Florian struts into the kitchen, brings back three icy cold Kronenbourgs. “Man, these days you do not want to leave home unless it’s obligé. This morning I had to go downtown, it was like World War Seven. Smoke, fire engines, police trucks.”

“Fire engines?”

“Yeah, didn’t you hear, they set some Arab cultural center on fire. Now that’s really a case of pissing in your own bed. Place République was empty. Cafés boarded up, windows smashed. Not a mouse stirring, just all these riot police in their vans, barricading the streets. Spooky. I got back in my car, turned around, thought I was home free. Then up on Anatole France, just past Cassanyes, suddenly I hit this roadblock. Great big fucking cop makes me get out of the car. Registration papers, ID card, hands up in the air, and he searches me. First thing he finds is my knife. He’s checking it out, making sure the blade’s regulation length, no longer than my palm, and he’s like, Where did you get this? And I’m, like, Well, actually my girlfriend won it at the amusement park, throwing hoops over plastic duckies.”

They all laugh.

“Was it true?” asks Jérôme.

“Yeah, it’s like this dinky little made-in-China piece of shit. And he’s, like”—Florian narrows his eyes, grates his voice to steel—“Open the trunk of the car. Now.”

“What were they looking for?”

“Whatever.”

“And were you clean?”

“Well, luckily he didn’t think to look in the glove compartment. No, in fact, I was fine. But man, when I got back in the car and drove away, my heart was thumping so hard I thought I was going into cardiac arrest.”

Rat and Jérôme have known Florian since elementary school. Back then, he was the kid grown-ups whispered about darkly and other boys sucked up to, because he didn’t seem to have any brakes on him. Glamorous Trouble. Rat can remember hearing about the time they tried to send Florian home from school for throwing a chair at the teacher. Only there was nobody, it turned out, to send him home to. This was before his granny moved down south to look after him, when it was only his mom, who was always in and out of the mental hospital at Théza. He was living alone in the apartment like a wild animal, this ten-year-old kid. Empty cereal boxes all over the floor and mouse shit.

That was when Florian told everybody he wished he’d get put in Care because that way at least he’d get a steady meal. Later on, when the Saint Féliu Youth Center got broken into—stereo equipment stolen, swastikas painted on the walls—he did get sent away. And when he came back, he wasn’t glamorous anymore, he was just a loser.