It was Abe. I could see his big white pupils, one hand pushing his glasses up his nose. I opened the passenger door and he slid in. I leaned across and grabbed whatever parts of him I could—his cold hand, his solid thigh—I pulled his shoulders close and gripped hard. Now I was really crying, throat heaving into something like hiccups. “Thank you.”

“Hey,” he said. “Sorry I scared you.”

“You didn’t scare me.”

“Looks a little sketchy down here,” he said. “Kind of a bonfire situation.”

I laughed and rubbed my hand across my face. The skin was slick and wet from tears, all over my flushed cheeks and my mouth.

“I didn’t see you coming,” I said. “I was watching.”

“I came in off Bryant. Looks like the other fence is closed.”

“I know,” I said. “They closed it.”

I checked the rearview mirror, and sure enough, there it was, where he’d come from: the other gate swinging out. It had been open the whole time.

“They’re strung out,” he said. “They’re bums. They don’t know what they’re doing.”

“They were trying to fuck with my head. It’s what they can do, make people afraid. It’s all they’ve got. It’s fucking absurd—”

“Hey,” he said. “It’s alright to be scared.”

I stepped onto the concrete. I could hear the music louder now, the machine of its buzz, traveling through the tar like an underground river and humming against my shoes. It was feedback off an underground microphone. There were pulses of crackling. I saw the dancer man lying in a pool of light. He had his arms and legs spread like a snow angel’s. The man sitting on the car was watching us leave. “Hey!” he said. “Lady, hey!”

Abe put his arm around my shoulders. “Good night, man!” he called out. His voice didn’t have any kind of question in it.

“Lady don’t like my look? Is that the trouble?”

“There’s no trouble,” said Abe. “We’re just heading home.”

“Your lady thought there was trouble.” The man turned to me. “Didn’t you?” He raised his fingers and snapped them right in my face. “You’re scared of it,” snap, “scared of it,” snap, “scared of it . . .” He grinned. “Until you want it. Just like that.”

He was close now. He smelled like cigarettes and burnt garlic.

“Want what? What do I want?”

Abe tightened his grip. “We’re just heading home. No trouble at all.”

“No trouble, right,” the man said. “You got your lady and all that.”

“What do I want?” I said again. “Why don’t you tell me?”

“Don’t you know?”

“I don’t know.”

Abe whispered in my ear, “We should go.”

“I really don’t know,” I said. “You should tell me.”

“You want me,” he said. “Looking at you.”