“No more fat slapping. Jesus Christ, man. Grow up.”

He staggered away from the rack and smiled passively at the door. “Okay bro, whatever you say. Hasta mañana.”⁸

“Bye.”

“See you tomorrow. Empanadas.”

“Yeah, bye.”

I needed to get to the library, but I also wanted to finish off a fly I’d been tying – a Hutch’s Penell – for one of the area’s best anglers, and possible future wife of me, Agatha Jensen. It’s used in the UK for catching coastal sea trout but it also closely resembles the sedge-flies that the local bluegills, Lepomis macrochirus, love to eat. When I started tying them a year ago, the locals couldn’t get enough and it kept the shop owner, also named Jim – I call him “Owner Jim” – pretty happy. I could do them in my sleep: size 4 hook, black 8/0 thread, a red tippet, Peacock herl, zebra hackle and silver wire for the rib. Fly fishermen were always looking for an angle (anglers, right?) and this Penell had them shelving their Silver Sedges – the traditional go-to when throwing loops for fish that go for the caddis fly.

I tied in a white hackle feather, wrapped it with thread, thickened the front of the hook to form the fly’s “head” and tapped a bead of glue at the top of the shank just under the eye.

After locking up the shop, I had thirty minutes until the library closed, which was fine, because I already knew the book I’d reserved was waiting for me. I jumped into the used Subaru that I’d bought after graduating high school. At the time I’d let Patton talk me into souping it up so we could race it on weekends – an actuality that always seemed to get sidelined by our full schedule of being stoned. Now I just had a car that sounded like a weed-eater in a port-a-potty. But it was fast and I got to the library in sixteen minutes, per my twenty-five dollar Timex brand digital wristwatch, which does not gain five seconds per day unlike a certain unnamed luxury brand performing “within tolerances.”⁹

“Ben!”

“Ludlow the Librarian!” I said, miming the solo sword dance of Conan the Barbarian as played by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Ludlow was similar to a barbarian, if you replaced the muscles with nougat and the leather armor with black nail polish.

“I got your book right here. Reserved for Ben,” he said, tapping a lacquered finger on a stickie note reading same.

“Oh, great. Thanks,” I said, rolling up to the circulation desk.

Ludlow prepared to scan in the book, pausing first to consider the cover. He pulled his long, warlock-black hair behind an ear. I could see a question forming. Oh, here it comes. “You studying to become a psychiatrist, Ben?”

“Ah, no, Ludlow.” I didn’t have much more of an answer for him that I cared to give, though he was well aware of my borrowing history.

“Just a hobby, then? Remote viewing? Claircognizance?”