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how the Swede had gone over. He'd made no effort to stop his fall, and then the way his arms and legs kept moving afterward. A person knocked out didn't move at all.
    “We should have gotten out of there when those guys showed up.”
    “I know that,” said Poe.
    “Your mom is friends with Bud Harris.”
    “Except technically the guy you hit wasn't doing anything. It was the guy holding me.”
    “It's a little more complicated than that,” said Isaac.
    “I dunno,” Poe told him. “I can't really think right now.”
    Isaac began to walk faster.
    “Isaac,” Poe called. “Don't do anything stupid.”
    “I won't tell anyone. You don't have to worry.”
    “Hold up a second.” Poe grabbed him by the shoulder. “You did the right thing, we both know that.”
    Isaac was quiet.
    Poe nodded up the road. “Anyway I need to cut off here to take the back way to the house.”
    “I'll walk you.”
    “We need to split up.”
    Isaac must have had a look on his face, because then Poe said: “You can go back to the old man's for one night; it won't kill you.”
    “That's not the point.”
    “You did the right thing,” Poe repeated. “In the morning when our heads are straight we can figure this all out.”
    “We need to be figuring it out right now.”
    Poe shook his head. “I'll meet you at your place in the morning.”
    Isaac watched as he turned away and made his way up the dark road toward his mother's house. He paused once and waved. Once Poe was out of sight, Isaac continued down the tracks in the darkness, alone.

2. Poe
    H e went up the muddy road toward his mother's trailer. He'd tried to keep his head on in front of Isaac, the last thing Isaac needed to see was Poe going batshit. But it was a definite possibility. At least it was dark, it was comforting, there was no one to see him like this, he thought about the way the knife had felt to his neck and the man's hand on him. The rain had picked up again, back into sleet and then flurries. He was extremely cold, he'd left his jacket at the machine shop where the big one named Otto was lying dead. He was so cold he would have given anything for a jacket or even the shittiest hat you could even imagine, he would give a gallon of blood for just a shit wool hat and good Christ anything for a coat, a plastic garbage bag, even. He thought he ought to run to get warm but he could barely manage a walk. He thought he would make it to the house. It occurred to him he had not split any of the wood for the stoves, as always he'd left it to the last minute then gone off with Isaac and the house would be freezing, out of wood and the electric heaters costing thirty a day, his mother would never turn them on and with her hands all rheumatoid she couldn't swing the axe.
    He hoped his mother wasn't too cold for having a shit son like him. Sitting in that doublewide with her hands all clawed up from the arthritis you are a shit a genuine shit who cannot even keep your own mother warm, a fucking chickenshit punk can't even keep his hours at a goddamn hardware store. He wondered what Isaac had thrown at that prick, something heavy, a big rock, it had smashed his face in he'd seen it. Pushed his forehead back into his skull. Puke if you remember it too much. Big fucking rock it must have been. Isaac and Otto, a match from heaven. Thanking Christ for his arm like that. Saving my life. Getting cockhandled by those bums and pissing your pants the cherry on top.
    Now the one night he needed the house to be warm it would be freezing, needed that heat for being an accessory to murder, really self-defense only it was murder now, walked away from the body but good Christ if anyone thought he would call the cops on those fucks with that dead one Otto a smile on his face wide as a goddamn stadium walking toward me, walking toward me while I had a knife to my neck and someone's hand crushing my nuts, not much question on what he was thinking about. Yes he thought this is what girls must feel