Out on the street I’d run into him sometimes. He’d always give me money, which was awkward, but I was out there panhandling, so I never said no. We’d sit on a bus stop bench and talk. CD’s read more than I have by now. He’s twenty-two. I’m thirty-two but people always figure I’m a lot older. I feel around sixteen. I’ve been drunk since then, so a lot has passed me by. I missed Watergate, thank God. I still talk like a hippy, say things like “groovy” and “what a trip.”

“True,” Mrs. Bevins said. “People are always saying ‘tell the truth’ when you write. Actually it is hard to lie. The assignment seems silly … a stump. But this is deeply felt. I see an alcoholic who is sick and tired. This stump is how I would have described myself before I stopped drinking.”

“How long were you sober before you felt different?” I asked her. She said it worked the other way around. First I had to think I wasn’t hopeless, then I could stop.

“Whoa,” Daron said, “if I want to hear this shit I’ll sign up for AA meetings.”
“Sorry,” she said. “Do me a favor, though. Don’t answer this out loud. Each of you. Ask yourself if the last time, or times, you were arrested, whatever it was for—were you high on drugs or alcohol at the time?” Silence. Busted. We all laughed. Dwight said, “You know that group MADD, Mothers Against Drunk Drivers? We got our own group, DAM. Drunks Against Mothers.”

“Okay, so what I want is two or three pages leading up to a dead body. Don’t show us the actual body. Don’t tell us there’s going to be a body. End the story with us knowing there is going to be a dead body. Got it?”

CD wrote about his brother. Most of CD’s stories had been about him when they were little. The years they were lost to each other in different foster homes. How they found each other by chance, in Reno. This story took place in the Sunnyvale district. He read it in a quiet voice. None of us moved. It was about the afternoon and evening leading up to the Chink’s death. The details about the meeting of two gangs. It ended with Uzi fire and CD turning the corner.

The hairs were standing up on my arm. Mrs. Bevins was pale. Nobody had told her CD’s brother was dead. There wasn’t a word about his brother in the story. That’s how good it was. The story was so shimmering and taut there could only be one end to it. The room was silent until finally Shabazz said, “Amen.” The guard opened the door. “Time to go, gentlemen.” The other guards waited for the women while we filed out.

I just realized that I’m doing that last assignment again. And I’m still doing it wrong, mentioning the body, telling you that they killed CD the day he got out of County.