hard and smelled of bleach and must, the washbasin gurgled mysteriously and spat out moist sewage odors, and he’d read all his books, so he sat in the window and watched the drunks and the hipsters stagger down Queen Street and inhaled the smoky air and before he knew it, he’d nodded off in the chair with his heavy coat around him like a blanket.

The Chinese girl abruptly thumped her fist into the Russian boy’s ear. He clutched his head and howled, tears streaming down his face, while the Chinese girl ran off. Alan shook his head, got up off his chair, went inside for a cold washcloth and an ice pack, and came back out.

The Russian boy’s face was screwed up and blotchy and streaked with tears, and it made him look even more like Doug, who’d always been a crybaby. Alan couldn’t understand him, but he took a guess and knelt at his side and wiped the boy’s face, then put the ice pack in his little hand and pressed it to the side of his little head.

“Come on,” he said, taking the boy’s other hand. “Where do your parents live? I’ll take you home.”

Alan met Krishna the next morning at ten a.m., as Alan was running a table saw on the neighbors’ front lawn, sawing studs up to fit the second wall. Krishna came out of the house in a dirty dressing gown, his short hair matted with gel from the night before. He was tall and fit and muscular, his brown calves flashing through the vent of his housecoat. He was smoking a hand-rolled cigarette and clutching a can of Coke.

Alan shut down the saw and shifted his goggles up to his forehead. “Good morning,” he said. “I’d stay on the porch if I were you, or maybe put on some shoes. There’re lots of nails and splinters around.”

Krishna, about to step off the porch, stepped back. “You must be Alvin,” he said.

“Yup,” Alan said, going up the stairs, sticking out his hand. “And you must be Krishna. You’re pretty good with a guitar, you know that?”

Krishna shook briefly, then snatched his hand back and rubbed at his stubble. “I know. You’re pretty fucking loud with a table saw.”

Alan looked sheepish. “Sorry about that. I wanted to get the heavy work done before it got too hot. Hope I’m not disturbing you too much—today’s the only sawing day. I’ll be hammering for the next day or two, then it’s all wet work—the loudest tool I’ll be using is sandpaper. Won’t take more than four days, tops, anyway, and we’ll be in good shape.”

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