Andrew forced his way into traffic at the intersection, driving through a red light and across lanes to a bray of horns. The road blew past him as if the landscape was a moving curtain, ramshackle bodegas and rows of railroad apartments flashed behind the din of traffic in a rust-colored blur. He was on his way to see his last client of the day and, as usual, he was running late. It was little consolation they shared the same Brooklyn neighborhood. This was, without question, his worst case.

He pulled up to the curb to see Albert Molonovsky standing on the porch of his home, smiling, his arms akimbo. Coiling from the wrists to the elbows were dull sheaths of aluminum that had been crudely fashioned from HVAC pipe.

“Force field,” he yelled. “Keeps the Jews from reading your mind.”

“We need to get your medicine,” Andrew said. His face was smooth and undefined. “Get in the car, please.”

He’d been working for the Department of Mental Health for six months. The hours were long and the work exhausting but it was a job he found rewarding. Homecare wasn’t Andrew’s specialty; he’d been a teacher since arriving in the city several years before but stumbled into the field as a sort of long-term default. Like teaching children, unpredictability is a hallmark with the mentally disabled, and cool heads prevail. Unlike his former job, his current clients lacked any defining uniformity. Some were autistic and others had cerebral palsy. Some were preteen and others elderly. Some were invalid and others managed to lead capable, productive lives.

“I hope you haven’t been drinking today.”

“Nope,” Molonovsky said, and fell into the seat beside him. He fumbled at the seatbelt and gave a wet belch that filled the car with the smell of stale beer.

Molonovsky was a schizophrenic in his early sixties. Co-workers at the agency said he’d been an industrious man at one time, had a business, had a wife and kids, but save for a house that had fallen into a derelict state of disrepair, all signs of his former life disappeared years ago. Molonovsky’s condition was worsened by his incorrigible alcoholism, a habit that was technically prohibited in the program due to the conflicts alcohol posed with his medication. Still, Molonovsky was often drunk by the time Andrew showed up, and this usually meant he would be boorish and combative.

“Good luck with this one,” a caseworker had said when she handed over Molonovsky’s papers. She was a Minnesota native, late twenties, nominally pretty. Andrew swore she’d aged a decade since they’d met.

---

Andrew drove them down the neighborhood’s thoroughfare, hoping the weather would keep the man in good spirits. His movements were listless and rendered with pause, like he was perpetually captured in slow motion. He had a wide sloppy face, with a thick bottom lip that drooped as if it had fallen out of some socket. His skin was chalky and gray like a seashell with tendrils of red veins that blossomed at the nose and throat. He wore a baby-blue sweatshirt and matching pants, both threadbare and frayed at the edges. He smelled like a sock that had been used to clean an ashtray.

It was one of the first warm evenings of the year. Sidewalks were busy with young couples walking dogs and catalogue-perfect twenty-somethings who sat smoking in outdoor cafes. The sky was the color of vinegar, with fecund trails of cloud that sifted into a trough where the horizon gave way to twilight. In the distance Manhattan’s silver skyline shone like thousands of tiny tombstones, some fabled promise of a future now rendered irretrievably in the past.

Molonovsky began chirping through his pursed lips. Soon the sounds evolved into a shrill, siren-like whistle. They turned a corner and crossed a park, where they came upon a high-rise condo. Construction workers in yellow helmets hoisted azure sheets of sun-tempered glass onto suspended scaffolds. It was the kind of structure Andrew thought he’d see in an office park.

Molonovsky stopped whistling. “Neighborhood’s changing,” he said.

“It’s true.” Andrew parked the car. He opened his briefcase and removed several prescription papers. “You know Al, we have something in common. I also live in this neighborhood.”

“Figures,” Molonovsky said. “You and everyone else from Ida-ho live here now.”

“Ohio,” Andrew said. “And the neighborhood wasn’t like this when I moved here.”

“So you’re the one who started it?” Molonovsky said, and howled with laughter.

---

“He makes fun of me,” Andrew said that evening as he lay in bed with Laura. “He’s mean spirited and he takes cheap shots. He’s rude and drunk all the time.”

He paused for dramatic effect. “He’s also anti-Semitic.”

“Dr. Cohen invited us to her place in the Hamptons next month,” she said. “Several people from the office are going if you want to come.”

“At least one of us is enjoying our jobs.”

“He’s a crazy person,” she yawned. “You work with crazy people. I don’t understand why you let this one get to you so much.”

“He’s not getting to me.”

“That big brain of yours has gone to your heart. Your problem is that you’re too good.” Laura rolled over. In seconds she was snoring.

Bar patrons clamored in the street below the bedroom window. Andrew replayed the day’s events in his mind. He realized it wasn’t Molonovsky’s words that had bothered as much as his own inability to respond, to refute the old man’s bullshit with the sort of swift countermand he’d always fancied himself capable. He’d been taken by surprise, after all, the challenge had come unexpectedly. He’d also been parking a car, and Lord knows you can’t multitask while parallel parking. Andrew thought about how he could’ve addressed Molonovsky’s claims had the conversation gone differently, if he were given a second chance. He spent the following minutes positing several hypothetical arguments, but each rebuttal only made him angrier. Soon he felt sharp pains shooting through his rectum and he was out of bed, pacing. His prostate had been acting up again, as it often did during periods of stress. He took a deep breath and felt it wind up and flare inside him, like a twisted balloon somewhere in the pipes between his scrotum and anus. He walked into the study and pulled a chair up next to the shelves, where he picked through a chapter on schizophrenia in a psychology textbook from his college days. From the window in the bedroom he could see the distant glow of the Manhattan skyline, its white armature of lights making a perforated pattern against the night sky, as Laura turned in the bed beneath it.

Andrew returned to Molonovsky’s several days later. It was the first time in more than a week since he’d been inside, and upon entering he noticed it held a sharp, earthy odor. The carpet was littered with fast food wrappers and the kitchen wastebasket overflowed with trash. Molonovsky, still wearing the HVAC piping, was on the couch smoking a cigarette. The television broadcast scattering flocks of white noise.

Andrew found a box of garbage bags under the sink and emptied the basket. He wasn’t required to clean clients’ homes, but reasoned that if he didn’t tidy up after Molonovsky no one would. He wiped crumbs of sticky foodstuffs off the kitchen counter and picked several wrappers off the floor. In the dining room he came upon Molonovsky’s cardboard village, which he’d been building obsessively for several months. The village was a hand-made collection of model homes, constructed out of whatever material Molonovsky could find: cereal boxes, cigarette packs, beer containers. They resembled large houses of cards, fashioned with sewing scissors and held together with Scotch tape, assembled with a child’s eye for design, each a variation of the same four-sided structure with simple, saltbox roofs. Andrew applauded the hobby, reasoning that any pastime that didn’t involve alcohol was a good one, and it impressed him that Molonovsky could describe each identical structure — “the bank,” “the butcher shop,” “the town square” — with unwavering familiarity. The village had grown since his last visit, and now sprawled beyond the dining room table, taking residence on the chairs and floor around it. Shuffling around it with the garbage bag, Andrew returned to the kitchen where he opened the refrigerator and removed several containers of rotten food. “Where did you get this beer?” he said, holding up a tallboy he’d found on a shelf.

“Bought it from some terriss at the bodega on the corner.”

“Those aren’t terrorists. They’re Sikhs, and they know better than to sell you alcohol.”

“They’re terriss,” Molonovsky said. “Heard them talking about blowing up the Pulaski bridge.” He smacked his bottom lip and stubbed his cigarette in the ashtray. “We should run them out.”

“I don’t think violence solves anything,” Andrew said, pulling several more cans from the crisper. He tied the garbage bag, readying it for the curb.

“Used to. Ran the Puerta Ricans out forty years ago with baseball bats.” Molonovsky returned his gaze to the television, as if he’d seen something move in the static. “Maybe if we bombed the organic grocery we can drive out the Iowa yuppies.” He gave a wet laugh, like something had caught in his throat. It was the perfect opportunity to strike. “You’re talking about gentrification,” Andrew said. He closed the refrigerator door, gingerly stepped around the town square and placed the trash bag at his feet. His prostate turned up and began to throb. “What I’m doing is not gentrification. My landlord is Polish, like you. I’m giving money back to your community.”

Molonovsky howled with laughter. “You’re giving us higher property taxes too.”

Andrew hadn’t thought of this. His mind raced for a rebuttal but nothing came to him. A dull panic welled inside him. His prostate clenched like some sphincter in the deep reaches of his bowels.

“I’m not a yuppie,” he said finally. “My father made tires for a living.” His father had been an accountant for a tire company, but this was immaterial to his larger point. “Yuppies work in the private sector,” he continued. “They are predominantly conservative.”

“How much is your rent?”

“That’s none of your business,” Andrew snapped. He yanked up the trash bag and stepped forward, accidentally flattening one of the cardboard houses.

“My livery stable!” Molonovsky yelled. He sprang to the floor and held the flattened slats in his hands.

“I’m sorry,” Andrew said. The hiss of the television seemed to taunt him. He stamped across the living room with the garbage bag, and slammed the door upon his exit.

---

“I can’t get through to him,” he told Laura that evening as they perused the aisles of the local organic grocery. “He just wants to argue. Every time I try to reason with him he just says these stupid, belittling things.”

“Ignore him,” Laura said. “It’s nothing for you to get upset over.” She veered the shopping cart into the gluten-free aisle and began examining several boxes of rice pasta.

“Don’t ignorant people make you mad?” he asked, storming after her. “Doesn’t it infuriate you when people make statements that are blatantly false?”

“No,” she said. “I guess it doesn’t.”

Andrew followed behind her in a sulking stroll. His prostate jittered like a mad jumping bean and he began to curse.

“What’s the matter with you?” Laura said.

“This goddamn prostate. It’s driving me crazy.”

“You need to see Dr. Cohen,” she said. “I told you.”

As they neared the checkout counter Laura recounted an incident that day at the doctor’s office involving several staff members and an unruly patient. Andrew, not listening, took a bottle of organic hand soap from a shelf and turned it in his hand. He read the bottle’s mission statement and his prostate fluttered and relaxed. He placed the bottle in the cart. Yuppie, he thought. The goddamn nerve.

It occurred to Andrew that evening that his back-and-forths with Molonovsky were similar to arguments he’d had in his youth with his father. A proud and thoughtless man, Andrew’s father took the infuriating position of presuming information to which he wasn’t privy was either unimportant or incorrect. Jokes that went over his head were unfunny, non-contemporary forms of music were derided for their inability to penetrate mainstream. Climate change was a hoax, taxes on the rich destroyed blue-collar jobs, Obama had installed death panels to save costs in a socialized health care system. Ignorance was common enough in the world, but Andrew soon realized that when garden-variety stupidity was reinforced with militant resolve, men could develop their own truths, impenetrable from outside opinion.

It was a loophole exploited by all the men in his family. Not only did conflicting evidence do nothing to sway them, they invariably treated each fact and statistic flung their way as a liberal ruse concocted to hoodwink gullibles. Their habit to dismiss even the most compelling arguments simply to keep their preexisting worldviews intact — complete with inside winks and rolling eyes as if he was the one who was misinformed — made him feel as if he was going crazy, like he was wired to speak a language different from the world he’d been born into. And yet, no matter how inane or idiotic their opinions, he could not resist the opportunity to engage them.

---

Andrew arrived at Molonovsky’s house the following week ready for a fight. He was disappointed when the man answered the door wearing an aluminum mixing bowl on his head, held into place with a strip of duct tape that ran under his chin. A cavalcade of white noise was emitting from inside, and Andrew discovered that the television was on just like before, but this time it was accompanied by a small radio on the coffee table and another in the kitchen. All three were blaring at deafening volumes, interfering flanges of frequencies that made the room feel as if the air was a field of charged particles.

“Listen, you can hear them talking to each other,” Molonovsky said, and ran his fingers between the television antennae as if he were reading some invisible Braille.

“Impossible,” Andrew said, turning off the kitchen radio. “The FCC cut off analogue wavelengths a long time ago. All you’re getting with those rabbit ears is static.”

Andrew withdrew another garbage bag from under the sink and emptied the kitchen wastebasket. “I need to use your bathroom,” he said. He took the trash bag and made his way through the dining room, stepping around Molonovsky’s cardboard village. It had grown since the previous week; new communities had been built on a China cabinet and several houses now encroached into the kitchen. On the floor near the bathroom Andrew found Molonovsky’s trademark baby-blue sweatshirt and sweatpants. The HVAC pipe sheathing was still there, and had now been sewn into the sleeves and legs with a crude circuitry of duct tape and fishing wire. Andrew picked up the outfit and examined it in his hands, running his fingers over the aluminum sheaths until he pricked himself on a jagged sliver that stuck out at one of the elbows. He stuck his finger in his mouth and cursed, and tossed the outfit into the garbage bag.

His pants were around his ankles when he discovered Molonovsky’s toilet was busted. He flicked at the dead handle with his finger and looked into the depths below, a brown pool of water, bloated yellow wads of toilet paper and a pencil-shaped turd that left a rusted trail from the bottom of the bowl into its porcelain exit. Andrew closed the lid, turned from the toilet and lifted his penis over the marbled lip of the bathroom sink. He stared at himself in the mirror and thought about the old man’s idiocy. It occurred to him that if he could not engage Molonovsky on some rational plain, at the least he owed himself some private reprieve for his toils. His prostate released, unwound like the opening of a rusted valve. He chuckled as thrashing whips of urine splashed in the basin, actually laughed when several errant drops leapt over the bowl and struck the mirror, pooled in the soap dispenser or were absorbed by a crusted hand towel. Behind the noise in the living room he couldn’t hear the old man’s lumbering or the aged spring of the doorknob.

“Chain’s busted,” Molonovsky said. “You need to open the tank to —. ”

“Just a minute!”

Molonovsky’s knuckles grew white against the doorframe. His mouth fell open, his chin drew over the tape strap and his eyes unzipped and cabinets of unknown folds opened across his face. “You’re peeing in my sink!”

“I wasn’t!” Andrew protested, kicking against the door.

“You’re an animal!” Molonovsky said, his aluminum helmet catching in the doorway. “I’ll tell the department! I’ll tell everyone!”

---

“He’s an imbecile!” Andrew said that evening as he ate dinner with Laura. A French brasserie had opened in the neighborhood to rave reviews, and for weeks Andrew had been hounding Laura to try it. He was disappointed to find the service shoddy and a menu pocked with hopelessly Americanized fare. “He’s a real simpleton,” he said, taking a long swig of beer. “A Philistine. He reminds me of the hillbillies that used to hang out with dad at the boat shop.”

Already he’d had four beers, and he was beginning to rant, as he was wont to do when he was drunk. Laura found the best way to deal with him in these situations was to pamper him with placating nods, hoping that by granting him some imagined authority his temper would cool.

“Mom called today,” she said with a forced laugh, and forked at her poached egg friseé salad. “She’s still wondering when we’re getting married. I think she’s got grandma fever.”

“Your mother wants something to cuddle with,” he said. “I suppose she’d be happy if we lived in abject poverty with a trailer full of kids, like your sister.”

A streak of crème fraiche had somehow made its way onto Andrew’s cheek. Laura looked at the glistening glob on her boyfriend’s face for a moment, said nothing, and resumed eating.

---

Andrew arrived at Molonovsky’s house several days later with a prepared spiel. He’d stayed up late the evening before practicing what he’d say, even going as far as to memorize strong points he’d written on index cards. He knew that if he wanted to engage Molonovsky effectively he couldn’t appeal to reason. He’d need a rhetorical strategy that relied on meat-and-potatoes pathos, words that spoke on his level. It was time to get Molonovsky’s medication again, and Andrew knew they would have to spend an inordinate amount of time together. It would be the perfect opportunity for a well-planned attack. He’d only have a sliver of time to make his points before Molonovsky would interrupt him with an asinine comment. Andrew would have to speak quickly; his argument would have to come unexpectedly and mercilessly.

Andrew was shocked to see that Molonovsky was again wearing the sweatshirt and sweatpants. The HVAC pipe was still adjoined at the sleeves, although now the outfit was soiled with coffee grinds and what appeared to be bits of wet chicken. From over his shoulder in the doorway Andrew caught a glimpse of Molonovsky’s cardboard village. It now appeared to be taking over the entire apartment; tiny homes took residence across the floor in the living room, neighborhoods grew over tables and appliances. Andrew now realized there was an accidental aesthetic in Molonovsky’s homes, an almost Bauhaus quality in their brute minimalism and veneration of function.

They got into the car and made their way to the pharmacy. Andrew deliberately took the long route, and as they approached the main strip the neighborhood’s tropes began to appear. Couples dined in outdoor bistros, young women walked by wearing fashionable clothes, pixels of brown bodies dotted the street in picture-perfect number and formation: blacks, Arabs, Indians, Hispanics. The hook had been baited, and Andrew waited for the first rude comment to surface.

Instead, Molonovsky began blowing small bubbles with his saliva. Webs of milky foam dripped over his thick bottom lip and onto his chin. As they turned the corner that led to the pharmacy, desperation took over. They reached a red light, and Andrew’s prostate flared and began to beat with anticipation.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about what you’ve been saying over the past several weeks,” he said, and gripped the steering wheel tightly.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Molonovsky said.

“C’mon. Listen, I know you don’t like me, but I’m here to help.”

The old man began chewing his thumbnail.

Andrew was growing exhausted. “Do you care to hear what I have to say?”

“Sure.”

It was now or never. Andrew tried to remember the first line from the speech he’d memorized the night before. Sweat crawled into the folds under his eyes. His prostate screamed, sending streaks of pain from his bowels through his rectum.

Now! Attack, you fool!

He saw the image of the index card in his hand and the words came quickly, almost spilling out of his mouth with robotic efficiency.

“The development patterns of urban areas are different today than they were in your generation,” Andrew said.

“Ughm,” Molonovsky said, and resumed popping bubbles of spit.

“You see, affluent whites left our cities after World War Two for the suburbs, leaving urban cores to fester. To make matters worse, we had the Section Eight housing voucher program, which corralled minorities into soul-crushing towers, casing economic disparity, segregation, drugs —”. Andrew stopped himself. He needed his argument to maintain course.

“Ughm,” Molonovsky said.

“— Now our cities are growing again, they are reverting to their pre-war status. The gentrification you see is actually a reaction to predatory administrative decisions from decades ago. I’m part of that new growth, Al. I’m a member of what’s called the creative class, a new frontier of urbanites initiated by artists and homosexuals who moved into areas formerly uninhabit —.”

“You’re a homosexual?” Molonovsky said, suddenly showing interest.

“No,” Andrew said. “You see, the needs of your generation were far more agrarian. Owning land. Working the farm. Getting married. Don’t worry, it’s the same with my father.” Andrew prided himself on the populist tenor of this line. “My generation looks for something different. We aim for self-realization. Culture, the arts. I guess what I’m trying to say —” Andrew saw the image of the last index card. He envisioned it in his hand, read its words, brought the message home “— is that your anger isn’t directed at me per se but rather, is a reaction to new paradigms for urban development that formed where our respective paths happened to —.”

The engine stopped. Andrew turned to the road and tapped at the accelerator. Passing vehicles honked and maneuvered around them. Andrew shifted gears, jabbed at the gas. Fearing an accident, he whipped the car into the left lane and then to the side of the road. The tires brushed against the curb and came to a stop.

“Nothing’s happening,” Andrew said. “It won’t start.”

Andrew began a fruitless rundown of automotive rituals, removing the keys and replacing them, turning the engine, shifting gears, stepping on the gas and the brake pedal.

“How many miles does your car have on it?” Molonovsky said.

“A hundred and fifteen thousand.”

“Timing belt just broke. Camshaft can’t open the valves.”

The timing belt! Andrew’s father had officiously reminded him over the years to replace the timing belt, amid sermons on radiator flushes and the importance of regular oil changes. Andrew cursed and slapped the steering wheel.

“What were you saying before we stopped?” Molonovsky said.

“Nothing, forget it.” Andrew retrieved his cell phone and opened his wallet. He found his AAA card and dialed a number. Molonovsky resumed blowing bubbles.

A tow truck appeared ten minutes later. A large, olive-skinned man in gray coveralls stepped out and turned an oiled rag in his hands. Andrew gave a quick nod and pulled the lever that popped the car’s hood. The man leaned in and prodded around for several minutes before he approached the window.

“It’s your timing belt,” the man said. Molonovsky chuckled. “Won’t take long to fix. Unfortunately it’s the end of the day. Can have it ready first thing tomorrow. You live around here?”

“Yes,” Andrew said. “We both do.”

“He was just telling me about the neighborhood,” Molonovsky said.

“Oh yeah?” the man responded with polite interest. His eye caught Molonovsky’s aluminum armor and suddenly he grew alert.

“You live around here?” Molonovsky said.

“Used to,” the man said. “Live in Queens now. Can’t afford to live here anymore — unless you’re a banker or a lawyer.”

“I suppose some people might disagree with you,” Andrew said.

The man shook his head. He smiled and exchanged rolling eyes with Molonovsky. The old man howled with laughter.

“You won’t believe the things this boy’s trying to get in my head,” Molonovsky said. “He thinks we’re farmers! Said we need to clear way for the artists!”

“Artists,” the tow truck driver said, and gently kicked a tire. “Yeah.”

“Said the artists are taking over! Said they know more about the city than we do!”

“That’s enough,” Andrew said.

“The city sends him to my house and he breaks my artwork! He throws my clothes in the trash and pees in my sink! Now he says they’re going to kick me out of my house unless I become a homosexual!”

“That’s not what I said!”

“What’s going on here?” the man asked. “What are you doing to this man?”

Andrew got out of the car and tossed his keys to the tow truck driver, almost threw them. Without a word he began walking up the street. The anger put a force in his gait, boiled his prostate into an apoplectic rage until it felt like a hot spike was shooting through his ass. Within seconds Molonovsky came panting up to him from behind.

“Is he one of them librarians you were talking about?”

“Agrarians,” Andy corrected him. “And yes, he is.”

They continued up the street. The sky above him appeared like a frozen pond, with rippling bunches of cloud that gathered around a cascading pool of blue light. They went several blocks north and when Andy caught sight the river, west. The anger had him on autopilot, compressed the world into a throbbing singularity above his scrotum.

“Hey, slow down,” Molonovsky said. “You’re going too fast.”

Andrew had wanted to live in New York since he was a boy. He loved the city and its carnival of sights, its layers upon layers upon layers. He dreamt that someday he could take residence inside its funhouse of possibilities, find a place on the world’s crossroads and its sampling of every culture and walk of life. In time the city became a place he mythologized, rendered into fabled proportions. He turned New York into a bromide for his ideals, a phantom corollary that cured whatever ailed him; and every year the city went by without him was a reminder of some slipped cog in the world; every setback, every instance of bad luck was penance for not being here.

Then he got his chance. There was a program in the city that would train him to become a schoolteacher, where he could earn his Master’s in Education at an accelerated pace while working in the public school system. After a year of intensive study they gave him his first assignment, a high school in the far reaches of east Brooklyn, one of the worst districts in the city. On his first day he was called a cracker in the hallway. After school a dozen neighborhood kids gathered on the corner to throw rocks at him. He had to run to the subway. He quit the following day.

When they arrived at Molonovsky’s house Andrew stood with his back to the man. He watched Midtown’s skyline darken behind the borough outline like layers of mismatched wallpaper.

“Are you angry with me or something?” Molonovsky said. “Andy, what’s wrong? What’d I do? Was it something I said about Hawaii?”

“Ohio, you idiot,” Andrew said, whipping around. “I’m from O-hi-o.”

“Whoa, settle down buddy,” Molonovsky said, putting up his hands. “C’mon Andy, don’t be sore. I was just joking. I mean hell, I like you.”

For years he’d indulged in the fantasy that he could someday leave the Midwest and its legion of rednecks. The NASCAR races, the pickup trucks, the misguided political beliefs, the ingrained, almost enthusiastic ignorance. Andrew now realized that he hadn’t escaped anything. Another breed of redneck surrounded him. They dressed differently, had different accents, but the mentality was the same. Rednecks were everywhere. They were an inescapable ubiquity, in endless supply. They were the American default.

“I’m going to recommend that someone else take your case,” Andrew said. “You’ve been drinking, which violates the rules to receive our services. Besides, you and I clearly shouldn’t be working together.”

“Gee pal, c’mon. Lighten up.” Molonovsky made a face like a melting mask, like something inside him was screaming. “I mean, what about my medicine?”

“Someone from the agency can help you with your prescriptions tomorrow.”

“You’re serious!” Molonovsky yelled. “I didn’t mean it! Andy, we were just playing around, we were just having fun!”

Andrew remembered something his father said when referring to the southern Ohio town of his childhood. God’s Country. It was the sort of phrase Andrew would turn in his mind years later when recalling how stupid the man could be. The crumbling pig furnaces along the Ohio riverfront, half-vacant strip malls ignored by the conversation of commerce, a damp valley between hills as if the earth was trying to hide it. It was a stretch to think his hometown could be described with pastoral clichés, let alone the sort of divine providence one associates with the almighty. The man’s investment was worthless, clouded by a lifetime of crippling nearsightedness. He may as well have fawned over a village of cardboard toys.

“What are you thinking about?” Molonovsky asked, waving his arms. “Hello? Is anybody home?”

“It’s nothing,” Andrew said. A deep pressure released inside him. He looked in the distance and watched the sun disappear through an orange burn trail of clouds. “You wouldn’t understand.”