After hearing about Port’s death, I made a rule about not getting in. Instead, I’d sift from the side. But that December night was an exception: I’d found a Miracle Dumpster. In the very first grocery sack was a book-sized brick of cheddar cheese still wrapped in store cellophane. Cheese! I stashed it in my coat’s big pocket and then climbed in, reasoning that if someone was to toss out a perfectly good chunk of cheese, God only knew what else they’d dumped.

The dumpster sat in the parking lot of a squatty apartment complex in Rexburg, Idaho. Ten duplexes, tops. I figured a few minutes in the trash, then all the doors, then back to the tracks. Rooting through bags and boxes, I didn’t hear the man approach.

“Help you?” he said, kind of scared. Young and pudgy, he stood in the shallow streetlamp light, shuffling in the snow.

“Can’t believe what people throw away,” I said and offered to shake. “Chuck.”

The man came closer and leaned in, scanning through banana peels and diapers and empty cans. “Wouldn’t have found some cheese?” he says and looks up.

I covered the pocket. “Haven’t found much of anything.”

“Forget it.” He takes my hand. “Davey.”

I helped myself out, brushed off, and fished my laminated magazine subscription card from my front pocket. “Look like a smart guy—you a reader?”

Davey nodded.

“I gotta deal for you. Two magazines, ten bucks the first month, a dollar every month after that.”

“Really,” Davey said, rocking toe to heel on the icy pavement. He slapped his hands together and blew into them. “Got Sports Illustrated?”

“Buddy,” I said. “Got everything from Great Housesweeping to Bustler.”

Davey laughed at that. Most everyone did. If I’m anything, it’s amiable.

“So what’d ya say, interested?”

“Got to tell you,” Davey said. “Things are tight.”

“They always are,” I said.

“Had much luck selling magazines?” Davey asked.

“Here and there,” I said. I was zero for ten on the night. Not that it matters, since they never get the magazines anyways. I’m just too proud to beg and prefer to earn it. I’d found the magazine card in a Sacramento recycling bin.

“How long you been out?”

“A while. Gonna knock these doors and get going.”

Davey looked back at the apartments. “It’s eleven. Here, people turn in early.”

“So I’ve seen,” I said. The whole town had been dead since I’d gotten out of the semi a few hours back. Bummed down from Bozeman with a lumber driver, said he was going out to Mud Lake to scare up an old girlfriend. He let me out on the shoulder of Highway 20 with a cigarette, a worn pair of work gloves, and instructions on how to get to Rexburg.

I had knocked the doors of the houses, framed in blinking strands of red and green lights, on the way in but no one was interested. One man became indignant when I mentioned Playboy, telling me it was wrong for a youth to be spreading such filth through the world. I told him a youth’s gotta be spreading something. That’s a fault of mine—taking things too far. It makes for awkward doorstep moments. Certain he’d call the cops, I ducked down some back roads and followed the railroad tracks into town. A youth—hell, I’m twenty-six. Haven’t been young since the 90s.

All of the stores were closed for the night. Club Strata, a dark and vacant dance hall, was attached to a Jiffy Lube and car wash. In the town center, a lone tinsel-wrapped Christmas tree crackled in the clear cold. A few inches of snow coated the stationary cars, the power lines, the edges of the few two-story buildings. When I breathed my nostril hairs stuck together in bursts. It had been a strange and lonely night until finding the dumpster.

“You sell anything in there?” Davey said, nodding towards the garbage, bunching up his loose neck skin like a deflated balloon.

“Got a few bites,” I said. “What can I mark you down for?”

“Chuck, listen, I’d really like to, but I can’t.”

“It’s only ten bucks—that’s a meal at Wendy’s.”

“I know, I know.” It looked like he was thinking. Then, “Man, you’re skinny. How’s this; come in, we’ll have a bite and talk it over.”

In my eight years of wandering, I’ve learned to be picky and protective. I’ve learned truckers aren’t strangers—they’re normal work-a-day folk, playing the game to make a living. The same with other hitchers. But Davey’s kind show up in the papers, lampshades made of stray cats and pickle jars full of human digits.

“What’d you got to eat?” I said.

“I was going to make sandwiches,” he said. The yellow light glinted off his wire-framed glasses and illuminated his wispy widow’s peak. He looked as dangerous as an oversized eighth grader. “But I have stuff for pancakes too.”

“Can’t stay long,” I said.

“That’s okay,” Davey said. “I need some shut-eye.”

“Ain’t gonna call the cops?” I asked.

“Do I need to?” Davey replied, and slapped a good-natured hand on my shoulder. I didn’t answer, and followed him to apartment #7, figuring I could take him if things got hairy.

<>

The apartment was small, and nine shades of brown: carpet, couch, TV stand, foot table, picture frames, and closet doors all varying hues from dark chocolate to cardboard. A plank inscribed with Welcome To Our Home hung from the door. A few candles, as thick and tall as coffee cans, colored cashew and nutmeg, stood next to the telephone on the round kitchen table. The only things not brown, it seemed, were a foot-tall plastic Christmas tree near the hallway and a painting of Jesus in red robes that judged down from above the television.

Not that I had a problem with that—I’d grown up with brown. In Guthrie, Oklahoma, it was a staple color, from the hills to Cottonwood Creek. Port would get pissed if you called him black, arguing he was cocoa. Port and I shared some good times as salt-and-pepper Okies until he ran away to Dallas at fifteen. I heard later from a group of bums at Stop Six that Port had liked sleeping in dumpsters. They attributed that to his disappearance, reasoning the garbage truck must have snuck up in the middle of the night, Port’s senses dulled by the insulation of black plastic garbage sacks.

Since Davey had demanded that we remove our shoes, warning his wife Deb would kill us for tracking in the parking-lot sludge, I prepared him for my dingy socks. He went back to his bedroom and returned with a pair of gray wool ones, saying to keep them, he hadn’t been skiing in years.

“Give me your coat. Relax,” he said.

“I got it,” I said, taking the hanger and hanging my coat lop-sided, sagging in the closet between crisp sweatshirts and windbreakers. The couch, so soft, pillowed underneath and I sunk down until my chin rested on my chest. Then I pulled on those socks, and it felt as warm as Southern Comfort.

In the kitchen, Davey did the whole shebang: mixing bowls, measuring cups, flour, eggs, milk, sugar. I figured he’d have some premaid box-and-toaster setup.

“Where’d you learn that?” I said.

“I’ve been on my own a while,” he said.

“Tell me about it,” I said thickly, “but I can’t make pancakes.”

“It’s a God-given talent,” he said.

“Why you cooking, anyways? Thought you were married. Isn’t that what she’s for?”

Davey pointed to some framed pictures hanging behind the couch. “We’ve been together eleven months. Deb’s a nurse at RMC—that’s why she’s not here. She works graveyard, except they don’t call it that. Too depressing, you know?”

In one photo, they leaned back to back, hands pointed in play guns as if spies, goofing in their wedding getup. In the background stood a fairytale church, all of it—except for the stained glass windows—paper-white, with spires and towers.

“Pretty,” I lied. Deb wasn’t much in the looks department.

“We met in theatre club,” he said.

“Imagine that.”

“I know—there were a whole bunch of guys going for her. Guess I got lucky.”

“Hope she’s funny,” I said, taking one last look at her pear shape.

“Oh, she’s hilarious.” The apartment filled with scents of cinnamon and maple and frying meat. “Go wash up,” he said. “It’s almost ready.”

In the bathroom, I washed my hands and face. On the mirror in erasable marker was a red-stenciled heart and the phrase You’re a Cutey Marootey! scrawled underneath in what I imagined was the curly hand of Deb. The mirror opened, a medicine cabinet behind, but I found nothing interesting but Tylenol. I pocketed a palmful.

When I came out, Davey had set the table with paper plates and a stack of steaming flapjacks ten high and a tangle of bacon.

“Look alright?” Davey said.

I sat down and loaded up. The butter slid off my knife and disappeared, the dough sponging up as much syrup as I dared pour. Davey took a few and did the same, but was more interested in watching me eat.

“You look like a kid that lived next door to me growing up,” he said.

“Where’d that happen?”

“Rigby. Just down the road.”

“Wasn’t me,” I said. It was quiet, so I loaded up seconds.

“What’s your story, Chuck?”

“It’s complicated and boring,” I said. He asked general questions. People asking my details made me nervous, so I asked him why everything in Rexburg closed at ten.

“Who knows?” he said. “Kind of weird. I just came here for college.”

“You gonna be one of those forever students?” I asked.

“Pre-dentistry. I apply in two years.”

“Can’t imagine sticking my hands in other people’s mouths,” I said.

He shrugged. “You do what you gotta do.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” I said.

“I sweep the McKay Library from four to six am. Anything’d be better than that.”

“How old are you, anyways,” I said.

“Twenty-two,” he answered.

“And married? Seems like you got life pinned down.”

“It’s just what we do around here,” he said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, uh, me—this whole town—we’re all pretty much Mormon.”

“No kidding,” I said. “So where’s your other wife?” I licked my fork.

“No.” He shook his head. “We don’t do that anymore.”

“Too bad,” I said. “You know, that’s a lot of, well,” and to not sound crude, I showed him with one finger and my left hand what I meant. Davey quickly smiled and ate a few bites.

“One’s plenty,” he answered.

My mouth was dry and sticky. I asked for a glass of milk and he obliged.

“But get this—Deb’s expecting,” he said while he poured.

That was something I’d never considered. Hard enough, trying to keep myself from gnawing off an arm in hunger. Bringing a kid into this crazy world seemed like a one-way ticket to starvation.

“Damn,” I said. “Wish I had something to give.” I took the two last pancakes and scarfed them down. We moved to the couch and watched TV for an hour. And the food, that soft sofa, the pleasure that comes from being confided in—I could have stayed there forever.

We were both surprised when halfway through the Late Late Show, keys jangled outside the door. In stumbled Deb, wearing pink scrubs and—once she spotted me—a scowl. She looked back and forth between Davey and me and then said, “Who’s this?”

“This is Chuck,” Davey said. “I found him in the garbage. Why are you home?”

“I threw up at work. They told me to take the night off.” She looked back and forth from him to me. “Hon, can I talk to you alone for a minute.”

When that happened, I knew it was time to go. I got my coat, the cheese heavier on one side, and slipped it on before Davey came back.

“Hate to do this, but we gotta hit the hay,” Davey said.

“Understood.” Then I did something I really didn’t want to. “I can get you a year of Mother & Child. Just ten bucks.”

Davey looked back at Deb.

“No thank you,” Deb said. She shot Davey a glance that meant murder. Then she puckered her mouth in a nauseous panic and scampered to the bathroom.

Davey, in a hustle, flipped open his wallet and extracted a twenty. “Good luck.”

I crumpled the bill into my front pocket. “You’re better than most.”

Outside, my boots squeaked in the winter cold. It was a frigid and unfriendly change. I scanned for new garbage while waiting for the apartment lights to click off. Once they did, I tried the cars. Every one was unlocked.

I grabbed handfuls of loose change, a screwdriver, and a wad of bills from the first four vehicles. Then I got into an older Honda Accord and rummaged through the jockey box and console. The Accord had an after-market CD player. I tugged it a bit, and then wedged the screwdriver under its lip, busting an air vent or two, but got it hanging halfway out and reached into the car’s innards and pulled apart the plugs, sure a trucker would buy it.

The pancakes were a warm, doughy brick in my belly. By the time I had the deck free, my breath had fogged the interior; the old bucket seat was pokey but comfortable enough. With the deck sitting on my lap, I relaxed, shut my eyes for a minute, reasoning it was better than sleeping alongside the tracks.

<>

I panicked and awoke when the car door opened. I jumped out, pushing past the owner into the dark. But I didn’t get far, jerked back by the collar of my coat.

“Chuck?” came Davey’s nasally wheezing. “Scared the flipping crap out of me.”

I wrenched my coat free and faced him. “Get back,” I said, and cocked the CD deck behind my head.

“What the heck?” He stepped back a few feet. He had on coveralls and an unzipped coat.

“I’ll do it,” I said, raising the CD player higher.

He looked to his open door and then back to me, figuring it out. We stalled there in the early morning. A wet mist hung around us, smelling like snow.

He took a step. “Chuck, what do you need?” he said.

I squared my shoulders and inched my arm back. “Don’t come closer,” I warned.

He took another step.

“Don’t—I’m not kidding.”

When his foot was midair, I pumped the deck at him. He flinched and lost his footing on the ice. In one lumpy sack-of-bricks crash he flat-assed right there in the parking lot. He sat like a kid, heavy and beat, legs spread, and didn’t say a word.

I ran and ran, and things came to me through the fog. Sirens. Naked maples. A deserted playground. The loading docks of a warehouse store. I stumbled upon a riverbank and followed it to a bridge and went underneath and backed myself to the concrete abutment, out of sight.

The morning light crawled in from the east, a thick gray day to beat all. The sirens disappeared, replaced by the awaking city, traffic shaking overhead. Snow fell, wet flakes as big as leaves. The cars slushed through it, sheeting it down both sides of the bridge.

Uneven pieces of black rock jutted up through the frozen river like some small-scale mountain range. The trickle of water creeping through the center seemed to be slow enough that it too would ice solid at any given moment. A gust came every now and again, chilling me like thin wet fingers.

Man, did I feel shitty about Davey’s smash-up. People helped me out all the time, but the aftertaste of pancakes and my warm toes reminded me that Davey didn’t just help me out—it was something bigger. And I had ruined it.

Just like I had with Port. In the dog days of August we’d swim in the floodwaters of the Cottonwood. The creek would raise almost four feet, churning up red silt that colored the water a deep blood burgundy. With a twenty-foot rope and a hardly-missed slab of plywood, courtesy Ace Hardware, we made a boogie-board. We’d tie it off to the bridge and take turns floating out into the current on our stomachs, diving and cutting through the tainted water.

We’d be ten times dirtier from swimming in the canal. We’d dry by lying on the blacktop, each of us faced a different direction to watch for cars. At the end, plastered red from the river debris. One day, we gave each other back tattoos, tracing out messages in the soot. I thought it would be funny to pen out nig. Port wore it through town and was finally told by a yellow-eyed alcoholic named Charley what it said. Port punched me in the mouth and ran home, leaving to Dallas that fall without speaking to me. Turns out, he had drawn a huge pair of tits on my back, but Charley told me they just looked like great big eyes.

Under the bridge in Rexburg that day, I convinced myself that I was low. I started questioning the magazine scam. The CD player seemed to stare with its knobs and screen. It snowed for hours straight; the spot of sun moved from one side of the bridge to the other.

At near-dark, I took out the cheese. It had frozen hard, so I put it under my arm to thaw. When I took a bite, a crooked chomp from my back teeth, it was like a popsicle. I chewed it twice, three times, softening it, and swallowed the gummy mess. It was slow-going down my throat, but then stopped completely near my adam’s apple. Coughed, but no air to push. Gulped, but too thick. I stood and pressed against the easement, punching myself in the chest. White flashes blasted behind my eyes. Dizzy, I thought this would be my death—alone and cold, freezing and hungry.

I stumbled towards the creek, hoping water would move the blockage. My boot caught a crag, and I went down hard, taking a rock right to the gut. The cheese dislodged and exploded from my mouth. I wheezed and coughed. Served me right, I figured, for not returning it in the first place.

I waited till midnight, or close to it, before leaving the bridge, figuring to retrace through town and to the highway, make it out a couple miles before flagging down some long-hauler. In one pocket, re-wrapped cheese; the other, the CD player. It had stopped snowing.

<>

It was no mistake that I ended up behind the dumpster at Davey’s waiting for the lights to go out. A few inches of snow blanketed the Accord. The door was locked, a good thing. I didn’t try any of the other cars.

I brushed off a spot on the hood of Davey’s car and set down the cheese, then put the deck on top, careful not to get it wet. I wanted to leave a message for Davey to show him my sorrow, and thought to write it on the windshield. A fat-lettered Thanks? A sincere and skinny Sorry? The thought of drawing a misshapen penis crossed my mind, and I laughed. Port would have loved it. I ungloved and stretched out my index finger. A door slammed from the apartments.

I fell alongside the car and scooted underneath. Footsteps shuffled towards the parking lot. Staring up at the bending metal—axels and u-joints and oil pan, coated with ice and grit—just millimeters from it, I wondered what it would be like to stick out my tongue and lick, binding my body here until either I was found or dead or both. I sucked in and held my breath.

The steps went out to the dumpster and came back through the lot, stopping near the car. They walked up and paused. Davey’s boots were close enough to spit-shine. I heard the cheese and deck lifted from the hood. It seemed like hours, him standing there, I’m sure looking around, confused and innocent.

What would it mean, to reach out and untie a lace, yell “Gotcha!” and tackle him in the snow, roaring like former yard-mates? But Davey trudged back to his home and shut the door hard.

I crawled out and dusted off. Then I jogged into the night, ducking behind shrubbery, reasoning that a southern flight was much needed; Arizona, maybe, or even back to Guthrie.