“Something like that.”

TONIGHT WE WERE PLAYING A TEAM COMPRISED OF LITTLETON’S LONE chiropractor, one of its two dentists, a doctor, and an accountant. No Indian chief.

Near the end of his second Bud, the doctor started talking about the body from the car.

They’d brought him the accident victim so he could fill out the death certificate. There was no coroner in Littleton, which made him the de facto ME.

“He was charred pretty good,” the doctor said. “I don’t get to see a lot of burn victims. Not like that.”

“Thanks for sharing, doc,” Seth said.

“Some of his insides were intact,” the doctor continued, undeterred. “Not a pretty sight.”

“Can you change the subject, for fuck’s sake,” Seth said. “What about a nice 18-year-old girl who OD’d? Don’t you have any of those?”

The doctor didn’t seem to get the joke. When he began describing in great detail what a burned liver looked like-apparently like four-day-old pâté-Seth leaned in and said:

“Let me ask you something, doc. Is it true what they say about doctors? I mean do you get, what’s the word… immune to naked pussy after a while? It doesn’t do anything to you anymore?”

Sam, who was preparing to bowl, stopped to wait for the doctor’s answer. It appeared as if he was busy conjuring up images of naked pudenda being lasciviously displayed for the doctor’s enjoyment. Back home he had a 280-pound wife gorging on cream-filled Yodels.

“That’s an ignorant question,” the doctor said.

Calling Seth ignorant wasn’t really going to offend him. “I’ll take that as a no,” he said.

“Have they ID’d him yet?” I asked the doctor. I was nursing a Coors Light, having figured out that tequila and getting the ball to travel down the center of the lane were mutually exclusive. The headline of my story was:

Unidentified Man Dies in Flaming Car Crash

The doctor said: “Yeah. They found his license.”

“It didn’t burn up?”

“He had some kind of metallic card in his wallet that acted like insulation. They were able to make out his name.”

“Who was he?”

“I don’t know. Dennis something. White, 36, from Iowa.”

“Iowa? That’s funny.”

The doctor squinted at me. “What’s funny about it? It’s a state, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, it’s a state. I was just ruminating on the great cosmic plan. A man from Iowa runs head-on into a salesman from Cleveland on a highway in California. It’s kind of funny, don’t you think?”

“Actually, no.”

Sam had rolled a seven, and now was edgily eyeing a difficult two-one split. He took a deep breath, sashayed into his delivery, and sent the ball straight down the middle, missing all three pins.

“There is something funny, though,” the doctor said.

“Other than that roll?” I’d dutifully recorded Sam’s score. It was crunch time; we were twenty pins behind with only five frames to go.

“He was castrated.”

“Huh? Who?”

“The deceased.”

“You mean in the accident?”

The doctor lifted his Bud, took a long sip.

“Nope,” he said. He slid out of the seat-not without some difficulty since he was a good thirty pounds overweight-and rummaged through the rack for his ball.

“What do you mean?” I had to shout a little to make myself heard over the din of the alley, but it was like trying to speak through a raging thunderstorm.

The doctor lifted a finger to me: wait.

He bowled a strike, then went into a victory dance that reminded me of the Freddy, a spastic-looking step from the sixties I’d caught on an old American Bandstand clip. After he settled back into his seat and meticulously penciled in an X, he said: “I mean, he was castrated.”

“When?”

“How do I know? Some time ago, I guess. It was done surgically.”

Seth must’ve overheard us.

“He had no balls?” Seth asked.

The doctor shook his head. “You want to say it louder. The people in the back of the alley didn’t hear you.”

“HE HAD NO BALLS?” Seth shouted. “That ought to do it.”

“You’ve got a problem, son,” the doctor said.

“You have no idea, pop.”

I tried to tally up what number beer Seth was on-I guessed seven. Not to mention the Panama Red he’d toked out in the parking lot.

“Why would someone have been castrated?” I asked the doctor.

“Good question.”

“Well, is there any medical reason?”

“Not really-testicular cancer, maybe-but both testicles would be highly unusual. Not like that.”

“Poor guy.”

“I’d say so. By the way, that’s confidential, okay? Don’t put it in the paper or anything.”

“I think everyone in the bowling alley might’ve already come into this information.”

The doctor blushed. “Me and my big mouth.”

Or Seth’s.

THAT NIGHT I HAD A DREAM. I WAS 9 YEARS OLD AND BEING CHASED DOWN an empty road by a man trying to steal my entire marbles collection.

The clumsy symbolism wasn’t lost on me.

We interrupt this program to bring you the following message.

My motel TV gets only three channels.

Nothing I particularly want to see. I leave it on to keep me company-to ward off encroaching fear.

It’s like a nightlight.

A few minutes ago, someone knocked on the door. I thought it was them.

I have two other friends worth mentioning with me here. Smith and Wesson.

They’re new friends, but considered reliable in times of need.

I pointed them toward the door of the motel room. Sic ’em.

It was the maid.

Luiza, I believe her name is, an illegal for sure. This worries me.

They can do things to an illegal. They can make her do whatever they want her to.

Okay, I know.

I sound deranged, beyond the pale.

Bear with me.

You have to see it like I did.

You have to piece it together.

Before my dad left home, he’d take Jimmy and me to breakfast at the Acropolis Diner every Sunday morning.

The paper placemats there had connect-the-dots on them.

The pretty, smiling waitress would hand me a pencil worn to the nub, and I’d wale away at it-at least till the blueberry pancakes and maple syrup arrived.

Here’s the thing.

It would take me until the last dot to figure it out. Sometimes not even then-despite the generous clues provided at the top of the page.

What four-legged creature is a noisy neigh-bor?

What mammal is always spouting something?

Horse? Whale? Platypus?

I just couldn’t see it.

I wasn’t good at connecting the dots. I couldn’t connect the dots, for example, between my dad and that smiling waitress, whom he was apparently sleeping with on a regular basis. He’d leave our family for her by the time I was 9.

I’m better at connecting things now.

Not right then, though. Not at the very beginning-before things got truly weird.

A man died in an accident and a woman turned 100, both on the same day.

Life and death.

It happens all the time, doesn’t it?

THE NEXT MORNING, I WENT ONLINE.

There’s a little-known Web site listing every registered sex offender in the United States-NSOPR.gov.

I’d already called the sheriff’s office for his name. Dennis Flaherty. From Ketchum City, Iowa.

The Web site is mostly visited by moms and dads who want to make sure that the neighbor who’s always staring at their 5-year-old hasn’t ever dabbled in pedophilia. These days, the authorities are supposed to alert you when a registered pervert moves into the neighborhood. It sometimes slips their minds.

In certain states, sexual predators can avoid jail if they agree to make themselves less dangerous. And how do they manage that? Not through therapy. It doesn’t work with NAMBLA members.