When she was gone he sat down at his desk, where he rolled a sheet of paper into his typewriter. He wrote for four hours, took a break, and then wrote for another two. Words poured out of him. He could feel sentences form in his head, almost faster than he could type. It was like taking dictation. Paragraphs lined up and passed through his body onto the paper in front of him. No thought. No analysis. No hesitation. He wrote about Mona. He wrote about his mother’s death. He wrote about his weak father and his own loneliness. He wrote about what it felt like to be shut away upstairs while the rest of the family enjoyed the comforts of home. He wrote about being a fat boy and what it felt like to run seven miles in the rain. He wrote without once thinking of Mr. Snow.

At 10:00 he stopped. He went downstairs and out into the chill night air. The property overlooked the ocean and he could see the sheen of moonlight on water as far as the islands. He was exhausted and energized. He thought he’d never sleep again, but he did. In the morning he read what he’d done. Some of it was awkward and inadvertently comical. Some of it was mawkish and maudlin. It mattered not. He knew what it felt like to work from the heart and he was hooked. Even if it took him years to get back to that flow, he knew it was worth every failed attempt and every misbegotten word.

At eight, he brushed his teeth, showered, dressed, and rode his scooter to Walker’s house, taking the bridle paths that wound up the hill. He had to cross a public road only once, and even then there was no traffic. Walker had just gotten up and he was sitting in his kitchen in his boxer shorts, hair rumpled, his face embossed with wrinkles from his bedsheet.

Jon let himself in as he usually did. He poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down. “I have to get out of the house before the Amazing Mona returns with her merry band in tow. She sucks all the oxygen out of the air and I can’t take it anymore. I thought we could get a place together near UCST or close to City College, whichever you’d prefer.”

Walker said, “I’m up for that. How do we pay the rent, rob a bank?”