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“If you want a happy ending, that depends on where you stop the story”

—Orson Welles

One

Declan

June 20, 2008

“Happy seventeenth,square at the center of the Carogue ca New York-style pizza into our pie holes, when I reach intoand lift out a handle of Saloon Moonshine

“Well, dah” Alf’s dark brows jut into his mop of hair as Farhad swipes the bottle from me

Nate reaches across the table, grabbing hi `s birthday gift He turns the bottle around, checking out the label before giving rin “What the fuck is this?”

“Came from Texas, cowboy”

“How the fuck did you get moonshine here from Texas?”

“I’ve got my ways”

And my dad has a jet he and my cousin Bryant flew here on back in December Avoided customs and all that I can see the wheels turn in Nate’s fat head

“Bryant?” he asks, catching on

I laugh

“You were planning birthday shit for Cowboy in Dece-eyes, and I roll my own