Sooner Cap blinked, stepped back like he'd been struck.

"That's right." DelPrego licked his lips. "Man, I'd just love to have a big, sweaty pair of redneck balls on my chin right now. I get hot and horny just thinking about it."

Sooner Cap realized he was being had. "How about I smash you right in your smart-ass little mouth?"

Lancaster gulped. "For the love of God, Wayne, let it go."

Jenks tensed. Here it came.

DelPrego pointed. "Holy shit. What's that behind you?"

Sooner Cap said, "You don't think I'm going to fall for-"

DelPrego didn't wait to see if he fell for it or not. He brought the uppercut fast, popped Sooner Cap on the point of his chin. The redneck's head snapped back. He stumbled.

Tattoo Man swung the pool cue at Jenks, but Jenks ducked. The cue struck Lancaster in the face, swept him off the barstool like he was made of tissue. Lancaster yelled, blood spraying from his nose.

Jenks stomped hard with his heel on top of Tattoo Man's left tennis shoe. His heel struck the foot hard. Jenks heard and felt the man's bone snap. Tattoo Man screamed. Jenks double-punched him in the kidneys, and Tattoo Man bent, grabbed himself. Jenks swung hard, and his knuckles smacked just over Tattoo Man's ear.

Tattoo Man fell over into a little heap, didn't move.

Sooner Cap had DelPrego in a headlock. Jenks picked up Tattoo Man's pool cue, swung hard, and broke the wood over Sooner Cap's back. He let go of DelPrego, who turned and threw a quick punch into the redneck's massive gut. Sooner Cap whuffed air and went to one knee.

"That's enough!" the bartender barked. He held an aluminum baseball bat and banged it on the bar.

Sooner Cap started to get up. He was breathing hard. "You... fuckers."

"Come on!" Jenks grabbed Lancaster under one arm, started for the door.

DelPrego took Lancaster's other arm, burst out of the saloon and into the parking lot.

The redneck's curses followed them. "You little faggots. Come back here again and you're dead. You hear me? Dead!"

The three poets sat in a nearly deserted Wendy's. Jenks ate a double cheeseburger and a Biggie fries. DelPrego held a small Frosty to the side of his head where his ear had swollen.

Lancaster sat with his head tilted back, crumpled and bloody napkins on the table in front of him. He'd torn little strips of napkin and had jammed them into his nostrils to stanch the blood flow. Once in a while he'd moan quietly and rub his temples.

"Shit, boy, where'd you learn to fight like that?" Jenks asked DelPrego. "You almost got your fucking self killed."

"I watch a lot of Rockford Files reruns."

"TV. Shit, that figures."

"Do we qualify as tight now?" Lancaster asked, his stuffed nose making him hard to understand, the words coming out "Do be qualiby ad dight dow?"

Jenks laughed. "Almost."

"Sure we are," DelPrego said. "We're a hell of a team. The brother, the white guy, and the faggot."

He laughed and so did Jenks.

Lancaster groaned and very slowly lifted his middle finger.

eighteen

Morgan tried to roll over, but Ginny's slab of thigh held him in place. He didn't want to wake her. He lay still, staring at the ceiling, feeling empty and listless. The mad tumble with Ginny had been a good distraction after Annette had shrugged him off, but already Ginny's hot skin pressed against him in bed. Oppressive.

And it wasn't just Annette.

For a long time Morgan had been directionless. He'd realized it while working with the old man, Fred Jones. It was the first time he'd felt like a poet or a teacher in years. And he'd realized it again talking to Annette Grayson, telling her how he'd blown with the wind from one temporary job to another.

And then there was Annie Walsh. The dreams were getting worse. In the most recent, he could hear her clawing under the ground. His dream self tried to dig her out, pale hands ripping at the hard winter ground, digging without a shovel, fingernails hurt and bleeding.

Morgan shuddered.

Ginny's breathing changed, and Morgan suspected she was awake. They both pretended to sleep.

After half an hour, Morgan figured something had to give. He opened his mouth, drew breath to speak, didn't know what to say, and shut it again.

"What is it?" Ginny asked.

"I didn't know if you were awake yet."

"I'm awake."

Morgan still didn't know what to say.

Ginny said, "It's like we have a secret together. Don't you think that makes people close? It's kind of a prefabricated intimacy. And I need this once in a while, to be close and naked with somebody I can trust. Maybe a weird kind of trust but it's there, and I want you to feel it too."

"I feel it."

"It doesn't seem like you do. I can't handle boys my age. If they sleep with a girl once, they either think they own her or they want to throw her out like an empty beer can. I like that you're older. I want us to be friends. I read your poetry book."

"Which one? A Shot of Bourbon for the Soul?"

"The other one. The hat one."

"In the Museum of Men's Hats. That was my first one. It wasn't very good."

"I thought it was pretty good."

"Thanks."

"Are you working on anything now?"

Morgan squirmed, shifted away from her. "Not right now."

"Writer's block."

"No." It came out more harsh than he'd meant. "I just haven't decided on anything yet."

"I think you're stuck."

"What would you know about it?"

"I want you to be able to tell me."

"It's not anything for you to worry about."

"This is part of it," Ginny said. "I want us to tell each other things."

"I don't want to tell you."

A shrug. "Got to tell somebody. Do you have anyone to talk to?"

"I'm not a talker."

"That's bad."

"Yeah..." He didn't know what he wanted to say. He'd been closed up, closed off, didn't know how to say what was wrong. Maybe he didn't even know because he couldn't say it out loud. "What if I try, really try my best, and nothing comes?"

He'd never said that out loud before.

"We all get scared." She twirled his chest hair.

That was all she said. Morgan suddenly felt tired again. He moved closer to her, put his head on the pillow. He felt lighter. He drifted. Sleep.

When he awoke, Ginny was gone. Morgan didn't feel bad about it.

He walked around the cold house naked, looked into each room. He didn't know what he was looking for, but he felt he was looking for something. An invisible need drew him. He wandered to his desk, opened the bottom drawer. An old accordion folder.

His poetry.

Halfhearted attempts at least a year old. He winced at the pages. Old themes and strategies mixed and matched and rehashed. It was painful to read but he made himself. He wrapped up the folder, put his head in his hands, and closed his eyes. It was worse than he remembered. Even his grad students were showing brighter sparks of originality.

He lifted his head. Set his jaw. It was time. Too long he'd galumphed along, stagnant. What was it Keats had written? Half in love with easeful death. That was Morgan all over. He'd been walking around dead, and it had been easy, so Morgan let it go on.

No more.

He showered, dressed. He scooped up the poems quickly before he could change his mind. He jogged to his Buick, drove to campus.

In Albatross Hall he took the stairs up two at a time. On the fifth floor, he listened for the music. It wasn't there, but it didn't matter. He knew the way. He found Valentine's office, knocked once, barged inside. He was breathing hard, heart thumping into his throat.

Valentine sat on his couch, sipping a cup of tea. He arched his eyebrows at Morgan. There was a portable TV the size of a toaster on Valentine's lap.

"These are some of my poems." Morgan showed him the folder. "I'm-" He shook his head, cleared his throat. "I'm having some problems with my writing, and you're the single greatest living poet I know. I need your help."

"Don't be ridiculous," Valentine said. "Wheel of Fortune is on."

Dean Whittaker sat at his desk, shuffled papers, made stern phone calls to department heads. He went about the machinery of being dean, the dogged determination of an academic administrator. He crossed T's, dotted i's.

A knock.

Whittaker looked up. "Come in."

The door swung open, and Jay Morgan walked in. He flipped a two-fingered salute at the dean and sat in the chair across from him.

"Good. You got my message," Whittaker said. "I tried to find you in your office, but you're a hard man to track down."

"Sorry, I was consulting with a colleague."

The dean searched Morgan's face. There was something different about the man. His head was up. He was smiling. There was an easy look in his eyes. The dean thought he might smell alcohol.

"I wanted to talk to you about the Spring Reading. We usually have a few handpicked grad students read. I want you to make sure Sherman Ellis is one of them."

Morgan smiled big. "Sure. Let's give him an NEA grant too."

Whittaker frowned, shot radioactive heat rays out of his eyes at Morgan.

Morgan gulped. "You're serious."

Whittaker raised an eyebrow. He'd had nothing but complaints about this Ellis kid, and so he wasn't surprised at Morgan's lack of enthusiasm. He'd had to be tough with a few of the faculty to keep them in line on the subject.

"I take it he's doing well in your workshop."

"Not at all," Morgan said.

"Tough titty. Look, Morgan, we both know this is a public relations move. The university wants to show off their new African-American student. With or without you the administration wants Ellis. But if you don't want to be part of this, I completely understand."

Morgan stood. "I don't want to be part of it."

Whittaker cleared his throat, the rough sound of a surgical saw cutting into bone. "However..."

Morgan sat down again.

"I'd hate to think you weren't a team player." The dean shook his head like he was disappointed with a puppy that had shit on the carpet. "After all, when you go to your next job after this, you'll want to give me as a reference. They always check your last employer, and they always want to know if a professor is a team player."

Morgan felt sweat behind his ears. He wiped his forehead, swallowed hard. "I don't think you understand. Ellis read his last poem, and, well, he scared the crap out of everybody in the class. I mean, I just don't think it's the feel-good poetry you want for a public relations event."

"It's exactly what we want," Whittaker said. "Tell Ellis to let it all hang out. Let him be ethnic as hell. We'll show the regents we can be as multicultural as anyone."

"But-"

"There's another consideration," the dean said. "I'm getting a little concerned about Professor Valentine. He might be close to retirement. That would mean an open position for a tenure track professor." The dean could see he had Morgan's interest. The classic carrot and stick ploy. A brand-new job or a ruined career. "I'm sure you know what a lot of trouble it is to put together a search committee and go through a hiring process. It would sure be easier on everyone if there was a poet right here under our nose who fit the bill."

Morgan nodded slowly. "I want to be a team player, Dr. Whittaker. I'll get ahold of Ellis. I'll make it happen."

Whittaker sat back in his chair, an evil smile spread thin across his face. "I knew we could count on you, Morgan."

Morgan felt excited and frightened and a little sick as he left the dean's office. Sherman Ellis. Why in the hell did they want this gangster rap craziness as part of their annual poetry reading?

But Morgan wanted that job. God, how he wanted it. He tried not to think of Valentine. Hey, it was eat or be eaten. Morgan was tired of going from school to school. What if he couldn't get another position? He couldn't live on adjunct pay. Hell, he might actually have to resort to teaching high school. No, he wouldn't be able to stomach that. Teenagers scared the hell out of him.

Okay, he'd find Ellis. Tell him he was going to read some goddamn poetry and that was it. Morgan would write the poems himself if he had to. All Sherman Ellis would have to do was stand up there and read them without alienating every white person in the room.

nineteen

Jenks had set up the deal for early in the morning.

DelPrego had been strangely eager. Lancaster didn't want anything to do with it, but Jenks had insisted over and over again that Lancaster would only be required to sit in the car.

Jenks rode between Lancaster and DelPrego in DelPrego's fifteen-year-old pickup truck. The day was cold but clear, and they drove with the windows down, huddled close across the truck's bench seat. Jenks wore a heavy army surplus jacket, baggy, big pockets. He pulled his dark blue watch cap over his ears. Lancaster wore a long camel hair coat, slightly worn at the elbows. It had once been an expensive garment, but Lancaster confessed he'd picked it up at a thrift store in Tulsa. DelPrego's denim jacket was too light for the weather, but the cold never seemed to bother him.

They each sipped a large cup of convenience store coffee.

"I can't believe you talked me into this," Lancaster said. "A drug sale. This is nothing but a common drug sale. We're criminals."

"A thousand bucks to each of you just to ride along," Jenks said. "This guy's a professional dealer. He don't get it from me, he just gets it from somebody else."

"Where'd you get all that cocaine?" DelPrego asked.

"Just a fluke. This is my one deal." Jenks held his coffee cup with both hands, felt the warmth. "As soon as I get this money it's straight and narrow for me."

"Good," Lancaster said. "Otherwise, count me out."

"Me too," DelPrego said. "I'm flat-ass broke. They cut off my phone. I need cash so bad I'd sell coke to my grandmother."

"Okay then. One score and it's all done." Jenks pointed to the left. "Down that dirt road."

"How the hell you know where to go?" DelPrego turned the truck.

"I was out here yesterday to find the guy. He said come back today and he'd have the cash. That's why I needed you guys."

"But how did you know the first time?" DelPrego shot a glance at him.

"You keep your ears open and you hear things."

"I still don't like it," Lancaster said.

"We can stop the truck and let you out," Jenks said.

"I'm just saying I don't like it," Lancaster said. "I'm nervous that's all."

"Good. Keep you on your toes."

The land sloped up gently, and they saw the gray, weatherworn barn on a rise a half mile up. They drove toward it easy and slow. A little squat house a few dozen yards from the barn. One half-assed tornado would knock the place to kindling.

"This isn't where drug dealers live in the movies," DelPrego said.