up, staring at the street, leaving Sam lying to my right. “Julian, you and I can see! Most of these animals can’t fucking see!” I stayed silent as Sam laughed. “You don't need to try, man. We're doomed. Just drink!” I watched an older man cross the street. “I gotta take you home.” “No, fuck you,” he said. I turned so he could see my eyes. “You care about your friends, though, the people that love you, don't you?” I looked at him. He looked to the sky and the stars. “Who do you think I am, man?” There was a shared moment of understanding. In both of us there was something—or a lack of something—that brought us to each other. Maybe it was a shy loneliness or moral superiority or a degree of dissatisfaction; it was certainly pity in ourselves and one another. We could justify anything in this pity. We were the victims. We had what the world didn’t want. “Well, I love you and my friends who are waiting in the van. Will you let me take them home?” Without any playfulness, we got down from the car, and walked to the minivan in a scene now starkly sober. I dropped Sam off first. He didn't say a word. n I met Sam for the last time in the NCAR parking lot. The evening began when I saw him running out of a liquor store with a stolen bottle of rum. I tried to stop him from pouring that same rum onto a billiards table. I attempted to explain that the same bottle of Bacardi was lost for a moment, not hidden from him. That’s when he threatened me. “No, man! I’m fucking serious. Pull over, and I’ll kick your ass!” Toward the end of the night, Bessie packed with friends, Sam told me he wanted to be dropped off at NCAR. Without knowing why, I obliged. When we arrived, he couldn't find his phone. We dug through pockets, jackets, snow pants, and beanies leftover from a hike. He started deluding himself into thinking we were hiding it from him. Staisha and Lexi couldn't take his aggression anymore. They walked away to sit down on the cold pavement. After a bit more searching, he followed the girls outside, unable to handle knowing they were talking about him. I started driving circles around the parking lot, barely dodging lampposts. I watched them yell at each other: Staisha, pointing a finger an inch away from his face; Lexi, turning away, only to come back in anger when Sam spoke. “… so, what are they fighting about?” Will asked from the passenger seat, trying to understand what was going on. 61 PLAINS paradox