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The car is pretty banged up, both from the highway sign and the aero-velocipede, but we don’t have time to stand around doing a damage estimate. The captain could be seriously hurt, maybe even dead. Padgett reaches him first, with me and Chuck right behind.

“Are you all right?” Padgett says. “Captain?”

The captain raises his head. “Whose side are you on?” he asks, the weird fear in his eyes magnified by the goggles.

“We’re on your side,” says Padgett, and the captain goes, “I’ve got to get out of here. They’re coming. They were in my house. They got in through the electrical outlets. I need to get up high enough. They can’t get me up there.”

“Here,” says Padgett. “Let’s help him get out of this thing.”

We unstrap the harness and ease him out of the seat, but he can’t stand up. His leg isn’t broken or anything. It’s just nerves. He’s shaking all over. Even his beard seems to quiver as we help him sit down.

Standing on the other side of the fence, Dani yells, “I called the cops. They’re on their way, so don’t any of you think about trying to get out of here. It’s a crime to leave the scene of an accident, you know.”

Just then another pair of headlights rounds the curve, and Dani’s like, “Oh, hell no. Now they’re going to ram my car from the other side.”

“Maybe it’s the police,” I say, and she’s all, “How stupid are you? I just called them ten seconds ago. Get your butt over here and help me wave them out of the way.”

So both of us are standing at the rear of her car waving, and sure enough the driver sees us, slows down, and stops on the shoulder of the road. The passenger door opens, and who do you think steps out? It’s Bobby. He looks back into the Escalade and goes, “Stay in the car, okay?” But does Mona do it? No way. She steps right out and walks into the glare of the headlights, everything about her looking expensive as a weekend in Palm Springs, even her tan.

I’m thinking, Crap, you just had to make sure Dani knew you were here, didn’t you?

Bobby goes, “Ceejay, what happened? What are you doing out here?” But before I can get a word out, Dani’s like, “Hold on a minute. Hold on just one minute now. What are
you
doing riding around with this bitch?”

Bobby stops and stares at Dani like he can’t remember exactly who she is. “You got me there,” he says, scratching his head. “Maybe if you give me a couple of minutes, I’ll come up with a good lie.”

Dani’s eyes go wild and she’s like, “You bastard,” and charges him, fists flying. She’s pretty quick too, and Bobby can’t get a good grip on her wrists before she slugs him a couple of hard ones on the jaw. Even with him holding on to her, she’s not done. She’s cussing and squirming and kicking so bad, there’s nothing to do but pin her down on the pavement. “I’m gonna kill you!” she screams. “I’m gonna kill you and that bitch and your sister and everyone here!”

I’ve never seen anyone as mad as that. There’s nothing Bobby can do but keep her pinned down until Officer Dave and Officer Larry pull up with their red lights flashing. Jesus, I tell myself, maybe we’ll all get sent into the army this time.

It’s weird—sometimes you can tell how much you care about something by how mad you get over it. Not so long ago I was all ticked off at Captain Crazy and wanted the cops to haul him off to jail, and now here I am ticked off because the cops
are
hauling him off to jail. Why should I care? If it wasn’t for the captain, maybe Bobby and I would have hung out more, just him and me, maybe even moved in together, but the fact is I do care. I let Officer Dave and Officer Larry know it too.

I’m like, “Surely you don’t go around arresting everyone who gets into a car wreck.” But Officer Dave says this isn’t exactly your average accident. They aren’t sure what the charges will be, but from surveying Dani’s car, Angelica’s broken frame, and the captain’s crazed face, they figure it won’t be hard to come up with a whole list of crimes he’s guilty of.

I practically beg them to let us take the captain home, but they won’t go for it. They even look me over and say, how do they know I wasn’t the captain’s partner in crime, along with everyone else there?

Padgett steps up to play defense attorney, arguing that we tried to stop the captain. “Look at his bloody nose,” he says, pointing to Chuck. “He must have fallen down five times trying to catch him.”

The cops study Chuck for a second, but they don’t seem convinced. Most likely they’ve seen Chuck with a bloody nose before.

They’re more understanding about Bobby. Dani launches into how he attacked her, but when Mona steps up and explains how Dani was the first one to come fists swinging, the officers exchange looks that say they know what’s going on, and they’d just as soon not get in the middle of some nasty lovers’ quarrel. The crash is already more than enough to deal with.

We all have to go down to the police station so they can fill out a report. Except Mona. I guess when you own an Escalade and Coach purse, you don’t have to be bothered with the legal system. Of course, Bobby’s anything but happy to have the cops ordering him around. From the look in his eyes, I can tell things are on the verge of going very, very wrong, so I walk up and take his hand. “Come on,” I tell him. “Maybe we can convince them to let us take the captain home.”

He relaxes a little. “All right, Ceejay, I’ll go, but we have to haul Angelica back to the captain’s first.”

I let Padgett explain that deal to the cops. He’s less likely to lose his temper if they don’t like it. They don’t. “No one’s going anywhere right now but down to the station,” says Officer Dave. “You can pick up that hunk of junk tomorrow.”

Padgett looks at Bobby. “That’ll work. Nobody’s going to mess with it out here tonight.”

“They’d better not,” Bobby says.

When we finally make it to the cop shop, they herd me, Bobby, Chuck, and Padgett into a blank-walled room where we have to sit around in uncomfortable metal chairs. Dani gets a separate room to herself. One by one we’re called into a cramped office to give our statements. I’m the last one in, and it’s pretty obvious by now Officer Dave has figured out we’re telling the truth. He nods while I rattle off my story, jots down a few notes, then tells me to go wait in the other room and we’ll all get to go home in a couple of minutes. Which is a relief. I thought they were going to be dicks about it. Maybe they feel guilty about helping to get Bobby sent off to the war after all.

But out in the hall, Bobby’s facing off against Officer Larry—Bobby in his T-shirt, jeans, and boots, and Officer Larry with his starched blue uniform, his silver badge glinting in the fluorescent light. Bobby’s demanding they let the captain go home with us. This was just an accident, he growls. You don’t throw someone behind bars for a traffic accident.

But Officer Larry tells him no way is the captain going home tonight. “This isn’t just about being a public nuisance this time,” Officer Larry says, his face flaring red right up to the borderline of his short black hair. Cops hate it when somebody tries to tell
them
what to do for a change. “This is property damage and endangerment of life and limb.”

Bobby’s fists clench at his sides. He’s been about to explode ever since the cops showed up, and it’s up to me to defuse him yet again. I walk up and stand next to him and ask Officer Larry if they’ve called the captain’s brother. He says they have.

“That’s all right then,” I tell Bobby. “I’ve seen this a million
times. The captain’s brother comes down and gets him out in about two minutes.”

Officer Larry looks like he wants to say something, probably about how that’s not going to happen this time, but he glances at Bobby and thinks better of it. Instead he’s like, “That’s right. Just let the captain’s brother handle things. You go ahead and take off. If you have any questions, you can call up here tomorrow.”

“Thanks,” I say. “Come on, Bobby.”

Bobby stares at Officer Larry a moment longer, just to let him know this thing isn’t over, not by a long shot.

I touch him lightly on the back. “Time to go home. I think we’re both probably worn out.”

“Home?” He looks at me, not in the eyes, just down at the top of my head. “Too bad I don’t have any home to go to. I’m pretty sure Dani would shoot me on sight if I showed up back there.”

“That’s all right,” I tell him. “You’re coming home with me and sleeping in your old room.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Chuck steps up from behind. “Don’t worry, dude. I still have plenty of room on my couch for you.”

“That’s okay,” Bobby says. “Take me out to the captain’s. I’ll spend the night there.”

Padgett knows it hurts me to hear Bobby say he’d rather go to the captain’s than home with me. I mean, if he’d rather do that now, when will the time ever come when he’d want to share a place with me?

Padgett takes hold of my hand and squeezes it. “Let’s all go out to the captain’s,” he says. “We need to haul Angelica back anyway.”

The next day, at lunch, I get Uncle Jimmy to loan me his truck for an hour so I can drive Bobby over to Dani’s to rescue his stuff while she’s at work. Actually, he owns so little, he could probably haul everything off on his motorcycle, but the truth is I just want to spend time alone with him.

As we drive away from the captain’s, I do my best one more time to argue him into giving his old room a try—just long enough so he can get a job and save up for a two-bedroom rent house—but he’s not going for it.

“The parents’ place is too small for me now,” he says.

“What are you talking about?” I ask. “It’s bigger than Dani’s ratty old trailer.”

“I’m not talking about physical size, Ceejay. I’m talking about the psychological size. I can’t be squeezed in like that.
I can’t have people looking over my shoulder thinking about how I’m supposed to be or who I used to be or what’s wrong with me. You know? I have to have some breathing room.”

“Maybe it won’t be like that,” I say. “Give the parents a chance. Sit down and have a conversation for a while. I think they really do want to make up for how they let you get a bum deal. Even Dad. Maybe he is actually more like us than we’ve given him credit for.”

“But that’s just my point,” Bobby says, looking out the side window. “He thinks I’m like him. But I’m not. I’m not like anybody anymore. Except maybe the captain. That’s what I figure I’ll do—I’ll move my stuff over and stay at his place.”

It hurts all over again to hear Bobby talk like he prefers the captain over me, but I’m not about to admit it. “The captain? How can you live in the middle of all that junk he has out there? What you need to do is start thinking about getting your own rent house.”

“I’ll feel right at home in the middle of a bunch of junk,” he says, like he himself is just a piece of junk somebody threw away. I have no comeback for that. I’ll just have to wait. He’ll see—he’s not like the captain at all.

At Dani’s, the gravel driveway is empty, which is good. I’m hoping we can just get in and out with no hassles. But just as Bobby goes to stick his key in the front-door lock, the door swings open in front of us. It’s Tillman.

“What are you doing here?” he asks, his chest jutting out like he’s ready for trouble.

“Us?” I say. “We’re just here to get Bobby’s stuff. What are you doing here?”

“Mom dropped me off when she had to take Dani to work because her damn car won’t drive.” He stares at me like it’s my fault.

“Look,” I say, “I didn’t ask you how you got here. I asked you
why
you’re here.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because Dani figured she needed someone to stand guard over the place. Looks like she was right.”

“So what? You’re going to tell us we can’t come in?”

“That’s right.”

Bobby snorts out a laugh. “Yeah, right. Get out of the way, little man. All I want is what’s mine and then I’ll leave. Gladly.” He steps forward. Tillman puffs up like he’s getting ready to defend his sister’s grand, sparkling trailer, but Bobby stares him down and he gives way.

There’s not much to gather up, just what will fit in Bobby’s duffel bag, but it still takes too long, what with Tillman yammering at us the whole time like an obnoxious dachshund. He says he told Dani that Bobby wasn’t worth a damn and how it didn’t take long for Bobby to prove him right. Maybe if Jace had swung a little lower with that baseball bat, he says, Bobby would’ve been in the hospital instead of causing his sister grief. All the while he’s shooting off his mouth, Bobby just goes about sorting through his things and stuffing them into the bag, but I can’t keep quiet.

“What happened to you, Tillman? After all these years of us being friends, you go and turn against me like we never even knew each other. Don’t you have any loyalty to anyone?”

“Hey,” he says. “I am being loyal—to my sister. Who are you being loyal to, your brother? Can you really tell me he treated Dani right? No. Listen, I’m not the one who changed. I’m not the one who started hanging out with the damn town crazoid, helping him make his totem poles or whatever. You want to see someone who’s changed, look in the mirror.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” I get right up
in his face. “About my brother or the captain. I’ll tell you this—the captain has more sense than you ever had. Or ever will have. He just sees things in a different way. But you, you’re too narrow-minded to understand that.”

“Yeah, right. The captain has so much sense the cops won’t even let him go back home. The dude can’t even take care of himself.”

“What are you talking about? The captain’s brother’s going to get him out of jail just like he always does.”

“That shows how much you know.” He smiles a creepy little self-satisfied smile. “The captain’s brother is the one who doesn’t want him going home. Dani called up there today to make sure they weren’t letting him out, and the cops told her his brother’s having him put in a home. They’re going to juice that dude up on meds until he can’t say his own name. He’s not going to be a problem for anyone from here on out.”

That gets Bobby’s attention. “What are you talking about, you little liar?” he says, staring Tillman down.

Tillman’s like, “Calling me a liar isn’t going to change anything. Your boy’s done. Over and out and down for the count.”