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As explanation, the executor of the estate presented to Bobby a letter from Corky that was a masterpiece of succinctness:

Bobby,

What most people find important, you do not This is wisdoive your race

We have only the sea, love, and tiave you the sea By your own actions you will find love always So I give you time

Corky saw in Bobby so, from boyhood, of those truths that Corky himself had not learned until he was thirty-seven He wanted to honor and encourage that understanding God bless hi his freshe, when Bobby inherited, after taxes, the house and a modest sum of cash, he dropped out of school This infuriated his parents He was able to shrug off their fury, however, because the beach and the sea and the future were his

Besides, his folks have been furious about one thing or another all their lives, and Bobby is inured to it They own and edit the tospaper, and they fancy thehtened public policy, which means they thinkor too stupid to knohat is best for them They expected Bobby to share what they called their "passion for the great issues of our time," but Bobby wanted to escape from his family’s loudly announced idealisotism that was a part of it All Bobby wanted was peace His folks wanted peace, too, for the entire planet, peace in every corner of Spaceship Earth, but they weren’t capable of providing it within the walls of their own hoe and the seed money to launch the business that now supported him, Bobby found peace

The hands of every clock are shears, triital readout blinks us toward implosion Tiiven Bobby was not time, really, but the chance to live without clocks, without an awareness of clocks, which see fury

My parents tried to give the sa toMaybe Bobby occasionally hears it, too Maybe there’s no way any of us can entirely escape an awareness of clocks

In fact, Orson’s night of despair, when he had regarded the stars with such despondency and had refused all ht have been caused by an awareness of his own days ticking away We are told that the si the concept of their own mortality Yet every anier If it struggles to survive, it understands death, no ht say

This is not New Age sentimentalism This is simply common sense

Now, in Bobby’s shower, as I scrubbed the soot off Orson, he continued to shiver The water ar to do with the bath

By the ti with several towels and fluffed him with a hair dryer that Pia Klick had left behind, his shakes had passed While I dressed in a pair of Bobby’s blue jeans and a long-sleeve, blue cotton sweater, Orson glanced at the frosteda few tiht, but his confidence appeared to be returning

With paper towels, I wiped off my leather jacket and my cap They still smelled of sht, I could barely read the words above the bill: Mystery Train I rubbed the ball ofthe less concrete room where I’d found the cap, in one of the ela Ferryman’s words came back to me, her response to my statement that Wyvern had been closed for a year and a half: Sos don’t die Can’t die No matter how much ish theela’s house: a e of her death-startled eyes and the silent surprised oh of her ripped by the conviction that I had overlooked an i the condition of her body, and as before, when I tried to surew not clearer in er than we’ve ever screwed up before…and already there’s no way…to undo what’s been done

The tacos--packed with shredded chicken, lettuce, cheese, and salsa--were delicious We sat at the kitchen table to eat, instead of leaning over the sink, and ashed down the food with beer

Although Sasha had fed hied a few bits of chicken, but he couldn’t char him another Heineken

Bobby had turned on the radio, and it was tuned to Sasha’s shohich had just coht had arrived She didn’twith a dedication, but she played "Heart Shaped World" by Chris Isaak, because it’s a favorite of , I told Bobby about the incident in the hospital garage, the scene in Kirk’s crematoriuh the hills behind the funeral hohout all of this, he only said, "Tabasco?"

"What?"

"To hotten up the salsa"

"No," I said "This is killer just the way it is"

He got a bottle of Tabasco sauce froerator and sprinkled it into his half-eaten first taco

Now Sasha was playing "Two Hearts" by Chris Isaak

For a while I repeatedly glanced through thebeside the table, wondering whether anyone outside atching us At first I didn’t think Bobby shared lanced intently, though with see casualness, at the blackness out there

"Lower the blind?" I suggested

"No Theynot to be intimidated

"Who are they?"

He was silent, but I outwaited him, and at last he said, "I’m not sure"

That wasn’t an honest answer, but I relented

When I continued my story, rather than risk Bobby’s scorn, I didn’t mention the cat that led me to the culvert in the hills, but I described the skull collection arranged on the final two steps of the spillway I told hiuy with the earring and about finding the pistol onthe Glock

"Dad opted for laser sighting"

"Sweet"

Sometimes Bobby is as self-possessed as a rock, so cal to you As a boy, he was occasionally like this, but the older he has gotten, the more that this uncanny coht hi news of bizarre adventures, and he reacted as if he were listening to basketball scores

Glancing at the darkness beyond the ondered if anyone out there had ht scope Then I figured that if they had meant to shoot us, they would have cut us doe were out in the dunes

I told Bobby everything that had happened at Angela Ferryrimaced "Apricot brandy"

"I didn’t drinkto the seals," which was surfer lingo for vo

By the ti Father Toh three tacos each He built another pair and brought the "Graduation Day"

Bobby said, "It’s a regular Chris Isaak festival"

"She’s playing it for ure Chris Isaak was at the station holding a gun to her head"

Neither of us said anything more until we finished the final round of tacos

When at last Bobby asked a question, the only thing he wanted to know about was soela had said: "So she told you it was a monkey and it wasn’t"

"Her exact words, as I recall, were…‘It appeared to be a monkey And it was awith it’"