“Oh yeah. You’re making me feel better about my life, actually.”
FERDINAND WAS MILDLY drunk when he got his mother’s old pistol from the top of the kitchen cupboard. He was back home for Thanksgiving during his senior year in college.
A nice Princeton boy is what he became. He took up Business Administration like his father instructed him to do. He was about to graduate on time, defying all expectations, even his own. The boy
mellowed down, he overheard Jacob saying to Claudia one summer night.
He thought it an odd description. Mellowed down. He felt anything but subdued. There was a steady and dull buzzing just under his skin. He thought it was perhaps rage that had simmered down to
indignation over the years. He was no longer a teenager who had to dominate. Now, he was just another
