The gate creaks closed behind me, slamming together with a decisive thud. I’m locked in. The fear falls back on me like a wet blanket. I’ve made it into town. That completes the only plan I had. As I swivel to take in the town, my stomach knots. Men. Everywhere I look are men—men on dusty sidewalks on either side of the main street, men going in and out of stores, men carrying brown packages or greasy car parts. Men linger outside the brothel to ogle the dancing woman. Every single one will attack if they know my secret. I’m a mouse in a basket of snakes. I shouldn’t have come.

A gunshot cracks down Main Street. I throw my hands over my ears. But when I look, everyone is going about their business. I stand up, straighten my coat and pray my beating heart don’t show through my jacket.

When I was little and the coyotes used to prowl around our shack, my mama used to whisper a saying in my ear. It comes back to me now. “Fear makes the coyote bigger than he is.” Right now the coyote’s pretty damn big, but I gotta do what I gotta do. I stick my chest out and strut like a man down the street.

A sassy piano tune starts up in the brothel. The off-key notes form into a song my mama used to hum under her breath at dishes or while mending. Behind the dancing prostitute on the porch, someone sings along real mournful and slow. Are you lonesome tonight? Do you miss me tonight? Are you sorry we drifted apart?

Arn loved that song. I bite down the jolt of raw pain, straighten my jacket.

When I pass the brothel’s open door, I spy a half-dozen men lounging around the parlor in beat up recliners, sipping house gin. Three sad-eyed women in undergarments carry drinks on trays. One is missing an arm past the elbow. The other has a red, puckered scar that travels from her eyebrow to the corner of her down-turned mouth. In the corner a woman about sixty straddles a man’s lap. Her breasts are bare, white, puckered and resting on her narrow stomach. Her sad, tired eyes meet mine as the man cups them in his calloused hands. I tuck my chin into my bandana. As I walk away, I send messages to her in my head. I’m sorry about your life. Sorry, so sorry.

My head down, I bump into a skinny man in a moth-eaten shirt. His gray hair straggles down his face in greasy stands. I smell the homemade liqueur on his breath. “Watch your strut, pard, or I’ll cut ya a new grin.”

“Sorry,” I mumble. I race away before he can respond.

The town must’ve been a bustling main street before the world fell apart. I try to imagine it in its heyday, back when the cobblestone sidewalks lined the street like even teeth. The electrical cords overhead, long and black as snakes, used to pump light to the leaning streetlamps. The benches, now rusted iron frames, used to hold people eating flavored ice, laughing. The glass-front windows held shiny goods fresh off the factory line. I picture a red bicycle and a ruffled pink dress. Must’ve been real nice.