Sam Lipsyte - The Ask

We were all of us just flushed with that feeling already fled.

But I had Bernie. I had my painting again, which could maybe deliver me some peace precisely because it would never deliver anything else. I even had a job lead. This local drug-and-alcohol rehab needed a part-time communications officer. Experience in fund-raising was a plus. Here was my chance to fail once more in an office environment. Worse came to worst, maybe I could get a discount on treatment. My hangover would hang up his gun.

No, I probably wasn't going anywhere.

I was digging in for the long night of here.

Sometimes I wondered if Don was doing the same, and a few months after I talked to him I sent him an email.

A week later Sasha replied from her own account, no message, just a link to the Pangburn Falls Sentinel website. I had to wade through some home-page reports about zoning disputes and a proposal for a new band shell before I scrolled down a sidebar of older articles. I guess she wanted me to wade, but after a while I saw the headline: POLICE CONTINUE SEARCH FOR SUSPECT IN LOCAL VETERAN'S DEATH.

I shuddered, almost clicked the window shut.

If I didn't read the story, if I turned my computer off right now, Don could still be okay. It was the thought of a child. It was the meaning of childhood.

According to the article, a young man had been murdered on an old logging road. An explosion heard for miles blew his truck into the trees. Pieces of the victim had scattered hundreds of feet down to the banks of a creek. Inspectors were disturbed to find evidence of an improvised explosive device, similar to those employed in recent conflicts overseas. The victim, Todd Wilkes, a native of Pangburn Falls and a decorated veteran of tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, was twenty-four. The police department's prime suspect, Don Charboneau, also of Pangburn Falls, had been missing from his last known residence since the day of the attack.

Authorities welcomed any information that could lead to his capture.