As the weeks wore on, Keith started drinking with even more rock-star exaggeration. Maybe the remnant of his conscience was afflicting him, I don’t know. One time, blacked out, he sleepwalked and took a piss in his acoustic guitar. I awoke to the sound of urine singing off the spruce. In the morning, he sat down to strum something and it sloshed out the hole.

There came a night when I stayed on campus until the facilities closed, trying to finish an assignment due the next day. The deadline had already been extended. In fact the prof had taken me aside, and I thought he might ask how I was doing, if something was wrong. The story was right there, ready for his merest inquiry. But all he did was tell me that if I couldn’t wrap my head around the concept of a deadline, I had no future in journalism.

It was past two by the time I got to Keith’s place in Hollywood. He didn’t answer the buzzer, but someone at the lobby pay phone recognized me and let me in. The blood-red light of an Exit sign filled the hallway, where I found the door to Keith’s apartment ajar. Keys dangled from the lock.

My first thought was I was going to find him with another girl. I wasn’t sure how I’d react. I thought I’d probably just sit on the couch and wait for them to finish. But Keith was sprawled in bed, alone, still wearing his clothes. The standing lamp had toppled, all the shadows were misplaced. Yellow vomit covered his shirt, down to his crotch. It smelled of beer. I could see pepperoni.

I thought maybe he’d died a dumb rock ’n’ roll death. But then I saw he was breathing. There was no relief when I realized this. It struck me powerfully that his death wouldn’t have been shocking, or unwelcome, he meant nothing to me, all this meant nothing.

I crouched beside him, observing, and saw the chunks blocking his nostrils. I didn’t pick them out. I left him in bed, not closing the door behind me, and caught the bus home.

I lived in a daze for weeks, hair coming out in the shower, but never heard from Keith again. Still, just his presence in Los Angeles, the existence of the tape, helped convince me to take the internship in Seattle after graduation. Even with the distance, it took a long time for the feeling to fade that he was watching me on a permanent loop.

6.

In the morning, Roland went to swim laps in the Olympic pool, and I took the opportunity to call Dr. Massengale. Yesterday he’d seemed barely able to restrain his enthusiasm, so after introducing myself as Floella Bailey’s daughter-in-law, I thought he’d dive right in.

“How can I help you?”

“You said if I called, we could talk about the trial.”