The girls and the boy knocked against each other like bones without enough muscle. They headed east toward Chicago Avenue past upside-down tricycles, metal garbage cans, and a child’s turtleneck flattened in a front yard, ripped and muddied in a game begun yesterday morning, now a rag for the dog. The trio moved, listening to jumbled velveteen voices, the buzz of television sets, and the small puffs of lips wrapped around cigarettes and joints. The tips of which flashed red in the dark, marking the night air with red streaks.
Jacob’s muscles and mind relaxed from the pot. He recognized the luminous pricks of light shining in the dark sky in patterns from when he was a boy. He recalled—Big Dipper, Little Dipper, the Northern Star—and felt connected to the young boy he once was, a boy who t
