

“Don’t see any reason why you can’t. . . . After all I just have to do them two things, show him Brian, if he’s still alive, and remove the fucking nails.”

“That shouldn’t take too long, should it, Sid?”

“No, I expect not,” he answered. Then he kissed Gareth on the forehead, touched his lips to his cheek, and after a wait put his mouth on Gareth’s mouth like he was tasting a plate of fresh-­picked cherries. Then catching sight of the first few streaks of the dawn, Sidney jumped up and ran down the stairs three at a time.

“Wait for me, wait up, Sidney. You promised!”

Gareth climbed on the side of the car which was already in motion and the rifle he was all of a sudden carrying with him went off twice. Sidney stopped the truck.

“Get in, I had most forgot about you when I seen the sun coming up. . . . Get in the back on the floor on account of Brian should ride right beside me, don’t you think . . .”