TERRY DIDN’T turn all the way until she was already moving past I him quickly against breezeway traffic let from fifth period classes. She gripped the chest strap at her green canvas knapsack halfway up, with two hands, fingers clenched tight, as if it were heavy rope, and she drug something behind. Sudden as highway brakes, things got mashed up, flattened, jackknifed. She ticked her shoulder and hitched the book pouch to even weight on her shoulders, flung her neck, hair tossed from the face, back over her skull. He watched Alice Washington push the right side of the double doors at the back entrance to the science building. There was a moment before the herd closed on him, a moment before he went elbow first to the walk, a space between steps. Looking at her, his body felt like wind, like the nodding broomgrass cuffed on highway shoulders; he put a hand out, and wished it to graze hers, just the fingertips, white thimbles, were enough, or the thread frayed wrist cuff on her red wool sweater. He’d give his car, all that was his, to do that, but by then Alice Washington was inside, the door closed behind her, and he watched the feet moving above him, near his face a stilt to the furrowed overhang, tall as bridge piling, hollow as rain gutter. He clutched a hand there, to raise himself up.

After class he waited, in the same spot where he fell, in the open air walkway between the vocational center and the science building, pressed a hip to one of the thin metal columns holding the roof. A cold wind sped through the wide space opened by the breezeway. He felt it through the back tail of his shirt come loose at the waist, a flap of cloth, like a bird comb, cinched above a belt loop, and crossed his arms tight over his ribs, hunched over a bit to get warm. He lifted one foot, then the other, like a horse stamping the ground when stop reined. He waited past the cars idling a bowed line on the front curb, past when the teachers left, some lighting cigarettes once out the building, even past when the custodian, a man named Smith who neared seven feet, clocked out past five, and still, he did not see Alice Washington. He went to the door she moved through, looked close at the brushed metal push handle; smudged prints the whole length of the bar. He remembered her hand at the middle, and moved his right index finger slow there, held it close for a moment, hovered just above the metal like he meant to touch coils heated on a stove, and then he put his right thumb out flat and touched the handle. It was cold, he pulled his thumb back and looked, expected some mark, a sheep brand, but there was nothing, just the same callus and dry peel, the print lines like those on a topographical map where a mountain stood. He put his thumb back to the prints; hers was there, he knew, somewhere in all the tapped hands, and then he felt it, where she passed, where her hand lingered. The bar warm, then, he put his palm open and flat against it, like one put hands to wet cement to mark the year, same as when he touched his ribs, while at rest, and felt his heart counting even time. He rubbed at it with his thumb again, but longer this time, and when he stopped, made a fist with the thumb out, put it to his mouth and suckled on it.

The old man at the service station blinked at him a few times when Terry stood at the front counter and nodded to a row of generic menthol cigarettes on the rack behind him. The old man let his feet from the bottom rung, toed the floor and stayed sat to the bar stool, four plain legs like handles from a work shovel, maroon vinyl at the padded head, two holes there patched with silver electric tape. He swiveled a half turn and reached for the cigarettes stacked deep rows, like shelved books in the library. He heard something from the radio, bayed at the sill behind him, and raised the volume, middle finger cocked to thumb. He flicked the short antennae a light three count, nail tapped against the flimsy metal. Terry kept his thumb to his mouth, took the smokes with his free hand when the old man quit the radio, got the pack and fingered the small change pocket on his jeans for two quarters.

He nodded to the penny jar beside the register when the old man held the change to him, and took a step to leave; past the door glass the night, even colder by then, and the town light, over the treeline, a yellow smudge in half moon, the glow around a gas lantern.

You got something on the end of your finger? the old man said.

Terry shook his head, but didn’t speak, kept going on his thumb.

What you sucking on it like that for?

Terry shrugged, shoulders pulled up toward his ears, free hand out beside him turned open and flat to the ceiling, but still, he said nothing.

You must of put some syrup on the end or somewhat.

Terry shook his head.

Nothing?

Terry shook his head.

What you gone do when you light one of them menthols? You gone smoke through your eyeholes?

Terry shook his head. The old man lit a smoke from an open pack laid beside the register, took a pull, then leaned it to the black plastic ashtray in front of him and let it sit there, line of smoke crooked yarn between them.

It’s okay You just do what you want. I chewed on a blue blanket for twenty some years.

Terry held his left arm chest level, made a fist and stuck the thumb up, wished the sign he made to the old man to say, alright, thank you, good job, good job.

He lit a smoke, kept the thumb to his mouth and smoked at one corner, felt the smoke on his cheek, at his teeth and gumline, then run chemical through his sinus, below his eyes. He held his lips shut, and exhaled through his nose, smoke from his nostrils like church columns. What he thought was, I’m a dragon, goddammit. He pictured himself breathing fire, then his father carting a flamethrower, shoulder strapped, both of them burning towns to cinder, melted window glass sagging in the frames. He pushed his thumb back farther, until he lipped the bottom knuckle and his nose butted the backside of his hand. He kept that way; Alice Washington between his tongue and the roof of his mouth.

Later he dreamt of Alice Washington moving past him in the breezeway again and then again; he reached to touch her going past, but each time, his hand was gone, not torn, or shot off, just gone, never there to begin with, and when he woke up, three hours to first light, he’d pissed himself, and when he understood this, hands at his groin and then the sheets, he didn’t care, because already, he was settled to the welt at the center of the mattress, and gone back to dream.