Around three o’clock in the morning Pete stumbles down the sidewalk in front of the store. Some guys sit on the hood of their car behind him, smoking and drinking cans of Budweiser. One of them says something to Pete, I can’t hear what through the glass, and slow as clockwork running down he bends, reaches into his sock, draws a Buck knife and pulls it open with so much effort he stops paying attention to staying upright and almost falls over. He waves the knife at the kids as they slide off the car and back away, then catches his foot on the sidewalk or on a mote of thin air and crashes face-first into the hedges, arms spread in a cross and the rusty blade standing up from his hand like an antenna awaiting further instructions from the home planet.