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They gather at the center of an intersection. There is a little light in the sky now. One of them raises his shoulders and exhales into the collar of his jacket. Like the others in the circle, he is thin, twenty, with black Xs tattooed beneath his ears. He looks at the wet sock lying on the street between them and watches as another boy, across the circle, sits beside it.
The boy lifts one foot and pushes at the heel of his boot with the other. He takes off his sock and leans to pinch one corner of the sock they’ve discovered on the street. With both thumbs in the sandy fabric he stretches it. He holds it at his toes, while around him the others wait shoulder to shoulder, their knuckles red at the tops of their pockets. Finally the boy’s foot goes in. The sock unrolls over his ankle, and some of the water is pressed out.
The circle widens. They watch him limp at first, getting used to it. Some glance again at the curbs, but there are hardly ever two socks together. They’ll have to move on to make a pair. The boy whose turn it’s been — and whose turn it is still — picks up his boot and ties it to his belt.
From the intersection they decide together, silently, that the blocks around the corner have better chances. A row house is missing its front stoop. They may have already passed it. This neighborhood is new to them. They crouch beneath cars, scan the mulch in the medians, and kick over trash, doing as they have done since they began, when the streets emptied out around two. But some walk slower now, and others, impatient, walk faster. A game has never taken all night. They find motor oil containers, Tarot cards, and t-shirts.
After an hour one signals. The group assembles again at a telephone pole. The boy in the wet sock kneels, but the one beside him touches his shoulder and kicks this sock flat. Everyone can see: it’s only an ankle sock. It goes against the rules.
They come to a roundabout, and the crew divides. The boy in the wet sock, flanked by two others, goes right; two more go left; and the slowest two slide between the leafless bushes in the center. Their boots hardly rise above the dried burrs in the grass. While the rest join up and continue, they stay at the edge, facing the salon and the Masonic Hall. It’s the first time they’ve paused since the middle of the night, when the rain passed. Wind falls in in front of them.
Up the street two more separate, letting their friends take the boy in the wet sock further while they stop to stretch. Their Adidas curve over a church railing, and they look over their shoes at a set of concrete steps running to an open door. There’s a window there. Through the reflection of the clouds they can see the bars of a space heater and the red light on a coffee maker.
Downstairs all the light inside comes from the window. The coffee maker sputters on a card table beneath it. One pushes back his beanie and fills a mug for the other, who takes it in his half-finger gloves. Together they bring the drink to their lips and, facing the window, tip their heads back. The even light spreads across their eyelids. They drink, and they don’t lower their heads until the mugs are empty. They turn back to the room and wait for their eyes to adjust.
A half dozen folding chairs are arranged in a circle in the center. A man, his back to them, unfolds another. When he stands, his thin, coppery hair grazes the ceiling. He bends again to drag another space heater closer to the circle, and for a moment he hangs his hands in front of it. Before they can meet his eyes the two take the steps up in pairs.
On the street again they see that the roundabout is empty. The street from the salon to the church is empty too. They face the other direction: it’s clear. They listen for footsteps, in case the group had gone around the block, but the neighborhood is still quiet.
The two stay on the sidewalk now. At every intersection they look for their friends as far as the slopes in the streets will allow. And when they make a decision, it’s to take the streets they imagine the others would have taken. They go toward storefronts under old signs, toward a bank with triangles of damp beneath its windows.
One of them crouches where a fence is curled, and he crawls into a long, vacant lot. Waiting for him on the sidewalk, the other gazes up at the windows above a barber shop, at wooden chairs stacked at angles from floor to ceiling.
In the vacant lot a path is beaten through the greenbrier, and the one who had crawled beneath the fence takes the path to a shed. Its water-logged boards lean into each other. He aims at a track in the mud, so the urine runs away from his shoes. The smell of coffee rises. He feels shivers at his lower back flutter up between his shoulder blades and to his rat tail. Involuntarily his arms press into his sides, and his neck twists.
There is a car out in the neighborhood now. The one on the sidewalk doesn’t see it, but he can hear it. It’s only three or four blocks away. After waiting another minute he looks back, but the lot is empty again. The trail there winds behind the shed and goes off.
Remaining on the sidewalk, he continues on his own. He doesn’t make any decisions other than to go straight, and he holds his elbows as he walks. Athletic fields open up behind the high school’s trailers. A dog follows a block behind, its tag jangling.
At his right each residential street dead-ends at a hill that separates the neighborhood from the interstate below. The semi-trucks kick up a spray and cover the sound of the dog’s tag. Old toys and televisions are piled up or half-buried in the woods. A bicycle tube hangs off a branch, and beneath it the boy in the wet sock sits leaning against the guardrail, his left boot still tied to his belt. He’s alone now.
The one on the sidewalk doesn’t go any further. He sees his friend remove his sock from his right foot and reach for the new sock he’s found. He’s made a pair. Black, gold-toed, and caked in mud, the new sock goes up in starts, to his instep, his ankle, till it seals around his calf. But he doesn’t stand. He seems to shudder. He lifts his head, his eyelids closed. The trembling passes his shoulders, and when it reaches his face, he smiles. The one on the sidewalk shifts before their eyes can meet.
