People shuffled their feet, coughed. It was the first time the congregation had all been together since the running, screaming flameout at the Blackmoore building. Jerry knew that leaving the furniture out was Steve’s way of spanking the whole room. And there wasn’t a thing he or anyone else could do about it. He looked at the floor, as uncomfortable as anyone. It was nice his dad was sticking up for him, but when he got this way Jerry felt like he was five years old and was never going to get any older.

“Sorry,” said Tommy.

“Hope you’re okay, man,” said someone else. There were other mumbled apologies.

“Don’t worry about it. I’m okay. Really,” he said.

“The kid’s got broken ribs. He’s living on Vicodin.”

“Dad . . .”

“You’re a brave boy, son.”

“My poor baby,” said Susie.

Jerry didn’t say anything.

“What happened back at the building?” said Leonard, the head cement man at the site.

“Where’s Lloyd?” said Jorge.

“What were those horrible bugs?” said Clarice, Janet’s mother.

Steve held his hands up. “I already had a heart-to-heart with young Lloyd. And after much, sometimes loud, consultation . . .”

People around the room laughed quietly.

“I don’t think he knew anything about those other people in the building.”

“What about the bugs?” said a woman from the back of the room.

“Lloyd said the exterminator had just been through the building, so there shouldn’t have been any bugs.”

“Well, there were.”

“I think Kevin peed himself a little,” said Tommy.

“I did not!” said Kevin.

“So what, you dropped a Mountain Dew down the front of your pants?”

“Fuck you, Tommy.”

“All right, everyone. Let’s try to focus,” said Steve.

“The bugs weren’t in the building. That guy had them,” said Clarice. “The one the big biker called Coop.”

“Which one was the biker?” said Susie.

“The biker-looking one.”

“The guy with the beard?” said Tommy.

“Yes, the guy with the beard,” said Clarice.

“I think he looked more like those guys you see in Silver Lake. What do you call them?” said Jorge.

“Assholes?” said Kevin.

“Hipsters,” said Jorge.

“I thought he was kind of cute,” said Janet. “He had a kind of Jeremiah Johnson thing.”

“Who’s Jeremiah Johnson?” said Susie.

“I think he was the bass player in Lynyrd Skynyrd,” said Tommy.

“That biker guy played in Lynyrd Skynyrd?” said Kevin. “Cool.”

“Who’s Lynyrd Skynyrd?” said Clarice.

“They did that song. ‘Free Ride.’”

“That was the Edgar Winter Group,” said Tommy. “Lynyrd Skynyrd did ‘Free Bird.’”

“That’s an awesome song,” said Leonard. By the generally positive tone of the murmurs, most people seemed to agree that “Free Bird” was awesome.

“It might be the best goddamned song ever written, but that biker we saw did not play bass in Lynyrd Skynyrd,” said Steve.

“Yeah, that was Ed King,” said Janet.