Cleve said, "I feel two hundred years old." The Lord said nothing.

Cleve said, "I'm only twenty." Still the Lord said nothing. So Cleve decided the Lord was going to leave the matter up to him. Figuring out what the bother was shouldn't be that hard, not even for someone as slow as him.

He was not in the habit of talking to the Lord. He started going to church again only a year ago, and seldom had he felt much spiritual need. He was naturally quiet. But tonight, as he sat at his kitchen table, an elbow resting on its Formica top, and looked at the bits of rain on the window to his left, he felt differently.

He hadn't yet taken off the jacket to his rented tuxedo. He still wore the red cummerbund. He still wore the red carnation that Rosie had decided the men were going to wear, except for Pettit, the bridegroom and now her husband. Pettit wore a white carnation and cummerbund.

For the last two years Cleve and Pettit had shared an apartment. For six months before that, he had lived in Pettit's home because Cleve's mother had a breakdown after his father left them. Cleve could understand her tears: he missed his father, too. He felt betrayed, too. But he didn't know what to do about the tears. He didn't know what to do about the dark house after his father abandoned it, all the curtains and blinds pulled as tight as his mother could pull them. He didn't know what to do with the dirty clothes and newspapers. He didn't know how to manage the clutter of dishes in both the sink and the dishwasher and the sprawl across the breakfast table. He took out the garbage that started to smell. He stared at the dial on the dishwasher. Once he ran hot water, but he didn't know where to begin. Should he start with the sticky linoleum in front of the sink? Or should he clear the table and put the dishes—where? Which dishes should he wash first? He gathered knives. Then he changed his mind and started on the frying pan. At last he turned away, leaving the soapy water. "Poor Cleve," his mother might say on her way to the kitchen or bathroom, as though she looked into a mirror and stared at her own mussed hair, dark-trimmed eyes, limp nightgown. He didn't know what to do with his mother in bed all day. He didn't know what to do when she cried out at him, "Leave me alone. I don't want you with me."

Not long after his father left, Cleve and his mother found he'd been taking money from the mortgage company where he worked. Over the years he'd been taking small sums. Together they made a large one, many thousands of dollars.

Cleve thought that if he'd had a brother or sister, someone to think more quickly than he could, if someone had told him what to do, he'd have been eager and able to perform his charges. Pettit, his closest friend, was like a brother. He took Cleve home with him. "My mom says to come and live with us." So every weekday Pettit's mother packed both boys' lunches to take to high school. He ate breakfast and supper with Pettit and his parents. Shortly after, Cleve's mother moved to El Paso, selling the house and the furniture in it. Until Pettit's mother heard about it and told him, Cleve was unaware.

"She didn't leave any address that I know about, Cleve. She'll probably get in touch with you soon." She didn't.

So Cleve did as Pettit did. He performed better in school than Pettit because somewhere in first or second grade Pettit had not learned to read. Pettit said so with embarrassment. Cleve could read better, do math problems better, draw better in mechanical drawing. But Pettit knew more and could tell him what to do.

His friend had learned from his mother to fix his own breakfasts. He showed Cleve how to make burros with scrambled eggs, how to cook peas or carrots, how to heat soup, how to make stew and casseroles. He even showed him how to make bread. When they got jobs with a landscaping company and moved into their own apartment, Pettit showed him how to keep the floor picked up, the beds made, the kitchen and bathroom tidy. "You don't want it looking like your mother's place, do you, Cleve?"

But now Pettit was married, and Cleve was alone, living in the tiny house Pettit found for him to buy. "It's something you can afford, Cleve. You can think of it as an investment. That's what my mom says."

"I do feel two hundred years old," Cleve said. He spoke to himself, as though the person who was supposed to hear had just walked out the door, failing to wait until he had finished what he had to say. He could have spoken to his blond reflection in the wet window pane, the carefully groomed hair, not thick and floppy the way it usually was. Pettit's mother had used hair spray, and his hair still felt stiff to his fingers. She used the spray on Pettit, too. Cleve had not complained because he was Pettit's best friend. To have his best friend married was what made him feel two hundred years old.

"It's not like we're moving out of the city, Cleve," Pettit told him.

"I know you love Rosie," Cleve said, though it was strange, even to Cleve, that Pettit, who disliked Mexicans so much, was marrying Rosie Ybarra. A person couldn't tell about the ways of love.

"You're exactly right, Cleve," said the tall, springy boy, slapping him on the back. "I do love her. Me and Rosie will have you to dinner. And you can bring your pickup over and we'll work on it together. And when it's time to work on our car, Rosie's car that is—or used to be, you can help then, too."

"You don't need to worry about me, Pettit."

Still, his friend helped him move in a month ago. At the time the worn linoleum was dingy, the windows scummy, the smell stuffy. "Whoee!" Pettit exclaimed.

The house was small, the rooms small. The front yard was full of chickweed and Johnson grass and stickerbeds. A low fence of once-white posts and chicken wire ran across the front and sides of the narrow yard. The cement sidewalk going up to the front step was broken and uneven. The yard in back was bare, except for small bits of grass. It looked as though someone had parked cars there.

Pettit described himself as "hyperactive," which is what his mother said. If you bet him ten dollars he couldn't sit still for ten minutes, you would win the bet. With Cleve, Pettit washed down windows and walls, scrubbed the linoleum, helped move in the few pieces of furniture that were Cleve's. They chopped weeds in the front yard every evening. They spread new topsoil and seed. Cleve was sure that Rosie complained about the amount of time Pettit was spending. He was sure she wanted him to help her more—his wife-to-be. "But he's my best friend," Cleve was sure Pettit told her.

And today they were married, Cleve thought, and everything was changed. That's why he felt two hundred years old.

At first the idea of owning a house had made him feel wobbly, even such a small house as this one on Blueline, a narrow side street with a row of other small frame houses like his. He felt wobbly even after Pettit told him he and Rosie were buying a house, too. On Blueline some houses looked tidy. Some looked trashy.

This afternoon Cleve had stood in the receiving line in the Ybarrases' back yard, hugging the people Pettit hugged, shaking hands with those Pettit shook hands with, doing as Pettit did. Metal chairs were lined across the lawn. An awning with bright balloons shaded the table with the gifts and the wedding cake and punch. A large tree behind the Ybarrases' tortilla shop helped keep off the late September sun.

Cleve tried to imagine himself standing where his friend stood, Pettit acting as his best man. He'd been told he was handsome. Sometimes strangers on the street stopped him to ask if he were this or that TV star. Sometimes, if Pettit were with him, he'd rest his hand on Cleve's shoulder and say, "You got it. This is your man." Cleve would blush. He would stammer, "No, not me. I'm not him." Pettit would steer him on his way, saying, "He doesn't give autographs. He's very private."

While standing in the shade of the tree as the best man, Cleve began feeling old. By the time he threw his handful of rice at the retreating car, he'd hit the end of his grit. With the sun going down and the clouds that had been gathering all afternoon packed in solidly overhead, a bit of thunder in the distance, Cleve ran with others to get the food and gifts inside the Ybarrases' house before the early sprinkles became rain. After that he didn't know what to do but turn on the windshield wipers of his pickup and head for home.

He didn't know how long he had been sitting at the kitchen table. Sometimes his mind would go blank and time would pass without his realizing it. All he knew now was that the night had darkened, that the rain was falling evenly as though it were going to fall this way till morning, that it was past supper time and he was not hungry.

When finally he stood up to change his clothes, it was after nine o'clock. Before he'd unpinned his carnation, he heard a banging on his front door. He had barely crossed the kitchen which he could do in four normal steps and reached the small living room before he heard, "Hello. Hello. Anybody home?"

When he opened the door, a smiling girl stepped in, nervous and wet and breathless. "Sorry," she said. "There's so much rain out there." She paused when she saw him. "Oh my." As though in a spell, she examined him, her gaze moving from his polished black shoes to his spray-stiffened hair. "You do look nice." She looked at him like one of those people who sometimes asked him for an autograph. "Doesn't he look beautiful, Ryan?" She said it as a fact, a feature of sudden discovery, to the man behind her. Then he saw a glint of sex in her eyes. "You just get married?" she asked.

The covering for the front step was barely large enough to protect the man from the rain. Still the woman stood directly on the line of the doorframe so that Ryan could hardly get close enough to be dry.

"I'm Marie," the young woman said. She was soft-looking, plump, cushiony, her hands and bare arms round-looking, like a child's, and shining with fresh water. She held out her hand to shake. She had round smooth cheeks, a dark complexion, and straight black hair fastened behind in a ponytail. Her eyes were black, her teeth crooked. She gestured to the large-bellied man behind her. He wore jeans and a western shirt. His rain-darkened, reddish hair was shoulder length, and he was balding on top. "This is Ryan." Each of her statements ended as though she were asking a question. "We're going to get married some day, too."

"I didn't get married," he told her. He gestured for her to step farther inside so the man could move out of the rain.

"We're from next door. Your new neighbors." Again—a questioning. "We moved in two days ago with my little boy. Maybe you've seen him? Victor? He's sleeping now. Maybe you haven't seen him." She talked on before he could get together any response. Yes, he had seen them move in, he might have said. No, he hadn't seen Victor. She and Ryan had to go out, she said. Behind her Ryan shifted, trying to lean in closer to the entrance. He said, "C'mon, Marie." She said, "I'm coming." She told Cleve they wouldn't be gone long, just to some friends. He didn't need to go over to the house at all. She just wanted someone to know her little boy was there in case—she laughed—in case there was an earthquake or something. You know? The door was unlocked, but he didn't need to look in. Just for an hour or so it would be. "We'll be back in an hour or so, won't we, Ryan?"

"Yes, yes." His hair was slick against his skull. "Let's go."

"As soon as this gentleman understands."

But before Cleve had gathered any words, or even a full understanding, the two were running, hunched, up the narrow uneven walk.

"Thank you," she called over her shoulder.

He changed in the bedroom, zipping the tuxedo into the garment bag it came in, hanging it in the small closet. "Remember, Cleve," Pettit had said, "you've got to take it back to the shop tomorrow." Cleve pulled on a tee shirt and some cut-off Levis.

"Victor," he said, so he would remember the name. "Marie. Ryan." He hadn't had time the last few days to pay attention to anyone besides Pettit. "My little boy," Marie had said.

Pettit would say, "We'd better check this out, Cleve." So after a moment he slipped his feet into some worn Nikes, touched his stiff hair, grabbed a newspaper to protect it. The grass beginning to come up in his yard was soggy and smooth. In the glint of a street light, he saw sheets of water on the road, hammered by the heavy rain. The house next door had a short, narrow driveway, no sidewalk. The front step had a larger roof than his to protect it.

The door was locked. "No, no, no," he said.

By the time he got to the back door, his shoes were wet and spread with mud. That door, too, was locked.

Gee, Pettit, he thought. "Try a window, man."

That was the way he got in. A dark window was lifted a crack. He squeaked it up until the opening was high enough to boost himself over the sill on his belly. Inside he slipped out of his muddy shoes, holding each on a finger by the heel. Then he looked about. A light from the kitchen shone into the room where a mattress with rumpled sheets filled most of the floor. Clothes were pulled from large cardboard boxes. Some boxes were not yet opened. In front of him two or three pair of women's shoes and a scruffy pair of men's dress shoes lay near the open door. What looked like a small bedside table was overturned. On one wall held there with thumbtacks, was a map of the United States and Canada. The floor felt gritty.

In the light the kitchen looked much the same as the bedroom—packing boxes, dishes, pots and pans, towels, an open cereal box, and dirty bowls. Half a grapefruit and a banana peel sat on the littered table along with a milk carton. Cleve felt the carton and, finding it half full, put it into the nearly empty refrigerator.

In the other room he saw sheets tacked across the lower part of the windows. In the darkness was a yellow beanbag chair. And in a corner, behind the door, lying on two or three folded blankets, he saw the child. Ah, look at that, Pettit.

The child wore rubber pants. He had a pacifier in his mouth. He lay on his back, his head to the edge, almost touching the floor, his arms flung wide, belly stretched and exposed. Nothing was going to get this little dude, Cleve thought. No bears, no witches.

Cleve slipped back into the kitchen where he tried to wipe off his shoes with the newspaper he'd carried. He dropped the papers into what looked like a garbage bag. Then because the couch was piled with curtains, a box of magazines, the parts of a pole lamp, he sat in the bean bag chair where he could watch the sleeping boy. "Victor," Cleve said the name softly. He wished Pettit could see the boy. He wished Rosie could see him, too. Then it occurred to him that Pettit and Rosie might have a baby.

He thought of some of the things he and Pettit had done. They had both gone out for the wrestling team in high school, competing at different levels because Pettit was so much skinnier and lighter than he. They had taken the same classes. They had worked on cars together in auto mechanics. They had taken the same jobs in the summer. And they had taken an apartment together for two years after Cleve's mother took off for El Paso.

Once, after Pettit bought his dune buggy, they had gone out into the desert with their rifles to shoot jackrabbits. It was a hot day but not as hot as the desert could sometimes be. Pettit wheeled the dune buggy in and out of washes. They yelled their glee and excitement through the afternoon. Cleve nailed two jackrabbits, the shots echoing.

"Great job, man!" Pettit cried after the second one.

They stood about ten or fifteen yards from the dune buggy. The sky was cloudless, the smell of gunpowder strong. In the distance the mountains looked faded the way the sun was shining on them. Pettit waved his rifle. He whirled. "Whoee!"

Like the others, his shot was loud, taken up by the desert. At first they laughed, the way the rifle had gone off. But at the same time Cleve knew something had happened to him. Pettit let out a long cry.

"What'd I do, Cleve? What'd I do?"

Both looked at Cleve's arm, the blood slipping down into his palm, down between the fingers, along the fingers. Pettit slipped out of his tee shirt and wrapped it around the upper part of Cleve's arm where the blood was coming out.

"C'mon, man!" He pulled him running back to the dune buggy.

Cleve remembered the ride clearly, Pettit driving, his skinny ribs showing under the brown skin, Cleve clutching the shirt around his arm. He still felt more surprised than scared, though his heart was bucking like the dune buggy till they got back to the road. To Cleve it seemed as though the world was especially clear, almost transparent—the emptiness of the sky, the outline of the houses they passed, the palm trees, the pomegranate bushes. Pettit made dust on that road, man. When they hit the pavement, Pettit hardly gave any attention to lights. He looked at a red light and, if no one was coming, pushed on across. If the traffic was heavy, he'd squirm, his knobby knee bouncing till the light changed. "Don't worry, Cleve," he would say. "Don't worry, man." At the hospital Pettit took his own route. He yanked the buggy up over the curb of the street. He went across the lawn, taking off the corner of a flower bed. Afterward Pettit said, "Man, my friend was shot. I wasn't thinking about any dumb flowerbed."

The wound was minor. It brought more blood than pain and more excitement than consequence. For almost a week Cleve carried his arm in a sling. But doing so soon embarrassed him because it made his wound seem more serious than it was and he got tired of explaining to people what had happened.

But he still remembered, sitting there now in the yellow bean-bag chair, how Pettit drove. "My friend was shot."

An hour passed. Two. Marie and Ryan did not appear. Cleve got a drink of water, went to the bathroom. The rain sounded as though it were letting up. When Victor stirred or murmered, Cleve knelt by the boy's bed and rearranged his arms or legs. He put the pacifier back into his mouth. Beyond that, he didn't know what to do. He couldn't ask Pettit. He couldn't ask Rosie.

Finally he fell asleep with the rain still drumming on the roof.

The knocking on the door brought Cleve to his feet. He rattled the knob as he unlocked it and from behind he heard Victor wimper.

"Oh, I told Ryan you'd be here," said Marie. "I told him you're a worrier."

It had stopped raining. She looked him up and down again, as though he'd said something strange. "You're still beautiful," she said.

She kicked off her shoes. Some of the hair in her ponytail had come loose and dropped straight over her dark face. "I'm sorry we're late. I intended to be back in an hour, but I looked at my watch, and first thing I knew it was two o'clock. I tried to get Ryan to hurry—"

"Will you shut it!" said Ryan. The whisker line on his heavy face was dark, and his mouth looked weighted. "You've said enough for this evening. You know damn well why we're late."

She pulled a face. "Excuse me," she said. "Is my name Irene? Because if it was Irene, I bet we would have been home a long time ago."

"You heard what I said." Their voices had risen.

"You'd better not wake that child," she said. "I'm not staying up half the night."

"He's your kid, not mine."

Cleve knelt by the sleeping boy, who lay on his side. Cleve put the pacifier back into his mouth, patted his back lightly.

"Thank you," Marie whispered. "You going to thank the gentleman, Ryan? I don't know your name, but Ryan can at least thank you."

"He's your kid, I said."

"We've been fighting all the way home," she said to Cleve. "In case you couldn't guess. Ryan doesn't like to get wet. Not even in the bathtub, right, Ryan?"

Cleve pushed his feet into his shoes.

Ryan returned from the bedroom. "Marie, you know what else you done? You left the bedroom window open."

"I did not leave the bedroom window open."

Cleve explained how he'd had to open it to get in. He was sorry he'd forgotten to close it.

"You mean the front door wasn't unlocked? Ryan," said Marie, "I told you to leave the front door unlocked."

"You were the last one out of the house, sweetheart."

"Like I say, we've been fighting." And then with a frown, "It's lots of fun."

As Cleve went to the door, Marie looked at Victor on the pile of blankets. "Kid, if you let out a peep before eight o'clock, I'll clobber you." To Cleve, she said, "That's just tough mama talking. He's a good kid really."

Cleve asked suddenly, "Does he have any friends?"

"Friends?"

"Yeah. You know—"

She frowned befuddlement. "He's just a kid. He just turned three."

She locked the door behind him. At his feet water ran in the gutter. Above he could see patches of stars. His own door was unlocked. He slipped inside. He sat again at his kitchen table, but he didn't turn on any lights. Through the window he got a glimpse of Ryan's large body, across the way, passing through their kitchen doorway into the dark bedroom. He wore undershorts. Then he saw Marie who stood in the light as she pulled her shirt over her head. Cleve turned away when he saw that she wore nothing underneath.

He thought about Victor. He said, "What should I do?"

He didn't feel good about Victor, thinking of the boy sleeping in the room with no one to watch him, thinking of him finding his own breakfast in the nearly empty refrigerator, in the clutter on the sticky table. The question was a heavy one.

"What should I do?"

The Lord said nothing. Again, He was going to leave the matter up to Cleve.

But Cleve didn't think very quickly and didn't have Pettit to ask. He had to do it on his own. Maybe he and Victor could be friends, he thought. Maybe after Victor got older they could be best friends. He could be a buddy, a pal, an amigo, what Pettit had been for him.

He said, "How does that sound?" And he waited. He waited for an answer.

That night in a dream, an angel came to Cleve. It didn't look like an angel, but Cleve knew what it was. At first it looked like a boyhood classmate whose name he could not remember. Then the angel was Miss Mead, his third-grade teacher. She gave him a piece of chalk and asked him to go to the blackboard where he knew she would give him another word that he couldn't spell. But it was only a dream. He would have to remember that when he awoke.

He didn't hear Miss Mead's word. He saw her mouth move, but he didn't hear.

Then, as his hand held the chalk against the blackboard, the chalk moved on its own, pulling his tightened fingers with it. Yes, said the chalk to Miss Mead, to the angel. Good idea. Yes.