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their momma went to the bingo,
    and the Whittle boys were left to their own devices. They
    didn’t have money for rides or cotton candy, so they took to
    sneaking into the sideshow tents. Crawling under the heavy
    canvas, flat on their bellies, the smell of wet grass in their
    faces. Saw Howard Huge, the blubbery fat man, big as a
    whale and sitting on a scale that proved he weighed a
    thousand pounds. Saw a boy using a hammer to drive big
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    Chris Jordan
    spikes up his nose, which Dug thought was funny—it was a
    rare thing, hearing his brother laugh out loud—and a skinny
    old woman with really disgusting scaly skin calling herself
    the Real Fiji Mermaid.
    What Roy remembers best though, is getting hypnotized.
    This man in a shiny black suit and western string tie, the
    Amazing Mizmar, had the ability to control minds not his own.
    Picking folks out of the little audience for his famous experi-
    ment in mass hypnosis, he’d pointed out Dug to his pretty as-
    sistant, but Dug wouldn’t have none of it. He wasn’t one for
    talking to strangers, or drawing attention. So Roy took his place
    up on the stage with the other victims, all of them looking
    pretty sheepish, and then the Amazing Mizmar produced this
    truly amazing device, a glittery little ball on the end of a wand.
    He clicked the wand and the glittery ball shot pulses of light.
    Alluring, rhythmic pulses that blended in with the Amazing
    Mizmar’s sleepy voice, urging Roy to stare at the wand and feel
    the light and then to close his eyes and still see the light through
    his eyelids, and in less than a minute Roy was really and truly
    hypnotized. It was like being awake but sleeping somehow,
    frozen in a half-dream, in-between state, and it felt good. Felt
    right somehow. When the voice suggested it was snowing, Roy
    looked around, delighted—he’d never seen snow—and then set
    about dusting the big wet flakes from his shoulders. The
    laughter of the crowd was like the sound of flowing water or
    the crying of distant gulls, and when the voice told him to wake
    up at the sound—a sharp hand clap—he tried resisting. Wanted
    to stay in the between world, where sleepy voices made it snow.
    Roy still has his “between” moments and this is one of
    them. Sitting in the air-conditioned cab of their new Dodge
    Ram, Dug nods off as they wait, and Roy studies the shimmer-
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    ing waves of heat that rise from the white runway. Makes the
    air look like pulsing, transparent jelly. With that and the regular
    sound of Dug breathing heavy through his nose, Roy can almost
    hear the drone of the Amazing Mizmar’s voice, he can almost
    see through the heat-shimmered air into some other place.
    Almost but not quite, because Ricky Lang pulls him back
    into the big bad world. Yanks open the door and pokes Roy
    with an index finger that feels like a warm steel rod in the
    ribs.
    “Wake up,” says Ricky.
    “I wasn’t sleeping,” says Roy. “I’m keeping watch.”
    Ricky, studying him from behind his mirrored sun-
    glasses. Nodding to himself. “Uh-huh. Whatever. What you
    watching for, Roy?”
    “Like you said. A plane.”
    Ricky’s face untightens, and he smiles with just his lips.
    “Good. The specific aircraft we’re expecting, that would be
    a Beechcraft King Air 350. Twin turboprops. Color, green
    and silver. Tail number ends in seven, my lucky number.”
    “Yes, sir,” says Roy. He’s tried nudging Dug, but Dug is
    deeply asleep, and he’s worried about how it looks, his
    brother snoozing while the boss is giving instructions.
    “Leave him be,” Ricky suggests. “Don’t matter if he
    sleeps through the end of the world. This is on you, not your
    retarded brother.”
    “Dug ain’t retarded.”
    “Whatever’s wrong with him, that’s not my concern. You
    got the Glock?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “And you know how to fire it? How to get the safety off,
    rack a bullet into the chamber, all that?”
    Roy nods. He’s pretty sure he knows all