"But he didn't even tell you, man," says Bean, with a slap to the roof of the car for emphasis. "I mean, he'd tell you, right?"

Caleb's arms are folded and he stares up the driveway. He sighs.

"Right?" says Bean.

Caleb sighs again. "When I was a kid he used to disappear. Sometimes for weeks. His law practice would shut down, I guess, and our lives would shut down and we'd just wait for him to come back. A few days or weeks would go by and he'd come back. No explanation, no 'I've got a mistress,' no 'I went on a drinking binge.' He'd just show up and act like everything was okay."

"Maybe he was in the CIA," Bean offers. "Sorry, man," he quickly amends.

"It's alright," Caleb says. "I didn't mean to get all 'After School Special' on ya. My point is just-"

"He might have left and not called you," Bean says. "I get it."

"He could be in Georgia. He could be in Brazil. Who knows, who cares?"

"Yeah," Bean says, "I think this calls for the Universal Problem Solver."

"What's that?"

"Bacon and waffles, on me."

"Amen, brother. Let's roll," Caleb says, his despondence dissipating.

Bean smiles as he gets in the car. As much as he screws things up, he sometimes has a knack for setting them right, too.

TRANSCRIPT-Patient #62, SESSION #77 (In this session, the patient attacks the director in an unprovoked episode of violence.) PATIENT #62: I know what you're doing and I don't trust you. None of the other patients do either. We all know what you're doing.

DIRECTOR: Well, h.e.l.lo. That's quite a greeting. And what do you and the other patients suppose I'm doing, Patient Sixty-two?

PATIENT #62: That's not my name.

DIRECTOR: I'm aware of that.

PATIENT #62: Then why won't you say it? Why won't anyone say it?

Why are you trying to make me forget my name?

DIRECTOR: You were sent here to rid yourself of your nightmares. Nightmares are a normal phenomenon, of course, but when one exhibits behaviors like yours-self-mutilation, sleepwalking, insomnia-then nightmares pa.s.s out of the realm of normal and become a disorder. Natural, or healthy, nightmares grow out of your ident.i.ty. In my school of thought, unhealthy nightmares, the ones that wind up producing disorders, come from rifts in one's ident.i.ty. Hence, a temporary break with your ident.i.ty might be therapeutic. And as you yourself have noticed, your nightmares have all but disappeared. Does that answer your question?

PATIENT #62: Yes. But there's another question, Director.

DIRECTOR: What's that?

PATIENT #62: What do you replace the nightmares with?

DIRECTOR: I'm sorry, I don't understand.

PATIENT #62: There are no more nightmares. That's true. But there's something else. Something worse.

DIRECTOR: And what is that? I'd be very interested to know.

PATIENT #62: But you already know. You put it there, through the hole you made in my head.

Note: The patient touches the side of her head here. This habit of hers is becoming more p.r.o.nounced. Watch for this behavior in the future as a possible precursor to violent episodes.

DIRECTOR: I thought we agreed last time that no one made any incision in your head.

PATIENT #62: But it's there. I'm not crazy. Stop trying to make me think that! I can feel it right now.

DIRECTOR: Let me see. No, there's no incision there.

PATIENT #62: It's easy to lie. Everyone does it.

DIRECTOR: Why do you think I made an incision in your head? Do you have a memory of my doing that?

PATIENT #62: No . . .

DIRECTOR: Then what makes you think it happened?

PATIENT #62: She told me.

DIRECTOR: Who told you?

(The patient appears to be shaking. The director approaches to comfort her.) DIRECTOR: Who told you I did that?

PATIENT #62: She never lies. She can't lie.

DIRECTOR: Who? Whose voice are you hearing? Answer me, Patient Sixty-two.

PATIENT #62: MY NAME IS CHRISTINE!.

(Here, the patient attacks the director. She bites his face in several places and causes a wound on his scalp that requires over twenty st.i.tches. This concluded the session.) Maybe this town isn't so bad after all. Everything looks better after a plate of hash browns and a fluffy omelet the size of a football- not just a junior football either, but something more akin to a big, old, ma.s.sive NFL pigskin. These plates are heaped with the best stuff Bean has ever tasted. Bacon smoked by a real local farmer (probably in very dubious conditions from a sanitation standpoint, but still . . .), spicy venison sausage, b.u.t.termilk pancakes steeped in Tupelo honey. The only thing Bean can't really figure out is the grits. They have all the texture of way overcooked white rice with half the taste. But by the time he gets around to prodding them with his fork, he's so disgustingly stuffed that he's actually relieved not to have to eat anything else, and he pushes his plate away and leans back in the seat. Caleb is still eating, slowly. He hasn't eaten much.

Bean is already restless, needing to burn off the ten pounds of food that's fast congealing into a bowling ball in his gut. So he does what he does best: talks.

"So what's up with Amber? How'd she take your big disappearing act?"

Caleb grunts with a mouthful of French toast. "Mot ell," chew, chew, "not well at all. But in the end, I think she thought it was cute or something that I was having a breakdown. She got me a teddy bear and gave me a card and a picture of her to take with me on the trip, and that was it. And, of course, she dropped about a million hints about coming along."

"Way to be strong, brother," says Bean. "This is a man's mission anyway-saving a damsel in distress and whatnot."

"Yeah," Caleb says, "she might've been a little jealous about that, too. I didn't mention it."

"Probably best." Bean belches softly.

Caleb looks around. There aren't many folks in here-all the working people of Hudsonville ate their morning vittles, drank their coffee, and punched the time clock hours ago, and it's still at least an hour away from lunchtime. The only people here are the shriveled-up old waitress who served them-and miraculously did so without uttering more than three words-and one quiet, middle-aged woman who sits in a corner booth, sipping her coffee and staring at the yellowing wallpaper. Of course, the banging of pans and the sizzle of grease from behind the pa.s.s-through window announce the presence of a short-order cook back in the kitchen somewhere, but he's nowhere to be seen. Out here, it's just the waitress, the woman, Caleb, and Bean.

"Ugh," groans Caleb, "I can't eat another bite. This stuff is, like, dipped in lead or something." He pushes his plate back. "Let's pay the bill and get out of here."

"Cool," says Bean. And they sit and stare at each other.

"Oh, right," says Bean. "I was gonna pay."

Bean opens his wallet, scrunches up his forehead, looks in a couple different compartments, takes out a few business cards, sets them on the table, and mumbles, "Man . . . "

"Bean," says Caleb.

"No, no, dude. I said I'd pay for it. I just have to find an ATM or something. It's totally cool."

"Bean," says Caleb.

"No, no, I'll get it. I said I'd get it. But I spent my cash on that travel Yahtzee game at the airport. Yahtzee rocks. I just need an ATM."

Caleb is already halfway to the register. "Forget it, man," he says. "Get it next time."

Caleb weaves around a few chairs, heading up toward the front of the restaurant-but the woman, the only other customer in the place, has beaten him to the cash register, so he waits in line and looks around. The name of the place, "The Blue Crab," is painted on the storefront window. Caleb sees the words backward now, and they look like they say something totally different. He can't come up with what they look like; they just look strange. Somehow it reminds him of everything in this place.

Since his return to Hudsonville, he has seen his childhood home, and he has pa.s.sed streets where he used to ride his bike and the creek, or crick, as the locals call it, where he and Rich Baker used to catch frogs and have contests to see how far they could throw them. He has pa.s.sed the corner where he used to wait for the bus, where Rusty Brown once unfurled (with much fanfare and rhetoric) the first p.o.r.no mag Caleb ever laid eyes on. This was home. And it's just as he remembers it. The air still has the same indefinable sweet smell, the wind makes the same sound coming through the tops of the pine trees; even the paper kid's menu at the Blue Crab hasn't changed a bit. He had traced his finger through the maze on the textured paper just as he had done with a crayon a thousand times as a kid. Everything is the same. But nothing is familiar. It's all here, every wrinkle of every long-lost memory-real, vivid, unchanged, rendered in perfect detail, but still not quite right. Like "The Blue Crab," written across the window, everything is backwards.

The woman from the corner booth is still speaking to the old waitress in a hushed, raspy monotone. It's taking forever. In his boredom, Caleb tries to overhear their conversation but it's tough to make out the words. He takes a small, shuffling step forward and hears: ". . . it ain't what Jesus wanted for 'em. I know that in my heart.

Jesus hates what's going on here. It ain't natural. And n.o.body will do nothing about it. You knew him. You knew Keith. He called you Grandma. He was nine years old. Nine years! Like he was suckin' off my t.i.t yesterday, that's how I remember him. Like my baby. He was my baby. Well now the devil's got him, and ain't n.o.body to stand up, just like n.o.body stood up for Jesus when he was nailed up. Just like you ain't standin' up now. Margie, come on with me and tell the sheriff that Keith wouldn't run away. He wasn't that kind of boy, and you know he wasn't. He didn't run away." Here, the voice that had until now been as resolute as stone wavers for the first time, withers into a broken falsetto.

"You know he didn't. You know he didn't, Margie."

Margie, the old waitress, has been staring at the counter, never looking up once. Caleb can see her clearly over the other woman's shoulder. Only Margie's lips move as she says: "Five eighty-one."

The woman with her back to Caleb raises a hand up and clubs it down on the Formica counter with a dead thud, so hard that the cash register jumps and the phone belches a tiny dinging sound. She releases the handful of bills locked inside her fist and sniffs. Margie still stares at the counter. She hasn't moved, except for a tiny flinch when the woman's fist fell. Now she moves, but only her lips again, and she says very low: "I'm sorry, Lee. But your son ran away."

The other woman doesn't speak. She shudders as she takes in a breath, turns and strides out of the restaurant, shoving the gla.s.s front door wide on its hinges as she departs.

Caleb looks back at the old waitress: Margie. He remembers her now. It was perhaps eleven years ago, but she looked at least twenty years younger back then. She used to laugh so loud you couldn't hear your dinner conversation, and sing Dolly Parton tunes under her breath as she slapped down your plate of steak and eggs. She had watched Caleb sometimes when he was a kid, when his parents would head over to Tallaha.s.see for the drive-in movie. She would make popcorn in a saucepan over the stove and let him sit up late watching scary movies like Swamp Thing. As far as babysitters go, Margie had been the best. Now, as she stands there, still staring at the counter, Caleb wonders where that jovial young woman went. And what made her so . . . old.

She gathers up the bills on the counter with trembling hands, puts the money in the register, and utters a lifeless: "Next."

Caleb steps forward, money and check in hand.

"Hi, Margie," he says. She looks up at this, and he can see her eyes are budding with moisture in the corners, but no tears fall. "I bet you don't remember me, but you used to give me free vanilla pudding every Sunday. I'm Billy Mason."

Chapter Four.

MARGIE DOES REMEMBER BILLY MASON. Now she sits in a booth across from Caleb and Bean, laughing and rattling on in her raspy Southern drawl. Her wispy, whitish-blond permed hair bobs strangely as she seems to nod her head with emphasis on every syllable. The heaviness of her altercation with the corner-booth woman has been shuffled off like a winter coat on a spring day, and as she tells her story, she gestures wildly enough with the fork in her hand to make Caleb lean back in the booth, fearing for his eyeb.a.l.l.s. A triangle of key lime pie rests on the table in front of each of them, "on the house." This is the Hudsonville Caleb remembers.

"So the pie-baking contest was down to three finalists; it was Billy's mommy, Jane Pierce, and Genie Barowski, and Billy's daddy is one of the judges. So they bring out the first pie, and they all eat it, and it's good and all. And they bring out the next one and eat that one all up, and now they're fixin' to bring out the last pie. Well, old Billy is-aw h.e.l.l, not quite two, I guess, and I was watching him for his folks. I look away for a second and Billy's gotten away from me-he was p.r.o.ne to do things like that. And he goes toddling over next to his daddy with a load in his britches, stinkin' to high heaven. And Billy's daddy says . . ." Margie is already gasping for air, holding back laughter. "He says, 'Mmm, something smells good-that must be my wife's pie next.'" Margie erupts into laughter, and so does Bean.

Caleb smiles and chuckles. "Guess that explains the divorce," he says.

Bean, still red with laughter, points to the remaining bite of pie on his plate. "This stuff should have won the blue ribbon. This pie kicks a.s.s, ma'am."

"Why, thank you, young man," says Margie, then to Caleb, "It's a shame you left, Billy. The young ladies of Hudsonville sure missed out on a handsome young man. Everybody knew you was gonna be a good one."

"Thanks," says Caleb.

"You went to California with your ma?"

"Yeah."

"You didn't miss us? You never came back to visit."

"Well, I guess I did miss you all," Caleb says, "but Mom was never too keen on my coming back, and with track and debate and journalism, I was pretty busy, even during summers."

"Well, what a fine young man you turned out to be," says Margie.

"Yeah," says Bean around his last mouthful of pie. "We're h.e.l.la proud of the little guy." He tries to put an arm around Caleb's neck, but Caleb shoves him away, smiling.

"So, what brings you back now," Margie asks, "after all these years?"

"Well, I was going to see my dad, for one thing."

Margie nods, but keeps her lips pressed tightly together.

"Do you know where he is?"

Margie just looks at him, still as a statue. Little crescents of moisture build up under her eyes, but she still doesn't speak. She looks down at her piece of pie-it's still largely uneaten.

"No," she says. "I ain't seen him in a while."

Caleb studies her. Even Bean is silent.

"What about Christine?"

"The Zikry girl?" Margie asks, looking up again.

Caleb nods. "I got a letter from her. And, uh, thought I'd come visit. Any idea where she is? Does she still live in the same place?"

Margie shakes her head. "Not since the accident."

"What accident? Is she okay?"

Margie shrugs. "I ain't seen her since. It was a while ago, though, I imagine her legs would have healed up by now."