Uncle Hamdi comes back before I can think of an answer and he gets in, but doesn’t put the car in drive for a while. He just sits there, staring at the building he just stopped at and eating his Blizzard.

“Watch and you will understand. You need to understand, Soraya. I know what happened, what Haydar did to you. Just watch.”

And so, for once, I do what I am told.

Watch him with his long hair and tamarind eyes as he leaves that downtown adobe house with bad plumbing and pissed-off cockroaches that fly, and walks down the street past the empty lot, past the falling-apart houses, the wild dogs behind chain-link fences, and the scorching day.

He doesn’t mind leaving the girl asleep in his bedroom, isn’t even thinking about her. Out. Out in the hot hot hot. He has to go out to be with the birds and the sky. To be away.

Watch him as he saunters down the street toward the park, as normal as anyone, as handsome as can be.

Watch. Watch and you will see what happens.

Fight like a tiger.

Watch him as he sits down at a picnic table in the shade, across from that bald man.

“I sleep with my eyes open,” Haydar tells him and pulls one of his brother’s clean twenty-dollar bills out of his pocket without looking down.

The bald man does the same and they stare at each other with forty dollars waiting between them.

A crowd gathers. Anyone who is out wants the shade.

Eat the sky.

It doesn’t matter how much time has passed; the bald man looks away. “Worse than a dog,” he says to Haydar, who smiles and pockets the money.

Don’t let the monkeys cover you with shit.

Watch him get up and walk away and then sit down on the curb next to a group of pigeons.

I saw you watching me from over there. Let me sit down and talk to you if you have the time.

He is oblivious of the two people in the car who are following him, watching him.

It’s been a while. How have you been?

Words loud like lightning then so quiet they fall unheard on the sidewalk with straws and bottle tops and potato chip bags.

Shall we begin again and spend the afternoons painting again, or have you found another pastime?

He lies down on his back to watch the sky going somewhere from somewhere else. He lifts his feet in the air and giggles, not feeling the eyes plastered on him, not aware that anyone other than he is taking in this moment. After an impossible amount of time, he gets up, not pausing to let the blood leave his head slowly, and staggers for a moment before he walks away. His pace is quick, his skin healthy, his eyes focused, at least for the time being.