A boy loitered by the door of my room when I got back. His hair was fluffy, shoulder length. His clothes were weathered blues. He puffed on a cigarette; flicked it. The heel of his engineer’s boot was braced on my car’s fender.

“You own this?” he asked.

“I’m the driver . . .”

“Same thing to me,” the boy said.

Now he sat where Jeff had, on the bed, and smoked a Marlboro. He said, “I’ve trashed some motel rooms in my day.”

“You’re just out of high school, right? I bet you like heavy metal bands. You’ve probably been in bands. And you like getting high, but you don’t do coke.”

“No, I don’t do coke,” the boy said. “Everything else you said is wrong.”

“You drink a lot of beer, I would guess; and have smoked great amounts of reefer in your day.”

“I’ve got reefer. Beer makes me yak. I’d rather have liquor than either one of ’em,” the boy said, fidgeting with a threaded bracelet on his wrist.

I said, “Your girlfriend dresses you.”

“She’ll maybe pick out a shirt or something.”

“Your dad’s, hmm, a franchiser? And recently divorced from your mom. You still sort of live with her, only she’s been dating a man you hate so you hardly ever go home except for meals and to do your laundry.”

“Wrong, wrong, wrong,” the boy said.

“Your grades were pretty low and you almost didn’t graduate. So you’re thinking vocational school, trade school.”

“My father fuckin’ owns this town,” he said.

I said, “He works, and you see him once a month.”

“Yeah, you know everything,” said the boy. His lean grin tried to take away some of the flush rising up like a slap mark on his neck. “You know you invited me in here.”

“You’re right, I’m sorry. And the reason was—believe it or not—I wrote a poem I want to read to you.”

“Get out,” the boy said.

“No, it’s really true.”

“ ’Kay,” he said. “Then what happens?”

I shrugged. “I don’t have any liquor. And I’m almost broke. It’s Saturday. We could smoke your reefer and watch cartoons.”

The wall was a blazing persimmon. The TV was yelling; Jeff was yelling, and trying to look past me into the room. He kept asking, “Is that your son?”

I was cocooned in the bed’s comforter, wearing it like a cape. “It’s TV!” I said to Jeff. “We’re just watching TV!”

“Are you in trouble here? Tell me. You can tell me, I’m a cop.”

“A cop? You are not. You’re a salesman. You were born one, you can’t get out of it.”

“No,” he said, “I’m really a police officer. Whoever told you I was a salesman?”

“You were a shortstop, now you’re a salesman, remember?”