But I’ve got a new life now, one I’m living on the sly. I’m happy, or at least entertained; and that feels good. I smoke marijuana convincingly, and I’ve had sex with Brett four times. I love her.

Dad catches me coming back one night. We’ve got our sleeping bags unrolled under a defunct loading dock. He pushes up on an elbow, and I see his eyes in the moonlight falling between the broken boards overhead. I freeze, more rattled in that instant than the first time Brett and I did it in that doorway. I reek of pot smoke, the brand that Brett likes.

There’s sadness in his eyes, and I realize he used to look at Adalia this way in the weeks before she took off.

If he calls me a sinner, I promise myself, I’ll tell him to piss off. I’ll say it to his face, finally. I crouch there over my bag, unable to move.

After a long while he says, “Cedric, can you go get me my eyedrops tomorrow?”

I forgot he was running out. In a quavery little voice I say, “Sure, Dad.” I get into my bag and zip it up. Colors are still bouncing around inside my head.

Dad reaches out a hand and gently pats my leg. A few minutes later I hear him softly snoring. I don’t sleep until the moon is going down. That night I dream vividly about Mom, for the first time in a year.

* * *

The next time I go to the squat, Brett isn’t there. She hasn’t answered when I’ve pinged her. One of the regulars comes over and tells me she’s back with her boyfriend, who has an apartment. I’m not invited into the room with the lamp and the junk furniture and the beer and smoking.

It’s like a punch in the chest, and I feel my heart sort of buckling; but even as bad as it is, I know in those first few seconds that it won’t kill me. I’ll deal. I will.

But I really want to smoke. I wander around the streets awhile. I’m still amazed how different this part of the city is in the deep night. Soon I bump into somebody I remember hazily from the squat. He’s my age, but he’s got a hard knowing face and a missing front tooth. I go with him to a car abandoned in an alley. We get into the back seat of the old algae-burner whose tires are gone and share a smoke, different from Brett’s brand, harsher tasting. Even the pleasant disorienting effects are blunter, more like a dose of medicine.

Still, it feels better than nothing. In the smoky aftermath we touch each other, because that what he-his name is Monkey-wants to do. I don’t mind, though I think it’s weird he absolutely doesn’t want to kiss. That was something I really liked with Brett.

Suddenly the grief catches up to me. I writhe around like I’m in physical pain, thinking how she’s gone and with some other guy. My behavior spooks Monkey. He drops some pills into my coat pocket and takes off.

The sadness vanishes, just like that. I step out of the car. For five whole minutes I can’t remember where I left Dad.

* * *

When Monkey’s pills run out, I go get more. It’s easy. Sometimes people just give them to me, other times I have to do stuff. Mostly I don’t mind that. And even when I do, it’s no big deal to turn off my brain for ten minutes. Besides, I know a lot more people now. There’s more of a community on the streets than I ever really realized-incredible, considering how long I’ve been living out here.

One night I don’t come back to Dad, and the next day I have to go find him. This happens three more times. I’m welcome at the squat again. Brett never shows up, but I’ve long since stopped hoping she would.

I get wobbly sometimes, in the daytime. I can’t seem to quite get my feet under me when I’m walking. The ground sways. At that same Handoutlet I sit in front of a bowl of stew, not touching it. I glance up and see Tony, the attendant, looking at me. He shakes his head.

I don’t say my “Now I lay me …” anymore when there’s no one around to hear but Dad. The disappointment is permanent in his eyes now. Sometimes, rarely, I feel like he’s got a right to be disappointed in me. The rest of the time, though, I couldn’t give a shit what he thinks.

On the morning after a night when I’ve stayed with him, we wake up with the sunrise and stir out of our sleeping bags. My mouth is gummy; my bladder aches. Yesterday, I remember, it hurt when I pissed.

Dad is quiet. So quiet in fact I look at him, closely. He has his eyes on the ground, with a strange soft smile on his lips. For some reason it makes me nervous.

He says, “All of what I’ve told you, Cedric, the stories, what sin means, how it’s just a list of things you should avoid so you don’t hurt anyone or yourself-all of that …” He still doesn’t look up.

My back stiffens when he says sin, and now I’m waiting for it, the whole sermon or whatever it’s called. He better not tell me I’m a sinner, that I’m dirty somehow, in some stupid abstract way.

What he says, though, is, “Forget all that. If you want. Forget the prayers. Forget the stories. Just remember what it’s really all about. Love. Love.That’s all anybody needs to know.”

He finally looks up, and the smile stays for a second or two, then flickers away. Then he’s just

Dad again, and he has his work to do.

I go with him, a little meekly, to the plaza. I’ll be his lookout, watch for the cops, though I think I’m more of a liability than help. I’m not invisible anymore.

Before he makes his muttering way out onto the broken, pigeon-dominated pavement, I pull on his arm. Out of nowhere I say, “Why don’t we leave the city? Go to the country. You could do what you wanted there. Wide-open spaces, Dad. Wide-open spaces.”

He’s just taken his drops, and his eyes are clear. He blinks at me, taking me in, seeing deep into me, it feels like. For the first time in a while there’s no disappointment in his gaze.

After a moment he gives my shoulder a pat and says, “I’m needed here.”

Which is true, in its way. I’ve noticed over the past month that even more people are showing up wherever he appears. They make an effort not to look like they’re listening to his babble, but I get the feeling that some among his “audience” are sorting through every word, taking them to heart. I don’t know what, exactly, the words do to these people. Certainly I never felt much more than confusion and apprehension when I used to believe.

I’m wobbly again. I stand under an old lamppost and watch the plaza slide slowly side to side. Thoughts move in my head, but they don’t get far, fuzzing out into nonsense.

I don’t see the police at first when they make their move. When I’m jolted into noticing them, though, I realize I haven’t nodded out on duty, precisely; rather, the cops were in the plaza all along, disguised as bench bums. Four of them are suddenly on their feet and converging, hidden badges now on display. I see Dad as he halts, as he straightens from his pathetic hobbling crouch. He doesn’t try to run.