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Boyd parked his truck across the street from the school and waited for the bell to ring. It was ninety-plus degrees outside, the air in the cab as still and stifling as a closed tomb. Boyd’s fishing cap was dark with sweat; streams of it trickling down his face, getting in his eyes, and making his sunburn sting. To get some relief, he flapped the collar of his T-shirt and got a cloud of armpit steam so foul it made him laugh.

Boyd had spent hours in the bathtub, half submerged in the gray, lukewarm water, seeing himself do it one way and then another. Jesus Christ, that’s so STUPID, think of something else, Boyd, come on, come ONNN, Jesus Christ, don’t be so STUPID.

When he broke a front tooth he almost called the whole thing off. It happened in the kitchen while he was trying to make chloroform. You couldn’t buy the stuff unless you were a doctor or a laboratory but he’d found a recipe online: acetone and swimming pool chemicals. Putting it together was easy enough but he inhaled too much vapor and passed out, smashing his tooth on the sink as he slid to the floor.

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