This blond kid leaned against the dirty McDonald’s wall as though he couldn’t have kept upright without it. He smiled under sleepy eyes and looked like he was slowly telling the story of what had made him so thrillingly exhausted.

Three girls sat shoulder to shoulder on a low concrete parking space stopper, their chins on their knees, shivering and waiting to laugh at things he said. Another boy leaned sideways against the same wall, listening to him. Two other guys were doing skateboard tricks nearby. One of them tried some kind of jump, the board clattered away, and before he picked it up, he glanced at the guy on the wall.

Ben looked at everyone orbiting around that one kid. So tired, so uninterested in going to St. James, so thoroughly unconcerned with making his action accord with God’s will. In that kid’s system, you wore your hat with a flat brim.

What if Ben went to their school? What if he had to learn their slang, make their jokes, learn what the stickers on their skateboards meant?

And what if he was part of their system for so long that something changed? What if eventually Ben became someone who believed in wearing his hat with a flat brim? Could he become someone who took in that flatness and saw it as correct? Before Ahmed had seen Marlboro Racing, what did he think hat brims should look like?

Ben climbed into the car with the spreading smell of the pizza, and suddenly so badly wanted to see his friend Tim. They could do something other than play squash. He saw Price’s face smiling after setting Ben and Colin against each other like insects in a jar, and he wanted to be with someone again who didn’t want anything from him, whom he didn’t have to impress, who would be convinced that he was seeing the real Ben, who trusted Ben’s history of worthwhileness.

But he had to go back the next day. Maybe he’d call over Christmas. He briefly thought about Nina, but that felt much too far gone.

Then it was time for his dad to drive him to the Connecticut bus. Ben’s right calf was thinner than his left, almost straight from his ankle to his knee, but his leg didn’t hurt anymore. He left the plastic boot at the bottom of his bedroom closet. He and Teddy hugged again, but this time they were both already preoccupied with going back.

9. The Actuator

9. The Actuator