THEY SAT crosslegged, past where floodlamps from her house lit the grass yellow, on top of two small mounds at the center of what looked six or seven in a row, the rear section of her backyard where she buried old pets. There was a wire post fence separating them from twelve acres owned by an old man, Foncie Allen, who in his old age leased his fields to soy farmers, let them build drums to house the beans, set deer corn in fall and kept peacocks all year. They heard them gurgling in the dark, baby clicks, tail fans open and shut.

Drink it, Alice Washington said.

Terry got two bottles for a dollar and thirty-one cents, four cigarettes.

You do it, he said.

That stuff’s nasty, she said.

Terry held up one of the bottles, wrapped with foil at the mouth instead of a plastic cap. Inside looked dirt shaken, flakes spun behind glass in a snow globe.

Is not, he said.

You drink it then, she said.

He looked inside again, then he let it down near his lap and took the foil off, held it to his nose, turned it up. He meant to swallow quick, keep his nostrils locked, but the drink was strong once at his tongue, it welled up in his face and clenched his throat. He spit the mouthful near his feet.

They won’t stop with those hammers, she said.

Who?

Them.

She pointed to the framed tudor at the new cleared lot north of their property line. He stood up with her, they walked over and toed the yard, all dirt, a long narrow green bin for the site forklifted there, foundation mounds, two of them, beside the open air carport. They got inside, over the railing, stood on cardboard boxes broke down at the folds, stacked leaves, roving nails, shingles, and dry wall, flush valves, copper pipe fittings, supply lines and wall spigots, blazed newsprint at their faces. They sat down and smoked and sometimes put their hands to the box flats. The ink stained their hands. Alice Washington looked at hers and rubbed them together. She looked again. It was worse, smudged with more ink. She laughed, and leaned over. She looked at his slight jaw, then to his forehead, pox marks at his brow, and kept her eyes there. She brushed his hair back some, combed a sweep at his bangs with the end of one finger. She looked at him some more. He thought to say something, tell her she smelled like pink shampoo, that most of the time he wanted to lick her face. Sometimes, too, he wished to lick her arms. Sometimes he wanted to suck on her fingers.

Could you be still with me? she said. When everything else is so loud I fall down?

He nodded.

Will you run if I show you mine?

I won’t, he said.