I drive through the town in my head. I don’t have to build it. It has always been there.

I intend to drive aimlessly, but my car slots into the track previously forged by my hearse. And in no time (I perseverate on the expression “and in no time” and how wrong it is; everything pays a price in the currency of time) I am in Beverly Farms, the part of town that as a teen seemed as distant and out of reach as other continents. I pass few cars in the opposite direction and the quaintly opulent seaside center of town is as quiet as a memory. What time is it now? How long have I been driving? I don’t have my phone with me and the clock in my car doesn’t work.

Instead of continuing to the mouth of Eddie Patrick’s driveway, I park in the nearly empty Beverly Farms train station parking lot.

An inversion of what is to be? Who is still consuming whom?

I climb out of the car and close the door as quietly as I can. More like I press my hip against the door until the lock clicks. I wear a black Ramones T-shirt and jeans, no jacket. There’s a hint of fall in the air but I am not cold. My anger and confusion at how this night went, at how all the other nights before this one went, stokes the furnace and keeps me warm. I’m tired too. Tired of the compulsion to prove people (including Mercy, including imagined ones, including you, including myself) are wrong about me even when they’re right. Or maybe I’m tired because I am reaching if not the end, then an end.

Why not a Hüskers tee? It’s like you brought a piece of me with you.

For a half mile, I walk north on the tracks that split the wooded lots of million-dollar homes. I’m careful to step on the ties and not the crushed gravel between. No need to add more sounds to the evening; there’s no telling how far those wavelengths travel. I turn right onto Beach Street, then left onto West Street. This is one of many alternate routes to Eddie’s house I memorized from my online map searches. I would’ve preferred to park closer, either on the street or in the beach lot, but my car has a better chance of not being immediately towed from the train station.