I left and lay down on the naked mattress. It had been flipped; the marks from the floorboards were still visible. Sam came out wrapped in the brown blanket. As he rubbed at his face and chest, dead skin came off his body in tiny rolls. He brushed at it and some of it floated throughout the room. He crouched beside me.

“Well, Omar, how long since you had a bath?”

He grinned. “Last summer sometime.”

Water dripped down from his hair onto his face and neck.

“Something happened last night. That peyote was very good, wasn’t it?” He looked to see if it was good for me. I nodded.

“Something happened. I flew off the track. You know the little guy running very fast down the track in front of the roaring train? And he finally jumps off? Well, I got a lift from the cowcatcher, but at least it knocked me safe out of the way! I can’t tell you how relieved I feel! I was so close to getting run down.” He was excited about this metaphor.

“So what happened?” I asked.

“It was after you’d gone. Remember you wanted mandarin chocolate ice cream? You said they only sell it in New York and you were going to hitch there to get it?”

“Yeah.” I didn’t.

“Well, I was walking around looking at things in the room, when all of a sudden I started thinking about Clancy. Remember we’d been talking about her and Rennel? I was walking around in my bare feet when it suddenly occurred to me that all there was between her and me were these thin boards and a few inches of plaster and rafters. I was her ceiling. I thought, She’s not more than ten feet away! Rennel was there a couple of days ago and he wouldn’t be there again so soon. She was alone down there in that big stinking bed that takes up the whole room. And then you’d reminded me of how she’s always mooning around using her soft voice to me, but she hollers like a pig downstairs to everybody else. See, I was thinking there was no reason to be alone up here because she was right there. I just didn’t want to be alone. I only thought of her because she was so close. But I gradually worked myself into the position of wanting her as opposed to any woman I’d ever seen. I felt sick with wanting her. Clancy. I came over here and lay down and started doing yogic breathing to get rid of the nausea. I thought I’d get up as soon as it went away and I’d go down and see her.” He picked deliberately at his toenails. “Then I went to sleep.”

“Oh. Well.”

“But when I went to sleep I was in love with her.”