KRIS
“You still hang with Red?”
I got a galão from Nova Era – like a latte but sweeter, milkier – thinking it would magically wake me from my nightmare and instead I spilled it and the rest of the contents of my stomach on a driveway along Gladstone Avenue. I remember raising my head, drooling, looking into the front window of the house, hoping no one was staring back at me. I saw a cat in the yard with long black hair, its tail raised. It had a white stripe. It was a skunk. I was staring at a skunk. Stay still.
You still hang with Red?
I thought I heard Pete Reilly but I saw Chris’s bearded face – once bartender now bar owner. I was sitting in his place, a former pharmacy on King West, and the physics of how I got here, squeezed shoulder to shoulder at the counter, scared me almost as
