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right now,” I say. “Go to bed.” I drop the plug on the carpet and go back down to the kitchen.
    “Isobel says we’re looking at the Young Offenders Act,” Liam says. “I guess I knew that without knowing it. Also there are some changes pending in the legislation, apparently.”
    I take my wineglass out to the front step. I stand in the doorway, looking at our street. It’s warm. There are stars and cars and rags of cloud.
    “Let’s drink inside.” Behind me, Liam tries to get my elbow. I walk down the steps so he follows. I sit on the grass so he sits on the grass. “Almost done?”
    “You made that up about the black kid, right?”
    “No.”
    I look at him.
    “I didn’t make it up,” he says defensively, like I was accusing him of something. “You never watched somebody do something bad?”
    I go down on my elbows.
    “Oh, don’t do that. Don’t settle in.”
    I toss the rest of my wine behind me into the bushes so it won’t spill and set the glass on the grass. It falls over. I lie down and tell the stars, “I think it’s hitting me.”
    I feel Liam lie down beside me.
    “Can you imagine what they must be going through?” I mean the Parmenters.
    “You just knew the dad was going to be at bowling league, or something,” Liam says. “I don’t want to imagine what they’re going through. I don’t want to think about their ugly lives at all. Do you think it’s obvious we don’t want Jason coming over any more, or should we spell it out?”
    I ponder. “I think it’s obvious.”
    Across the street, a light goes out in an upstairs window. Liam says, “The neighbourhood is watching us.” He sits up. “Ah, Jesus. How’re we going to keep this quiet?”
    “Not by talking about it on the front lawn.”
    “My point.” He tugs at me but I don’t give. I think of the backyard – plumbing trenches, plastic sheeting, rock dust – adark, crowded disorder we’re paying for but don’t totally control. I don’t want to go back there.
    “There’s nothing to hide,” I say. “He didn’t do anything.”
    Liam picks at the grass.
    “So they beat the shit out of the black kid,” I say.
    “On the playing field at recess. Someone went after him pretty much every day. That day was just a little worse. I wasn’t even watching, it was going on in the background kind of thing. I was sitting with my friends talking about the Canucks or whatever. I only remember because the rumour was he went to hospital after. He was back in school the next day, though. I’m saying that was one tough kid. And his name just came back to me, how’s this for weirdness: Taylor. Okay?”
    “High schools don’t have recess.”
    “You’re right, they don’t,” Liam says. “What am I thinking of?”
    My stomach gurgles. “That child ate food in our house.”
    We lie quietly for a while under the constellations. I get the Big Dipper and Orion’s Belt and then I’m stumped. For a while my ignorance frustrates me, but then I think: I’m urban. Is there any reason why I should know these things?
    “Well,” Liam says, and waits.
    “I was going to take him shopping tomorrow.”
    “Well, do that,” he says.
    “Are we hungry?”
    “We are. Wow. Now that you say it, I realize.”
    “Kind of like the Young Offenders Act.”
    The day is pretty much over. Our voices are the only voices around.
    “Maybe do the shopping in the afternoon,” Liam says. “I forgot to mention, Isobel figures they’ll probably drop by in the morning.”
    “They.”
    “They, them. You know who I mean.”
    We hear the front door and Ty’s step on the porch. I can’t see him, but he must be looking down at us. “Hey, you guys are lying on the lawn,” he says.
    “I already told you to go to bed,” I say. “They’re coming for you in the morning.”
    “Did you come out here to lecture us on deviant behaviour?” Liam says.
    We hear the door close behind him.
    “I think I’ve handled this pretty well so far,” Liam