"Last Seen, Hank's Grille"

What can I tell you? Only what I have seen. What I have pieced together from the reports of others, and filtered by my own experience. Perceptions which are inadequate and inconclusive. Theories and abstractions about a damaged world, when what everyone wants from me - a witness - is a coherent version of events.

            I throw up my hands, befuddled. You will want to punch me.

            It's happened already. My snout broken and bloodied for no reason other than I spoke the truth. That I cannot say with any certainty what happened out there.

            Becca says that's bullshit. Maybe she's right.

            All I know is her brother is missing, and she blames me.

            Becca has theories of her own. She is of the opinion that Tom has a head injury, that this explains his decreasing interest in things like paying his bills on time, or his willingness to drive cross-country with Fillmore Priest. Although I don't believe it's true, her theory is more plausible than you might think. Tom talked about a fall he took in February, shortly after he moved to Massachusetts, to Ashland. How his front walkway was coated in black ice. How his feet went out from under him and he flew, a tangle of arms and legs, landing ass over teakettle on the walk. He laughed about it later, his introduction to the east coast after nearly a decade in Texas. A concussion, a few hours of jumbled memories, maybe an increased sense of forgetfulness. And while he hasn't had any physical problems since, Becca believes something happened there. That Tom maybe cracked his head on the stone step and the delicate mystery that is the human brain was affected.