Thomas Edison had an especially insomniac brand of genius. He took frequent short naps on lab tables, in his desk chair. Anywhere Thomas Edison felt sleepy, he went ahead and napped. Like Thomas Edison, like you, I am plagued by insomnia, but I am more successful at navigating through cloud triangulation than I am at napping. I feel like you might know what I mean by this, that you, more than anyone, understand me. Perhaps not. I wonder if you are still able to nap on humid summer afternoons.

The shadows stretched toward us first, then the signs themselves appeared near ground level on the side of the road. One was a Trump/Pence campaign sign. The other was handwritten on plastic board edged with federal safety yellow reflective tape, stuck with wires into the ground, waving gently (there was a breeze and a rather notable absence of the divine): Lost Gun, $1,000 Reward, No Questions. I pulled off the road, called the phone number listed, got the “voice mailbox is full” recording. A dirt road—rutted in some areas, washboarded in others, led back toward a looming range of desert mountains. A rusted old cattle panel blocked access, the No Trespassing sign was sun-faded, near illegible, but the chain and padlock that secured the fence to the post was shiny-new.

Chris said no shit and we both just knew this was the place Del wrote us about, and I tell you again, Mom, though I know you already know it, that sometimes just believing something is true—like that you'll find the father who left you—makes the thing solidify in the world, appear in front of you.

Jesus, Chris said. How many found guns you think they have?

It was late. We have returned to the effervescent antiseptic chlorine float of the Tonopah casino/hotel hot tub. Tomorrow we will return to see how our father will receive us, the grown sons he didn't raise, hasn't spoken to in ten years.

Love, Charley

To: Mom

From: Charley

Subject: Project Gold Rush

August 20, 2016

Dear Mom,

Here is a story Del told me when I was a boy about when he was a boy, about a thunderstorm that hit during his paper route, the velocity he created, his frantic pedaling through the deluge toward home. The storm gutters were backing up, the puddles trying to catch his tires, take him down, but he had skills, became one with his old Schwinn American. Just as he rounded the corner, lightning struck the metal of his handlebars. Del said the world went TV-fuzzy, static framing a black-and-white image of his street, his house, like he needed to adjust the rabbit ears of his brain. Del said he never did fall, that he made it home and dried himself off and the world kept orbiting the sun, the moon kept orbiting the earth, the aliens kept sending envoys to all three.