The three of them had a good laugh.

“Everybody say is the prettiest eight dem see in years, man,” Zachy continued. “Only Lawrence Rowe coulda make eight runs look so good.”

Zachy went to shark down a domino game inside.

“That Zachy is something else,” I-nelik remarked. Darkness was rolling in off the sea.

“Someone told me he used to be a class bats one time,” Fire said.

“I’m sure it was him,” the dread quipped. “Him brag about it, but is true. Zachy was a class bats when him was young. But unfortunately for him, he was an opening bats when Allen Rae and Jeffrey Stollmeyer were opening for the West Indies. That was a team … Worrell … Weekes … and Walcott … Ramadhin and Valentine as spin bowlers. Remember when Ian was young we used to call him Ramadhin?”

“He was a good spinner,” Fire said blankly.

“He went back to the States, right?” I-nelik asked. “Y’ever heard from him?”

“Well the last I heard from him was when he was out here,” Fire replied. “I presume he’s back in the States.”

“I want to talk to him, y’know,” I-nelik said.

Fire was staring out to sea.

“Something is wrong,” I-nelik went on. “The way Ian beat up that Mackenzie bredda … was not a normal kind of anger. I know that anger. You know that anger. We’re all artists. That is frustration … and a special kind. Artists tend to be very controlling—you can’t create without control. You can only imagine, but you can’t create. And they carry this need for control into everyday life. Ian is losing control over something, Fire. And it’s making him lose his mind.”

Fire steeled himself against feeling sorry. He wasn’t guilty anymore. As time had passed and he’d thought about things, he’d realized how paternalistic he’d been toward Ian, and how little all his efforts had done to make him change. And he had his own damn troubles. He’d almost slept with Blanche that night. He would’ve if there’d been a condom. She was seeing someone now. No one he knew. And to his surprise this didn’t bother him. This was good. It meant he was over her. Being able to just fuck her, he realized, was its own twisted kind of triumph.

“Honestly, I-nelik,” he said, still looking out to sea, “I can’t be Ian’s conscience forever. When you get to a certain age, it’s your duty to search out the meaning of right and wrong.”

“So what really go down with the two of oonoo?” I-nelik asked. “I-man hear a whole heapa things.”

Fire told him about the fight without revealing the letter’s exact contents. I-nelik listened quietly.

“Ian was reaching for help,” he said. “Ian didn’t want to kill himself. He wanted you to think that and ask him about it, then he would talk to you. When people want to kill themselves, Fire, they don’t want people to stop them, so they don’t tell anybody. When they’re getting close to the point where they think they might kill themselves, though, then they cry out for help … maybe they botch the attempt or have people ‘discover’ their plan and talk them out of it. But in any event, a person is far gone when they get to that point. It means they considering it seriously.”