The grandfather clock in the corner of Dr. Paul Murphy’s office showed a quarter past three.

Alan had a niggling itch to drink. It had started during his meeting with Mickey Verona and slowly blossomed until—

“That fucking bitch! Fuck her cunt!”

“Getting all worked up isn’t going to solve anything,” said Murphy in his deep, gravelly brogue. “And going after Becky is a fool’s errand. It’s already gone too far up the chain.” He held out a piece of paper bearing the Montana State seal. “It dropped in my box right after lunch. The Secretary of Health and Human Services sent it himself. Helena will not allocate funds to represent the boy. And if you do it pro bono, they’ve threatened to cancel our license.”

“The fucking hell?”

“Senator Taylor’s reach is long and wide, and his pockets deep.”

“The Mariana Trench.”

“I’m not going to say not to do this, Alan, but it’s over my head now.”

“I’m in this, Paul. Whatever his issues are, I don’t think he’s a sexual predator. I don’t believe he did anything bad to that girl. And just to be brutally honest with myself, I never really had a career. You know that. Not after…”

“What happened with Zoey, the drugs. No, they were never going to let you practice what you trained for,” said Murphy.

“Becky would see to it,” said Alan.

Murphy shook his head despondently, then rose and went to his cabinet of Norwegian pine where he inspected the bottles. “You on the wagon?”

“No.”

“I didn’t think so.” He lifted a squat bottle full of a rusty spirit. “1977 Pineau des Charentes.”

Murphy had been a strongman in his youth. Pushing eighty, he had the back and shoulders of an ox. The golden statues of his feats stared down from their Olympia atop the booze box.

The cork made a satisfying pop. He centered two delicate snifters from a tray at the northeast quadrant of the desk and poured. He missed on the second glass and spilled a tablespoon onto the finished surface. Then he opened his drawer and withdrew two fat, dark cigars.

“Cohiba?”

“Paul—”

“Don’t judge me,” the old man cut him off. “We might as well enjoy what’s left of Cuba.”

The cigar smelled sweet-of dried earth and dung.

“This must have cost a fortune.”

“It did. Luckily, it’s my wife’s money.”

Murphy held up his glass. “To a good friend, a scholar, a doctor, and a compassionate man. I wish you the best on your new path.”

“My new path?”

“Don’t you think it’s about time?”

“Time?” Alan repeated.

They clinked glasses. The liquor swamped his tongue like syrup. He swished it across his teeth and gums and swallowed. Campfire smoke and honey warmed his throat and chest.

Murphy took great care lighting a cigar over a warm flame, occasionally inspecting his progress on the leaves, giving a gentle wind from his lips to encourage the coal. Once he was satisfied, he handed it to Alan and lit another.

They smoked and drank. Alan fought the pull of memory. “We’ve had this before. This exact combination,” he said.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

He closed his eyes. It had been atop Pete’s Hill overlooking Bozeman over twenty years ago. He was in college then, a newly minted PhD. The state was in a drought, the hottest summer on record. Smoke burned their eyes. The fire line snaked up the Bridger Mountains to the north as the lodge poles combusted like wicks soaked in kerosene. Skyscrapers of a burgeoning Asiatown rose from the center of the old western city. A hologram advertising something in Chinese cut through the murky atmosphere.

He’d successfully defended his dissertation that day against a cold committee.

“She was beautiful.” Murphy sat back in his chair, eyes glistening. He was talking about Zoey. “A real Native princess.”

A lump congealed in the back of Alan’s throat. He doused it with the ancient cognac.

“It was a beautiful ceremony.” The old man closed his eyes, cherishing a serene memory.

Murphy, an ordained minister of some Unitarian sect, had married them that night atop the hill. Becky was a witness along with several of Murphy’s undergraduate acolytes.

Goddamn it, he remembered. He had looked into her eyes and kissed her in the blood-red sunset while the chant from a temple’s loudspeaker called out vespers in a refugee language.

“I’m not in therapy,” said Alan.

“Well, maybe you should be! It’s okay to feel something,” said Murphy.

“Not that,” he said. “Not that.” His glass was empty in his hands. “Nothing matters in the end.”

“Mnemosyne will always get you in the end. Trust me. Her reach is the longest.” Murphy swilled his drink and wiped his beard. “One for the Devil, two for the soul?”

“Why not?” Alan held out his empty glass.

The old professor’s large hands trembled as he poured, filling the glass halfway. The shaking had worsened in recent years. He caught Alan’s eye and said, “You function well drunk.”

“I know,” he replied.

“You drink too much. Stop.”

“It hurts.”

The man nodded his lugubrious and bearded head. He touched the puddle of spirit on his desk, then wiped it away with his bare palm, leaving a smear. “I have lung cancer,” he said.

This confession hovered between them in a shared gaze.

“Oh, Paul. God…” He wasn’t surprised. The man had always been an enthusiastic inhaler of tobacco.

“They caught it too late. Notice how vernacular allows us to shift the blame?”

“What can I do?”

“Christ, don’t worry about me. I’ve had my share of go-rounds. The end times aren’t all that bad. I get to spend them bombed out of my gourd. I’m eating magic mushrooms tomorrow in a sweat lodge. And I need to finish that—” He jerked a thumb at the liquor cabinet.

“Shiiit,” said Alan.

They clinked glasses again.

“Zoey would want you to do this,” Murphy declared.

Hearing somebody else speak her name in that modality brought the cringe deep inside.

“You know, I thought you’d turn this down.”

“You knew his birthday before you asked me.”

The clock ticked heavily. A muffled conversation passed in the hallway. They sipped and smoked.

“And?” asked Murphy, blowing a ring into the air above his head.

“I remember everything like it was last night. They took him back to clean him. There was some confusion… Do you think? Maybe—”

“Oh, my friend.” Murphy stood and came around the desk with his arms wide, his proud, gray beard running down his chest. He hugged him, firm and hard. “Alan, he’s not.”

“The same hospital, Paul. The same night, the same time. There was some confusion.”

“You could take a DNA test.”

“No.” The word came out sharp like a fang.

Murphy held his shoulders in his iron hands. He nodded his understanding. “Don’t lose touch.”

“I was never in touch to begin with.”

Murphy laughed and slapped his right shoulder hard. “That’s the sense of humor I once knew. Builds A Fire—now that’s a fucking name. What’s your professional opinion?”

“He’s just a kid. Those scars don’t come without a price. Maybe he’s living in a self-constructed reality in order to cope with whatever hell he went through. If that lawyer is going to walk him through an insanity plea to keep him off the registries, he’ll need all the help he can get.”

“There’s the fire!” A devilish twinkle sparked in old Murphy’s eyes. He raised his arm, projecting his voice. “Hark, warrior, behold! Your doom has been laid out before you.”

“Fuck you, Paul.”

“Come on, you remember the line.” A childish glee encompassed the man.

“Fuck.” Alan cleared his throat and spoke, “I am petrified. My knees grow weak, and I think I’m gonna shit my pants. My own kin have come to cut me down.”

Murphy lifted his palms toward the ceiling and said his line around his cigar. “Then rise, slayer of armies. Live or die, thy Grindel is nigh.”

They laughed together with their drinks and cigars.

“You make an old man happy,” said Murphy.

“It was a terrible play,” said Alan.

“Can you believe they accused me of appropriation?”

“But it was the feminists who canceled you.”

“That was unfair. It was you who wrote the sex scene.” Murphy slapped the table with his palm. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“It’s fine. Like you said. Feelings.” A vision of Zoey and Becky naked on the stage floor haunted him again.

“Well, Paul.” Alan picked up the box that held the contents of his office. The bronze nameplate that had adorned his door sat on top. “Just to piss her off, you should make her wait until Monday before she can move in.”

“I’ll do just that. Listen, you’re off the hook for the Halloween party tomorrow night, but as a friend, I think you should go. You spend too much time holed up in that little apartment. Hell, you might even get laid.”

“Yeah, yeah, maybe.”

“It’s off the books and unofficial, but I’ll provide whatever support I can. I’ve always thought there’s something noble about helping a kid.” He set the cognac and a handful of cigars on top of Alan’s things.