“Above the desk there was this framed picture of Jesus. He was reaching his hand out and making this face like he was about to get shot.”

“Man, that’s the only kind of book I like – one that’s so real you want to find out everything there is to know about the person who wrote it, like how tall he is and what kind of music he likes and whether or not he really went through all the stuff he was writing about.”

“After his rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” Welton just stared straight ahead at the alter as if he were waiting for Jesus to climb down off the cross and escape with him. They would load up in Dantly’s Skylark and the three of them would go score some Ex in Cedar Rapids. Jesus would like totally ride shotgun and scout for cops.”

“For some reason, I kept trying to see how much pubic hair he had. It was all matted and kind of orange, like something you use to scrub soap scum. When he caught me looking, he told me that the landlord on the show – Mr. Furley or whatever his name was – didn’t try hard enough. “That guy doesn’t try hard enough, Steve,” he said. I felt weirdly ashamed when he said that. So much so that I went into his room and urinated on his bed.”

“My dad smelled sort of like mustard, which is probably due to the fact that in the bed I also discovered a thing of Hellmann’s. I wanted to grab it and squirt it in his eyes, but I couldn’t reach it.”

“And then again, maybe it was some weird noise in my brother’s head, some little digital murmur he never told anyone about. I’ve heard about that – how you wake up one day and there’s like this permanent dial tone droning somewhere behind the meat in your head, a little Dustbuster trapped where the brain saves you from going crazy. After a while you wind up ending it all just to make things quiet again.”

“Once I looked over at Welton and he was wiping his nose. I couldn’t tell if he was crying or on nasal spray.”