The street had been blocked off, a crowd gathered at the sawhorses as crowds did in East Baltimore. The same faces on different bodies. Crack-ravaged cheeks. Coyote eyes. Elaborate press-on nails. A few industrious souls rolled coolers across the chipped concrete, selling bottled water and Doritos to the spectators for a buck a pop. Dinner and a show.

Evan walked over to a worker crouched near a spool of cable.

“Mind if I take a closer look?”

“Not safe, pal. The boom’s kicking off in a half hour. Don’t wanna get your hair blown back, ya feel me?”

“I feel you.”

The worker swept an arm at the piano-key row of façades. “I wish we could take down the whole lot of them. You wouldn’t believe what a shithole the place was.”

“What was it?”

“Housing for the elderly—and I use the term loosely. ‘Housing,’ that is. My cousin had his mother-in-law here, said it was worse than the dog pound. Asbestos in the ceiling, mold in the drywall, rats beneath the floorboards. Used to be some kind of facility for retards and before that a foster home for boys.”

“I’d heard something about that.”

“All the people no one wants. They cram ’em in, let ’em rot. It’s a crime, really. Not that anyone gives a shit to do anything about it.”

Evan stared at that front window, saw his own twelve-year-old face pressed against the pane with all the others. Danny and Jamal and Andre. Tyrell, who caught shit because his sister was a whore. Ramón, so skinny his hips could barely hold up his stolen Cavariccis.

“Look, man, I’m sorry, but you gotta clear out before my supervisor comes over.”

Evan nodded and withdrew.

He circled the block, cut through the glass-strewn alley next to Mr. Wong’s ancient dry cleaner, where they used to loot the dish of Tootsie Pops every chance they got. The back of the row house appeared at the alley’s end.

In his memory the rear slat fence towered overhead, a castle wall. Now it came up to his chest. Resting his hands on the top, he looked down onto the stamp of crumbling concrete that passed for a backyard. When he hopped over, his shoulder was none too happy about it.

Hazard tape blocked the back windows and door. The kitchen pane had been shattered, shards poking up from the frame like teeth. He peered through the mouth. Explosive charges had been placed on the walls and ceiling to make the building implode. It would collapse in on itself like so many of the lives lived here.

Carefully, Evan pulled himself through and climbed down off the sink. Piles of beer cans. A heap of stained blankets. Cigarette butts worming up from a pickle-jar lid. The place had been abandoned for a time, no doubt in preparation for the demolition. But the bones were the same.