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“As a teenager I started getting into even more trouble. Things ramped up quickly. I could never keep friends very long, because I kept dragging my friends into bad situations. The smart ones ran. The ones that didn’t, got caught and went to jail for all sorts of stupid things.”

“Not you though.”

“No,” Randall admitted. “Not me. I was too fast, too slick. Like ‘liquid shit’, they’d say. It wasn’t a good nickname, really, and not one I wanted. Eventually I started going at things solo. I was alone a lot. Especially as my siblings got older and started leaving the house, one by one.”

He drained his beer and placed the glass on the table between us. Then he leaned in closer.

“I started stealing things. Lots of things. It became a sort of game for me, a way to ‘get the energy out’, as my mother would call it. Hell, I didn’t even need half the stuff I stole. I just enjoyed doing it. I’d say it was the thrill of the chase, but I was rarely even chased. I was just that good at it.”

“…until you got caught,” I guessed.

Randall’s eyes glimmered. He leaned back again, a smile stretching beneath his beard. “You’re a smart one.”

“Don’t change the subject,” I countered. “Continue the story.”

“It was a neighbor of ours — a store owner — who got me. The old man was fast, almost as fast as me. Turns out he’d been in the Navy — a runner on an aircraft carrier. Rather than bust me, he sat me down. Told me stories about all the places he’d been, the things he’d seen. During his service he’d sailed all over the world, north and south of the equator.”

“So he convinced you to join the Navy?” I asked. “Just like that?”

“Well, the fucker strong-armed me,” Randall smiled. “After talking to me for an hour, he told me he’d still call the police if I didn’t do two things.”

“Uh oh.”

“One, he wanted me to work for him. And I did for about a year, right before I went in. He paid me well, too.”

“And the other thing?”

“I had to go down to the recruitment office with him,” said Randall. “The very next day.”

I laughed. “And you went?”

“Had to. The guy knew me. He’d been watching me grow up in the neighborhood for years. He said I needed structure, direction. I needed an outlet, to blow off all this pent-up energy.” Randall paused, tapping a finger restlessly against his lips. “And he was right.”

His eyes fell to the candle now. They had the somber look of remembrance.

“That wasn’t a boring story,” I said. “That was actually kind sweet.”

“Yeah, but it ends shitty.”

“Why?” I said. “You didn’t just join the Navy, you became a SEAL. You’re not just any sailor, you’re an elite specialist. The guy must’ve been totally ecstatic when he found out you—”

“He died,” Randall said, “just before I got assigned to BUDS training. Missed telling him by three weeks.”

His story ended abruptly, just like that. I laid my hand over his.

“Oh, honey I’m sorry.”

“He would’ve been proud,” Randall said absently. “I wanted him to be proud. My father couldn’t give a rat’s ass what I did, and my mother was living with someone else by then. But he… he was the only one who really…”

He shook his head back and forth, as if waking from a dream. “He got me,” said Randall. “Him and Holden. All my life, they were the only two people who really—”

KA—THUNK!

I nearly jumped out of my skin as the figure slid up behind us. A big hand slammed downward. Randall’s arm shot out like a cobra, grabbing it instinctively by the wrist as it deposited two fresh beers in the middle of the table.

I looked up the arm… and there was Holden.

“Thought I might find you here,” he said, shaking his head. “So predictable.”