Later that evening Evan and Lily sat on their respective beds. The rest of the day had passed slowly and sadly. Evan farted about on his laptop, checking Facebook and his other sites in a continuous loop and wishing he was creative enough to think of something else to do. He thought about Lily's untouchable beauty and how he'd blown his one shot at becoming intimate with her. It was going to be a long weekend.

In addition, he had realized that getting through the audition was not a promising prospect at all—standing in line with all the more outgoing people today had given him a stark sense of reality. He now knew he stood a snowball's chance in hell of being picked out of the crowd, let alone getting on TV-- sob story or not. And he'd been so uncomfortable whenever a camera was just around him, let alone if it was zoomed in on him. How would he handle being put on the spot in prime time if he couldn't even handle getting filmed as part of a crowd?

Lily reclined on her bed and texted while commandeering the TV remote.

"Their cable selection sucks," she said after rifling through the channels several times over and finding nothing.

"It's Motel 6," said Evan. "You get what you pay for."

Evan was restless and tired of doing nothing and being trapped in his own head. He went with the only thing he could think of.

"You want to go for a drive?"

"To where?"

"Nowhere, just go look around."

She shrugged.

"Sure."

They hopped in the Civic, the evening humid and a spectacular orange sunset blazing up the western sky. They headed west down Harding Place first.

Once they got past the standard suburban mecca of fast food and mini-malls and grocery stores, the countryside was like a postcard-- all rolling green hills with healthy old trees and white churches like fortresses, their steeples needle-sharp.

Now this is what I thought Tennessee would look like, Evan thought.

Lily was silent but her vibe was content. She had spent more time in the bathroom when they'd gotten back from downtown, then gone to sleep almost immediately. Evan had sat on his bed on his laptop, worrying over everything for no reason. When Lily woke up she looked dazed as hell, and asked how long she'd been out.

"I dunno," said Evan. "An hour, maybe two."

She didn't answer him, only reached for her phone like a toddler for a pacifier.

The road under them was fresh asphalt; oil and tar and bright yellow lines of paint.

At a stoplight Evan opened up his new Johnny Cash CD and inserted it in the slot. He half expected Lily to object to the religious subject matter, but she stayed in the same stupor she'd been mired in since they'd returned from the city.

She was lethargic, lying sideways in the reclined passenger seat with her sockless feet curled under her like a cat. Evan again felt the strongest urge to reach over and pull her head onto his shoulder and hold her there and let her rest. The sensation would be peace on earth but instead he gripped the steering wheel with two damp palms and listened to Johnny and took in the scenery flying by at fifty miles an hour.

When Johnny's rendition of Do Lord came on, Evan felt oddly affected by it. Not because it flooded him with emotion, but because he didn't feel much at all. He hadn't heard it since the memorial, and he thought he would've felt some sense of closure about the whole thing, but it wasn't coming. And for some reason he was fine with it.

That night, when he'd come home from Matt's, he'd been intoxicated and anxious, but his parents hadn't even seemed to notice he was drunk. His mother was terrifyingly hysterical. Maddie sat in her lap, her eyes made of glass. His father talked stone- faced to the cops while they asked him question after question about Jason and if there were any other guns in the house and on and on.

Evan had stumbled in the front door and the cops and his family had turned. His mother came forward and threw her arms about him, sobbing. His father was next, squeezing him so tight he thought his spine might snap. Maddie shuffled forward and limply hugged him, then went back and sat on the couch.

One of the cops had taken Evan by the arm and led him to the kitchen, saying he had to ask him some questions.

"You been drinkin', haven't you," he said in a low voice once they were alone. It wasn't a question.

Evan was horrified, but then he remembered he was twenty-one. But he'd driven home. He began shaking.

"I have," he said, too stupefied by the situation to come up with anything less damaging.

"And you drove home, didn't you?"

Evan's lip began to tremble. Humiliating.

"I did."

"Can I see your license?"

Evan produced it and the cop looked it over. Then he gave it right back to him.

"Given what your family's about to go through, I'll do you the favor of keeping this to myself, as long as you think you can hold it together in front of them for the night. But this is the only pass you'll ever get. If I ever see you in front of a judge for a DUI, you're fucked. Deal?"

"Ok," said Evan. He swallowed his tears, his face hot and his head heavy.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"All right then," said the cop. His nametag read Williams. He was forty-ish, thin, goateed.

After asking Evan some more questions about Jason and his family and the house, Officer Williams had gone back into the living room.

Evan had gone to his room for a second, to be alone and calm his head. Then he'd gone downstairs and taken a peek into Jason's room. They'd already removed his body, and the lights were out.

He'd seen the Cash poster on his brother's wall of snarling Johnny giving the warden of San Quentin the finger. It was covered in a black, gunky substance.

Evan stared.

It wasn't Johnny giving the finger and making that face. It was Jason. Jason giving Evan the finger with that fuck-you snarlface. He'd left. And now he was gone forever. He'd canceled himself out.

"Hey," said Lily, yanking Evan back to the present and pointing at the radio.

I've got a home in gloryland that outshines the sun, sang Johnny.

"Gloryland," she said. "This is the song your sister got gloryland from?"

"Yeah," said Evan. "This is why I bought the CD."

"Oh yeah, I remember you saying that now," she said. "Huh. It's the same melody as some other song, but I can't remember what."

"It's a standard folk melody," said Evan. "It's kind of similar to the Battle Hymn of the Republic, though."

"How's that go?"

"That's the, 'Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord," Evan sang tonelessly.

"Ohhhhhh, yeah," said Lily.

She turned and looked out the window, surveying the countryside, the sun finally disappearing over the horizon.

"This looks like gloryland," she said.

"I guess," said Evan, looking out her window. "Maddie always said it was a field with wind and long grass."

He turned around in a random gas station parking lot and made back for the hotel. It was nearly dark now, the sun reduced to a thin fiery line of daylight on the horizon, the sky fading from purple to blue to black.

"Do you know why your brother killed himself?" Lily asked.

"Not really," said Evan. "He didn't leave a note or anything... he used to talk a lot about how things are going to get really hard for regular people in this country, though."

"What do you mean?"

"Do you really want to know?"

"Yeah, sure," she said. "Tell me."

"It's a long fucking theory. He used to go on rants all the time."

"Just tell it."

Evan exhaled and tried to remember.

"Well, throughout most of history, like, almost all of it, up until the 20th century, society was structured with a really small group of people at the top who owned almost everything, and then everyone else who owned almost nothing."

"K..."

"And the people at the top played all the people on the bottom against each other, using their power and influence to keep their power and influence. And Jason said there was a little interruption in that in the 20th century, but the only reason it happened was because of the two most devastating wars ever fought, plus the worst economic depression ever. And people thought it was going to last forever but it didn't. And it's been slowly reverting back to the old way now for decades, and everyone's too stupid and lazy to do anything about it."

"Uh-huh..."

"And the elite's gotten it back now and they're never going to let it go again. And with technology going the way it is, with everything getting more interconnected and monopolized and everyone giving up their information and letting everything they do be monitored, it's just looking more and more like we're fucked... he thought by becoming a soldier he could make a difference, you know, like, get in on the inside or whatever and change some things, but I think he realized he was just another pawn and that was really devastating."

Lily nodded. Evan found talking about this very therapeutic.

"Why was he so sure nothing was going to get better?" Lily asked.

Evan shrugged.

"I dunno. He used to just say that 'Most people are worthless'. Not like in a mean way, it was just a logical conclusion based on how our society operates. If you're not the best at something, you're nothing. It used to be you could be average and make a living at like a factory or something, but Jason would say that's all gone now. That was his thing. 'Most people are worthless.' And that seems to be true. Most people never do anything of consequence in their lives."

Lily frowned.

"But why does anyone need to do something of 'consequence' in the first place? What does that even mean?"

"I don't know exactly, but our society is really, really focused on wealth and success, to an extreme degree, and I think that's why people think like that. I mean, look what I'm doing here. I'm trying to become rich and famous. Cause that's what we were taught when we were growing up. Follow your dreams really just means, 'get rich and powerful'. But not everyone can be rich and powerful, so the most people end up feeling shitty about it no matter what, and the people that do become rich and powerful become total assholes because they have confirmation bias and still think it's something anyone can do."

"I was never taught that," said Lily.

"Yeah, you were," said Evan. "Culture taught it to you. Every freaking Disney movie we ever watched. The idea that every nobody who follows his or her dreams becomes a somebody. Life's not like that. Not everybody can be somebody."

Lily shook her head.

"I don't need to be somebody," she said. "I just need to be..."

She trailed off, thinking.

"I don't even fucking know anymore. I just need to be okay, I guess."

"Jason was saying our generation doesn't even realize how fucked we are. And he would always say, our parents aren't going to be any help, cause they don't get it. They can't see it."

"You know," said Lily. "This might surprise you, but I don't think it's that bad. Most people, I mean, in the big scheme of things, most people are doing at least okay. There's a lot of fear about losing what you have, but there's no way it's as simple as what you just described."

"It probably isn't, but I see his point. I don't know. I feel like anyone who wants to feel marginalized nowadays, you know, can feel marginalized, cause we've all been so divided up. Jason used to say we're dividing ourselves up for them. White vs. black. Immigrant vs. resident. Male vs. female. Just the way they want."

"Who's them?"

"The elite, the people that own everything."

"Oh, right. I gotcha."

"And our parents' generation just blames it on us being soft and coddled and everything. But I feel like my parents never really wanted me to feel bad when I was a kid. They were afraid of me feeling bad, so they sheltered me. That's the thing-- part of the problem of growing up sheltered is you're never actually aware of it."

"True," said Lily. "I remember your Mom saying you're not even allowed to say the word 'hate' in your house."

"When did you hear that?"

"When I was over with Marty once. In the backyard. Jason said he hated something and your mom freaked out on him, like, you can't say the word hate. I was like, you know, fuck, if she could hear what we said in my house, her head would explode."

"I know, right? You're right. Like, telling someone to not say the word is somehow going to just make the emotion go away or something."

He thought for a second. He was rambling. He sounded like Jason. He hadn't even known all these thoughts were inside him. They were pouring out of him now. He knew that Lily probably wasn't really listening but didn't care.

"I honestly don't even know what I want, other than to be happy or content or whatever. But getting to that spot involves being emotionally able and mature, and if you've had everything done for you throughout your childhood and adolescence you never figured out how to do it for yourself and so you're screwed."

Lily shook her pretty head. The white flower was still in her hair, rumpled from her nap.

"God, I need some more sleep. That's a lot of information to process. I see his point, but... Jesus."

"Sorry. You asked."

"I know. You know what I need now?"

"What?"

Lily took out her pack of cigarettes, lit one.

They drove back to the motel, the green hills around them in the burgeoning night, Johnny Cash singing hymns low on the radio.