Getty Street/Chapter 3

    Joe ignores Sam. His crying annoys him. It seems so often, so incessantly greedy as of late. New Orleans and the events there, while two years ago, feel as though they happened just last week. The violence, Sam's recent decisions, while all fascinating when emotion is removed, have left him feeling deeply resentful. Hateful even in the quiet hours of the night when he's the most alone, the most left to his own devices. Getting up, it's early morning and still dark, he wanders their simple suburban home, looking out each window, opening and closing the blinds, parting the curtains to peer out at the backyard, the sides of the house with the brick walls too close, and the front of the house showing the sleeping neighborhood. He rubs the thick scar along the side of his upper scalp as he roams. His thick hair hides it, but he rubs it when feeling distressed, bothered, which is usually these unstill days. It's a reminder of New Orleans when he and Sam both briefly died. Violet, the spirit daughter, disappears more and more, called to a place Joe is not eager to revisit. She loves them, feels compelled to stay, to linger, but those are the actions of a spirit in pain. And this, a trapped creature, no longer suits her. She's free. She flies and floats and what expands, as Sam calls it. "She's expanding, Joe," Sam said the other week when Joe asked if they were losing her forever. "It's not a bad thing. Don't lament her." But I do, Sam. I do lament her. I miss my daughter, he thinks. And I hate you for handling all of this haunted bullshit better than me.

    A bright light fills the office Joe stands forlornly in, his threadbare pajamas touching the cheap carpet. The suddenness of it, the brightness of it, both shock him. Must be a helicopter looking for some criminal, he thinks, walking to the window again, peering outside. He sees nothing, hears nothing.

    "He's gone!" It's Sam. His tone is an overreactive screech, or so it feels to Joe.

    "Who's gone?" Joe asks, disinerested.

    "Pierre! I put him outside to piss, he was whining, and now he's gone!" Sam says, tears spilling over his round cupid-like cheeks.

    "Ok, calm the fuck down," Joe says, impatience his first and strongest impulse. He tries to resist leaning into it, knowing it only makes Sam's hysterics deepen. "Let's go outside and look."