He thought that maybe the driveway would still be there—with the cracked cement he used for his solitary games of marbles. He imagined that maybe, just maybe, some of the turf between the old sidewalk and the street would have been preserved. The snow used to pile up there until March or April and he watched it every day after school, looking at the buried wrappers and sticks, the crust of exhaust melting into the pile, drifting down until the grass blades poked through the pile of sand and leaves.

He searches the corner for the elm that had ignored the predictions made for it by the city park service, and managed to live, but it is gone, too. Everything is gone.

He looks over to the other side of the street. At least the Windsor is still there, and with it One-Two. Lincoln can’t imagine what One-Two would be doing without Betty across the street. He is probably endlessly fixing pipes and sanding floors, clipping honeysuckle, keeping the old ship afloat, as he used to say.

Little Earth is the same, and in Lincoln’s opinion, an apt name: the closer they get to it, the less green meets the eye. When they are dumped off and their ride drives away, they look at each other and start laughing; both standing by the curb with Hefty bags filled with their clothes and bedding.

“Looks like we brought our Indian carry-on luggage,” says Burt.

“Shit, this place hasn’t changed none.”

Lincoln surveys the cement courts and the graffiti-covered fence. What had started as a mild stab at utopia has hit well below the mark.

“What you mean?” ask Burt, “we were all in the same shit before, and we’re all in it together here. At least we’re all still together.”

“One way of looking at it,” says Lincoln.

Armed with the new knowledge that his uncle had killed his father, he looks at every building differently, every corner, every Indian bar. The city is divided in four ways now. Between places his uncle had been or built, and places his presence hadn’t mattered. And divided again between places he’d been before he became a murderer and places he’d visited after. These divisions put a whole new spin on Minneapolis. Lincoln knows all he needs to do is ask One-Two or the owner of the rug store for Simon’s address. But he can’t approach One-Two, not yet. Betty would surely have called him and told him to keep an eye out. Lincoln imagines One-Two slowly cruising the streets on foot, looking for Lincoln. He’d ask around Little Earth for sure, but Lincoln is certain he’ll find Simon before that happens.