"Tomorrow afternoon," continued Gerald, "I want all of you to come in equipped with some serious, constructive thoughts on design and production, on sales and marketing, on customer support and anything else you can think of, so that we can shape and implement Sandy's idea."

Sandy's hand shot up like a flare. "Gerald, do you want them to report to me?"

He tossed the marker onto the whiteboard ledge. "No," he said. "I'll be directing this."

7.

There were other places, closer to home, that I could have gone. But I didn't care about convenience; I didn't care about saving time or money or gas. Niagara Falls was the place that I thought of as soon as the image on the screen seized up and the clicks stopped getting through, and so I just went with it. I was adapting to circ.u.mstances, you know? Being equa-mouse.

As I drove along the QEW QEW, around the toe of the lake, I hit the scan b.u.t.ton on Dad's radio and just let it run the dial. After the third or fourth pa.s.s through all the six-second fragments, it was obvious that all the stations were playing garbage, nothing you could really listen to. I mean, unlike Dad, I can't get all caught up in talk and traffic reports and weather. So I turned off the radio and gave in to the music in my head. Sometimes in camp you could hear songs coming from the tent with the Kurdish workers. You could hear flutes and drums that rose and fell like wind sliding over the dunes. A couple of times during the water run in Balakhet I heard music that was similar coming from the mud-wall buildings. So I just let that run in my head while I drove, and it made me think of other things.

"You playing or what?"

It was my first night of cards with Legg and his buddies: the big warrant officer named Tanner, the sergeant Joe Leunette, and another corporal they called "Wedge," maybe for the shape of his chin, although Legg didn't seem to know him as well as the others. It was ten or so at night and we were sitting around an end table under the hanging fluorescents of the Camp Laverne kitchen, me beside Leunette, Tanner and Legg across from us, and Wedge on the end, dealing.

Tanner had already folded his cards and Wedge was staring at Legg, who was leaning forward onto the back of his turned-around chair, the curved edges digging into his chest. "I said, you playing?"

Legg frowned up at him. "Whaddaya mean am I f.u.c.kin' playin'? That's my money already in there. You raised, I f.u.c.kin' called."

"You haven't even looked at your hole cards."

"What the f.u.c.ksit matter to you if I look at my cards? It's not gonna change 'em. They're still gonna beat your f.u.c.kin' s.h.i.t."

"So you're in."

"I'm in, I'm in! Let's play!"

Wedge turned to me. "What about you?"

All I had was a pair of sevens one turned up and one in the hole but it was early and we were just playing for quarters. And to be honest, I'd never played a lot of poker. "I call."

Wedge lifted his eyebrow at me. "You sure about that?"

"Yup."

Wedge seemed unhappy. He waited for Leunette, who'd bet first with two nines showing. Leunette folded.

"You guys keep bulldozing right over my fifty cents," said Leunette. "Like to see a little more respect for your elders."

"Okay," said Wedge. "Last card down." He dealt cards to Legg, me and himself, and gave his new hole card a look. Then he glanced around the table. "My pair of sixes bet. I check."

Legg flicked in two quarters from his pile.

"You still haven't looked," said Wedge.

"Are you gonna f.u.c.kin' hound me all night?"

It was my turn next and I called.

Wedge smiled. "Looks like both you fairies have fallen into my web." He tossed two dollars into the pot. "Raise a buck fifty."

"Limit's a buck," said Leunette.

"You're not playing."

"Still a buck."

"Just take 'em back, a.s.shole," said Legg, and he slid two quarters out of the pot toward Wedge. Then he looked at his hole cards, shrugged and tossed them into the discard pile.

"Finally," muttered Wedge.

I started to reach for my quarters.

"Hoo hoo," said Tanner, rubbing his hands. "Action's heating up."

"Watch it what's your name, Kyle?" said Wedge. "I'd be careful."

"Why?"

Wedge seemed to think this was funny. "Why? I just checked and raised. That's not telling you something?"

About a dozen stupid responses to that question came into my mind, but I was surrounded by guys I didn't know that well, and I was playing a game I'd only ever played with my cousins, so I decided to keep my mouth shut for once. I looked at my cards again and at the pair of sixes showing in front of Wedge, then I tossed in a dollar to call and showed my pair of sevens.

"f.u.c.kin' h.e.l.l!" Wedge whipped his cards across the table.

"All he had were the sixes," giggled Tanner.

"Yeah," said Legg. "We got that."

Wedge glared at me. "What the f.u.c.k were you doin' calling a check-raise with a pair of sevens?"

"I dunno." I shrugged. "Winning?"

"No way. No way way you should've called that with sevens. You keep playing like that you're gonna lose a lot of f.u.c.kin' money." you should've called that with sevens. You keep playing like that you're gonna lose a lot of f.u.c.kin' money."

I sc.r.a.ped up the quarters from the pot and glanced around to try and figure out where everybody else stood on this whole calling-with-sevens issue. The face I really wanted to read was Legg's, but he was resting his chin on his arms folded in front of him, and he had his eyes on Wedge.

When it was his turn to deal, Legg swept up the cards and started shuffling with a loony kind of grin.

"Okay ladies, we're playin' Butcher Boy."

Sergeant Leunette leaned back in his chair in disgust. "I hate this game."

"Ah, shut up."

"There's no skill, it's a luck game," he said. "You watch, Kyle." He waited until Legg started to deal the cards, face up.

"See? There's no hole cards; everybody sees what everybody's got. And when a card gets dealt that somebody else has, like you get a ten, say, and I already have a ten, the card goes to me."

"Then we bet," said Tanner.

"First hand with four of a kind wins and splits with the low hand. All you're doing is betting on probabilities."

Legg followed each round of cards he dealt with a fist on the table. "Good f.u.c.kin' game," he said. "Like slots. Closest thing to pure chance in the f.u.c.kin' desert."

Wedge straightened his cards in front of him and muttered, "Says the guy who turns his back on the ghosts."

"What the f.u.c.k you care." Legg slapped the table. "That's my queen. Fifty cents."

"Ghosts?" I said. Quarters were flying into the pot from all sides, so I tossed some in too.

Legg kept dealing. "Ghosts is what the Soviets called the Pashtos."

"You take too many chances, that's all. It's risky for everybody. You can't trust those militia a.s.sholes."

Tanner opened a pack of gum. "They're okay around here, most of 'em. If they look like they might be trouble I just give 'em cigars."

"What'd we find in that bas.e.m.e.nt yesterday," said Wedge to the sergeant, "like six thousand rounds?"

"Close."

"And some 107s, and a bunch of grenade launchers."

"Most of that s.h.i.t's old."

"But a lot of it's from these militia f.u.c.kers spreading stuff out to their friends in the jihad who are just waiting for somebody wearing CADPAT CADPAT to cross their eyes at them and then it's 'G.o.d is great!' Boom!" Wedge pounded the table. "Hey, kid, wake up! Are you betting or what?" to cross their eyes at them and then it's 'G.o.d is great!' Boom!" Wedge pounded the table. "Hey, kid, wake up! Are you betting or what?"

I looked at my cards; the betting patterns were so irregular I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing. Legg wasn't giving me any clues; all his focus was on Wedge. So I took a guess and slid in two quarters.

"It's up to seventy-five," barked Wedge. "f.u.c.k, stay with us or get out of the hand."

"Lay off," said Leunette.

"I'm telling you," said Wedge. "They're just squatting there, waiting for some excuse."

Legg went back to firing cards around the table. "Ace! That's mine," said Tanner.

"If you were them," said Wedge, "wouldn't you be?" He watched Tanner reach over to the pile of cards in front of him and take up the ace of diamonds, then he plucked at the sleeve of Tanner's fatigues. "I swear, they see these colours, we're like a splinter under their fingernail or something. American, Canadian, I don't think it matters." He nodded at Tanner. "You think they like you because you hand out cigars?"

"No," said Tanner, smacking on his gum. "'Cause I give 'em Cubans. They love love me." me."

"They smile to your face. What are they saying behind your back?"

Legg leered and sn.i.g.g.e.red. "'There's that dumb motherf.u.c.ker hands out Cubans for free.'" free.'"

The sergeant was shaking his head. "Most folks around here I mean besides the ones whipped up by that Mullah Dashti character they're devoted to their families." He examined his cards. "The main trouble is these people have been through too much...all the wars, they're practically in shock. Some look at me as if I'm going to open fire on them. That can complicate things. Kyle?"

I was lost. "Yeah?"

"Bet's to you, son."

"Sorry." I shoved in three quarters.

"What," said Wedge. "Are you raising?"

"No."

"Bet's fifty cents then, it's a new round. Jesus." Jesus." He picked a quarter from the centre and pitched it across the table. It stung me on the cheekbone. He picked a quarter from the centre and pitched it across the table. It stung me on the cheekbone.

Before I could react, or even understand what was happening, I saw Legg move. When I look back on those months at Camp Laverne, it seems to me Legg was always doing that, flashing through my vision, pushed by something I never fully understood. That time, I watched him jump out of his seat, grab the top of Wedge's chair, and tip it backward "Hey! f.u.c.k off!" then drag the chair clear of the table. While Wedge was caterwauling and struggling to get out, and Tanner and Leunette were hooting at the table, Legg steered the chair on its back legs like a wheelbarrow across the floor and spilled the corporal over the threshold into the hot dirt outside.

When Legg came back in, alone, he didn't look at me. Just climbed onto his chair, restacked his quarters, and muttered, "Not playing with anybody whose aim is that f.u.c.kin' bad."

It was almost lunchtime, the sun making a rainbow arc in the crests of mist from the Falls, when I pulled into the old casino's parking lot. I didn't have any particular plan, other than to keep doing what I'd been doing, because it seemed to be working fine. But I was hungry that was one thing that never changed so after I parked Dad's car at the far edge of the lot and made my way around all the fenders and hoods, and past two police cars that were sitting under the canopy of the building's entrance, my first stop was the Market buffet.

In the big all-you-can-eat room, I loaded up on fresh-made pasta with oyster mushrooms and stood at the roast beef table as a thick-chested chef who looked a bit like Tanner carved off glossy slices of prime rib. There were lots of tables empty so I carried my plate over to a spot near the food display tables, ate what I had, and went back for more. Most of the people in the restaurant were aging couples in pastel sweaters; they hovered nervously by the heaped-up serving bowls as if they weren't sure they were ent.i.tled to all the choices laid out for them, like there might be some mistake. Besides the old people, there were four young guys about my age seated behind me at a corner table. They had buzzed hair and they were wearing long, industrial-league hockey sweaters, and when I got up to get another helping I could see them filling their faces and laughing while they eyed the room.

Eating in that big s.p.a.ce, surrounded by strangers, reminded me a lot of eating in the kitchen tent at Camp Laverne. When I was finished, I picked up my plate and turned left without thinking, the way I'd done after every meal for nine months, and for a second it was confusing not to see the dirty dishes counter where we were supposed to sc.r.a.pe off the sc.r.a.ps and leave our plates to be washed. It was strange not to see soldiers hunched over the tables, and sunlight forcing its way in through dusty windows. But then I snapped to, and sat back down hoping for a waitress so I could pay my bill.

She finally came and took the money never looking at me, looking over my shoulder the whole time and when I got up to leave I saw one of the hockey sweater guys standing in the aisle, next to the dessert station. He wasn't holding a plate, which was weird. I had to go past him to get out, and when I tried, Hockey Sweater Guy leaned a shoulder into my path.

"Hey, kid," he whispered, looking into my eyes. "You got anything?"

I didn't know what he was talking about, so I said, "No" and shook my head and tried to keep going. But Hockey Sweater Guy got in my way.

"Come on, you got something something, man. I know know it." Hockey Sweater Guy seemed all fired up and eager, as if he was pretty sure something good was coming to him right there beside the black forest cake in the all-you-can-eat buffet. it." Hockey Sweater Guy seemed all fired up and eager, as if he was pretty sure something good was coming to him right there beside the black forest cake in the all-you-can-eat buffet.

"I'm sorry," I said, feeling equa-mouse. "Are you one of the unfortunate deaf?"

Slowly Hockey Sweater Guy's antsy fervour dissipated, replaced first by confusion and then hostility. I seemed to be ruining his day.

"Are you messing with me, man?" He nudged my shoulder with the heel of his hand. "I asked you a question." He nudged me again. "What's this f.u.c.king bulls.h.i.t?"

I tilted my head to the side. Just a few feet away, near the bean salads, two older people held salad plates piled with greens and dotted with croutons. They were watching us, concerned. Way off in the distance, I could hear the jangly sound of the slot machines I'd come to play.

I shook my head. "Sorry, I misheard you. I didn't realize you wanted me to identify your bulls.h.i.t."

Hockey Sweater Guy narrowed his eyes. He looked over at his friends in the corner and back at me.

"I'll do my best," I said. "Do you have the bulls.h.i.t on you?"

Hockey Sweater Guy scowled and shoved me again in the shoulder. "What the f.u.c.k you talking about?"