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"Just hold it, for fksake"

"I’o like this I have a hed with irritation Their eyes met quickly in the rearview, and Grey wondered if he knew "Stay where I can see you and no looking around I fking mean it"

He pulled the vehicle to the side of the road Grey wasunder his breath, "C’mon, c’ away froht of the van He stu off like a bohs Grey was in so the tips of the grass with an icy glow He had to get at least fifty feet away, he figured, ht He came to a fence line and despite his knees and the pressure of his bladder he was up and over it like a shot He heard Richards’s voice behind hiodda at the other ainst Grey’s pant legs, drenched the toes of his boots A dot of red light was skipping across the field in front of him, but who knehat that was He could smell cows, feel their presence around hie of panic pressed upon hi?

But it was too late, he sio, there was no way he could wait another second He stopped where he was and unzipped his fly and peed so hard into the darkness he old: the water shot out of him like the contents of a busted hydrant He peed and peed and peed so in the world, peeing like this, like a great plug had been pulled out of hi

Then it was over His tank was dry He stood a ht air on his exposed flesh An i The field stretched around hi with the sound of crickets He lit a Parliament fros he tipped his face to the horizon He’d barely noticed the , suspended over the mountains The sky was full of stars

He turned to look in the direction he’d cohts of the van where it was parked by the side of the road, and Richards waiting there in his tracksuit, soht and shiny in his hand Grey cli fro the roadway froed on the van at the salare of the headlights, his hands on his hips Whatever he had been holding was gone fro engine He finished the last of his cigarette and tossed it on the paveo"

"Fuck you," Richards said "You have no idea" Jack and Saround Richards tipped his head at the open door of the van "All of you, in And not oneword"

They took their seats in chastened silence; Richards started the engine and pulled back onto the roadway That hen Grey realized it He didn’t have to look at them to know The other two, Jack and Sa Richards had been holding, which Grey guessed was now tucked away inside the waistband of his tracksuit or stashed in the glove cole dot of blood

One more step, Grey knew, and Richards would have shot him

Once aa little dot of a pill, star-shaped, of spironolactone Grey had been following this regimen for a little over six years; it was a condition of his release

And the truth was, he didn’t mind He didn’t have to shave as en, decreased the size of the testicles; since he’d begun taking it, he could shave every second or third day, and his hair was finer and less coarse, like when he was a boy His skin was clearer and softer, even with the sical benefits," as the prison shrink had called theet to hi could twist inside hilass he’d sed He slept like a rock and never remembered his dreams Whatever it was that o-the day that started the whole thing-was long gone Whenever he sent his mind back there, to that period of his life and all that ca was indistinct, a picture out of focus It was like feeling bad about a rainy day, soh, played hell with his bladder, because it was a steroid As for not wanting anybody to see hiuessed that was just part of the way his mind worked now The shrink told hi else, it had come to pass exactly as he’d said The inconveniences were slight, but Grey spent a certain as Kids, for one, which hy he’d taken so well to rig work Pregnant woraht, not just sexy things but things like boxing or even the news He wasn’t alloithin two hundred yards of a school or day-care center, which was fine by him-he never drove if he could help it between the hours of three and four and would go blocks out of his way just to avoid a school bus He didn’t even like the color yellow It was all a little weird, and certainly nothing he could explain to anyone, but it sure beat the hell out of prison More than that: it beat the way he lived before, always feeling like he was a boo off

If his old ht With the way he felt on the iving his he’d done The prison shrink, Dr Wilder, had spoken a lot about forgiveness Forgiveness was just about his all-tiiveness, Wilder explained, was the first step on a long road, the long road of recovery It was a road, but soh this door could you make peace with your past, and face the inner deers a lot while he was talking, ht Wilder was basically full of shit Probably he said the same crap to everybody But Grey had to admit Wilder had a point with the "bad you" stuff The bad Grey was real enough, and for a time, most of his life in fact, the bad Grey was really the only Grey there was So that was the best thing about thethem the rest of his life, even after the court-ordered ten years were over: the bad Grey was nobody he ever wanted to ain