By BILL COTTER

“I knew this guy once, called Andre,” Gary said, striking a strike-anywhere match on the zipper of his fly. He lit a Salem and buried the match in a clay flowerpot at his end of his porch step. He looked at me, not for permission to continue, but as though he were inviting me to dare him not to.

“Andre,” I said, kind of liking the feel of the name on my teeth.