The sun had gone down, and The Float’s crowd was changing along with the quality of light. Families disbanded from tables, and men sprouted up along the bar like mushrooms on a log.

Dakota was watching her mother and sister eat. Not like part of the family. Like a staff member on an outing with her residents.

“Hey Wildman,” Mason called from behind the bar. “C’mere.”

Lance couldn’t take his eyes off the large woman. Hair like unspun steel wool. Shoulders tipping as she ate. The same terrible gravity that hung on Dakota’s sister had clung to this woman longer and harder and she did not look up. Her fork moved against glass, scraping up sauce on her plate with a rapid-fire shtikshtickshtik.

“Good thing humans don’t eat their young.” Mason pursed his lips, feigning worry.

“That’s Dakota’s mom?”

“A rare sighting,” Mason said. “Ms. Berg’s as scarce as Sasquatch. Probably for the same reasons. Avoiding hunters. Zookeepers. Kick back and enjoy the show. Try not to stab anyone tonight.”

Mason soda-gunned him a glass of cola. From the edge of his vision, he watched the ordeal of Ms. Berg standing—a slow-motion eruption from the table. When she glanced in Lance’s direction, he finally saw her eyes. Glassy and blank, like something behind them had snapped and could not be put back together.

“Thank ya, Mason,” Ms. Berg said. “Always good.”

Her smile. Her voice. Horrific in its familiarity. Dakota, imprisoned by thirty years and two hundred extra pounds, locked behind bloodshot eyes and a loose mouth. Ms. Berg’s gaze slipped past Lance without stopping, but Dakota’s eyes met his. Her shoulders tensed, hair shifting forward. A dark curtain. She walked away.

“Thank you, Ms. Berg,” Mason said. “Anytime at all, m’lady. Bye, Dakota!”

Dakota did not turn around. Before they were out the door, Mason leapt into action, bending an invisible Ms. Berg over the bar, pumping her from behind, slapping her phantom butt.

“See, son,” Mason said, still going to town. “That’s why you gotta hit that now. Because Dakota is one grade-A piece of ass. Butcher’s choice. Today. But one day soon, she’ll be a full-grown heifer.” Mason plugged his mouth with his thumb and inflated his cheeks. “Can’t fight genetics, dude. Trust me. I’ve tried.”

Lance forced a laugh, not knowing what else to do. Down the bar, Meebs and Rocco alighted like bats. Rocco shot him a solemn nod. Meebs was telling a story, hands fluttering through the air.

“So, hey,” Mason said, refilling Lance’s glass. “I thought you were outta here.”

“Looks like one more night.”

“You should hang with us,” Mason said. “We’ll get the whole gang together. Catch the trainsong.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Lance said. “I’ve got a lot to do.”

“Uh-huh,” Mason said, looking distracted. “Just be here around ten.”

The Float’s front door knocked into the bell, and Mason’s head snapped up. A family. Two kids, a well-dressed woman, and a guy in a green polo, treading water in the entryway. They looked as if they’d peeked over the reef and were about to swim back to shore.

“Hey there!” Mason said, grabbing four menus. “Come in! Make yourself at home!”

Mason gave the kids a box of crayons and said something to make the wife laugh. He crouched down to take their order, one elbow cocked up on the table the way waiters sometimes do. Ten minutes later, the guy in the green polo was removing his shoes. Lance didn’t know how Mason pulled it off. The whole family got involved, looking for a gap in the crowded rafters.

“Okay everyone,” Mason said. “Let’s count him down.”

Three, two, one!

The whole family screamed when he let them rip, like it was the wildest thing the guy had ever done. The laces hit the beam and the shoes locked themselves around the wood. Everyone at the bar applauded.

“Spin the wheel,” his wife said. “Spin the wheel.”

Mason smiled and led them down the bar past the American flag, where a prize wheel hung. It was a Wheel of Fortune knockoff someone had probably slapped together in their backyard. Pegs and a flapper, a dozen or so colored slivers with black writing:

A thousand dollars, Lance said to himself, recounting the zeros.

Mason double-handed the wheel and gave it a good, hard crank. The flapper went tickatickatickatickaticka. The whole family pressed up against the bar.

The flapper stopped on a thick yellow slice.

“Side of beans!” Mason said, hands on his hips.

“Beans,” the man’s wife said.

The man wasn’t looking at her. He was looking up at his swinging shoes, as if he’d already forgotten how they’d gotten there. Laces, swaying like willow branches.

The swift clap of a plate. Lance’s dinner.

The server who brought his food had a streak of purple hair and downturned eyes and the kind of sad young face where you could already imagine wrinkles, set into the bone structure like fault lines. When she passed Mason on her way back to the kitchen, he bit his tongue and gave her butt a quick squeeze. Normal as hello. She didn’t miss a beat on her way to the kitchen.

This place.

Lance stared down at his burger.

He’d eat this last meal.

He would go back to his room and complete the necessary forms. He would finish his speech and call William and the car would be fixed like it was supposed to be. Like he’d known it would be when he talked to Miriam. He pressed his shoes together, and pressed them both against the hard case of his horn.

Lance knew exactly where he was going.

And he would never set foot in The Float again.