“I think he will.”

We were quiet, and I wondered what Daryl was doing, if he was on the ground out there among the animal feet. I remembered his twisted body and I wondered what it felt like to have something speak on your behalf.

“We have to do it tonight,” Fellis said.

“With no code?”

“And then we’re out of here.”

I counted my fingers. “We got no money, your truck’s a piece of shit, the next arts festival ain’t till October, and we haven’t weaned off our doses.”

“We got money.”

“Yeah, okay,” I said. “You bummed twenty yesterday from your mom.”

Fellis stood. “I’ve been bumming from my mom for thirty-one years.” He pulled the bed away from the wall. In the corner, he peeled back the carpet and picked up three envelopes from the cold wooden floor. He emptied all three on the shifted bed.

All these late boring nights we didn’t do anything because he was broke!

“Twenty-eight hundred bucks,” Fellis said.

I knelt in front of the bed and felt the money, some bills soft like velvet, others stiff and fresh.

“I got money,” he said.

“Your truck’s still a piece of shit.”

Fellis took the money from my hands. “You don’t want to do it, do you?”

I said nothing. The whole thing was my idea. We’d been watching Antiques Roadshow one long boring moon-night last week and some old dusty lady brought in an old root club that was worth five grand. Five grand! I said, “Fellis, the museum has tons of those!” and we looked at each other and got off the couch and walked fast to the head of the Island, right near the bridge. We went out back of the little museum whose only visitors were white people wanting pictures. Looking through the window, Fellis had seen the alarm box blinking green.

“Do you or don’t you?” Fellis said.

“What about our doses? I ain’t getting sick if we’re on the road.”

Fellis waved the envelopes at me. “You got Tabitha’s number?”

“I’m not drinking puked-up methadone,” I said.

“She don’t puke it up,” Fellis said. “You’re retarded if you think that.”

“I’ve seen her do it,” I said, even though I hadn’t.

“You’re full of shit,” Fellis said. “She gets full take-homes. You think that lockbox is her purse?”

“Even if she sells to us,” I said, “where are we going?”

“Down south to sell it all.”

“Why don’t we just learn how to make our own root clubs or baskets and sell them?”

Fellis stuffed the rest of the bills into the envelopes and put them back under the carpet. He straightened the bed.

“I ain’t got time for that,” Fellis said. “I’m doing it my way.”