I didn’t think I’d ever be using a word like ostensible, but if it’s right 

then that’s how I felt about calling on Big Doc and telling him how 

much I missed Li’l Doc. But also to get looped.                               

After all the times he’d said drop by and rattle the screen, there I was 

dropping by and rattling the screen. Big Doc was prepping the day’s 

last bindles. You wanna help with these? Anyone could see this was 

top-shelf loop, even after I’d tweezed the tiniest dark dots, an eyelash 

or two. He said we could drink it mixed with water, or we could cut

a bendy straw in two and snort it like pigs—whoosh. Then a walk-fast,

before the day goes.

Dogger wagged along to bark at his brothers, down alleys, on side streets

turning left and right and damn if we didn’t end up at the little summer store, 

where Melon Man’s got penny candies called red dollars and bottles of 

pop up to their necks in cold water. I inched a black cherry down the row, 

through the turnstile and up to my face to roll off the sweat, even though 

the slow-turn fanned us overhead.

All’s you want the pop and these dollars said Melon. I could barely hear him, 

adrift and rising, back to when me and Li’l Doc went to Melon’s, we’d stand 

under the fan, eat sugar and buzz-float, saying Melon must have looped the 

candy.

Feeling so welcome at home in the world, I believed it when Li’l Doc took 

shape right in front of me, right there, just the two of us like before, as if 

nothing had ever happened and everything we did, like play City Slickers 

after dark, and Spotlight Car, jumping over hedges to hide from the brights. 

Days, we’d ride double on Li’l Doc’s bike, rolling down the streets singing 

feel the spirit and waving our arms to make it rain, then back to Melon’s for 

more holy water, till one day Li’l waved too hard, the sky opened up—

not a dream, but real—real bad, the wind beginning to blow us away like 

shirts off a line.

That’s what made us so close, the way you could ride with your best friend 

for the longest time, each day sunny and smooth until whoa, we got us one. 

It’s not comin’ it’s here. And you hold on, you try to hold on.