Definitely in the home stretch! Had some transitioning to do--still do. But I think I'm about a week or so away from "The End." FINALLY! If I don't suddenly change my mind or have a big "revelation" that just has to be addressed. Here's the latest installment. With a little surprise at the end...

We staggered out of the prom on rubbery legs around...I'm not even sure what time. And then all the guys started begging to go get some food. We'd been dancing for hours since that banquet dinner. And smoking some more of that killer bud, too, toward the end, which of course always makes you crazy hungry.

So we hit the first Waffle House we ran into on the way back to town. I happen to like Waffle House. I mean, you know my background. How red my neck is. It's the redneck IHOP out our way.

And you go in there looking like we did that night, you're gonna cause a stir. But the waitresses perked up when I ordered damned near a whole menu's worth of food. One of 'em proposed to me. Little wiry thing named Loretta who had probably been slingin' hash and waiting tables since she could see over a counter high enough to ask you for your order.

She couldn't get over my eyes. Sincerely, I shook her up bad. I don't mean she was in love with me or anything, she just couldn't believe I existed on the same planet as she did. Or in Tucson, at least. That someone like me lived there. I mean, she worked at a Waffle House for Chrissake. Kid like me walks in wearin' a tux, no less--big curve ball, that was.

She came over with the menus and when I looked up at her, she sort of startled and went, "Oh, dear Lord. Lookit this boy, wouldja?"

The girls all sort of laughed and rolled their eyes.

But Loretta didn't even hear them. She didn't even give us the menus. She asked me, "Who do you take after? Them your mama's eyes?"

She had a lifetime's worth of smoking in that voice. Sort of gravelly and husky, but there was a playfulness, too. Like she'd stopped tryin'a front and was just enjoying the show now.

"Yeah, they are," I said. And I reached up for the menus just sort of to wake her up. The guy on the grill and the other waitress were staring at her like she'd gone nuts. And there were other customers, too, even at that hour. I didn't want her to get in trouble.

But just so she could play with me for a while, I decided to keep ordering stuff for everybody to try, like you do at a Chinese restaurant or something. And she would've spoon fed me if she could've. The girls kept tittering every time she smiled at me. And Victor kept elbowing me in the ribs and going, "Here comes the bride..."

But it broke my heart a little. It was like at the prom when I saw the assistant principal's wife and knew her whole life in a glance. I knew Loretta's, too. And hers was like the polar opposite of the life the AP's wife was living.

Nobody worked for her, probably. Nobody'd ever given her much of anything worth having. She had eyes like a kicked puppy. Kind that goes all berserk if you show them some kindness. After they watch you for a while, that is. To make sure you're not going to hurt them again.

I wondered if some guy with pretty eyes had hurt her 'way back when she was young. Or maybe he just died on her or something. Maybe it was even a brother or somebody like that that she loved. Not that way, okay? Jeez. I'm just saying it felt like I triggered some kind of memory.

Anyway, the kids dove into that food like they hadn't eaten in a week. It was a whole new world for them. They have these crazy things on the menu, like all the different kinds of hash browns, "scattered, smothered and covered" is how they explain it. You can have them covered in chili or gravy, with mushrooms, ham, jalapenos, you name it. They decided they liked them with melted cheese and jalapenos, most. Nacho potatoes, they named them.

I figure we must've each a week's worth of calories in one sitting that morning. Enough to clog your arteries for decades. I loved it, even though I didn't eat all that much because I was sort of woozy from lack of sleep and all the Wyatt stuff that had me spinning around in circles.

I kept thinking about that damned AP—did he turn on her, when they were deciding to fire her? Out of spite?  Would he tell them what he "knew?" And how did he know?

I mean, maybe when you're all infatuated with someone you get super sensitive. Maybe you feel things you wouldn't pick up on normally. I was only around for a day but she'd been to the hospital and all that after I was shot. He had to know that. Everybody probably knew that.

Maybe she told him. In a moment of weakness. Needing somebody to talk to. Or...God, I was really going nuts.

So I made myself drop the subject. It wasn't hard. I loved watching the kids having a ball. Being young. Laughing like kids. What the hell was going to happen to them, is what I kept asking myself. Where would they be in a year? Would these girls find a man who'd step up and do right by them? Would these guys wind up in a cell according to plan?

Damn. I keep going back to all this depressing stuff, don't I? But that's the state I was in.

The first real bright glint of sunlight caught me off guard while I was watching them fight over the last sausage or something later on. I got blinded by that little sliver of fire that halos the mountain top right where the sun is about to rise up.

Beginning of a new day. End of something else, though, maybe. I didn't want to think too hard about that. Because it meant the party was really over. In more ways than one.

But then Lakesha said, "People gon' be laughing they asses off at us lookin' like this in the daytime."

And I said, "Doin' a big old walk of shame," and everybody started laughing the way you only laugh when you're so sleep deprived that everything you hear is hilarious.

But she shoved me sideways in the booth and went, "I ain't shamed o' nothin' I done tonight!"

"You sure?" Josue asked her. "Y'all got pretty cozy out there for a while."

"What, you jealous?" Lakesha asked him. That made everyone laugh, too.

And the Maria fell over on my shoulder and said, "I am. Take me home with you."

"Girl, you better quit dreamin'," Lakesha said. "You seen what he got at home din' you?"

"Y'all get together, you'n' them girls?" Victor asked.

The inevitable question.

I smiled and said, "What do you think?"

"I think I wun be goin' to no prom if I had it like that."

The boys all slapped five and had a good laugh. And then Carla said, "You ain't got the looks or the money to have it like that, so quit dreamin'."

"Whatchu gon' be doin' tomorrow, man?" Lamar asked me. His eyes were blood red and half closed. I wondered what my eyes looked like, looking at his. We'd been doing most of the smoking to be honest.

I said, "We'll...chill, mostly."

"You go to an office, though? I mean, you run things like that?"

"I have an office. But I don't punch in and out or anything."

"Work come to him," Victor said.

"Yeah, sort of," I said. "The heavy lifting's done by other people. I don't meddle too much. I meet with the different divisions once a month or so, and they run stuff by me. And I get weekly briefings, too. But other people handle a lot of that, unless there's a problem of some kind."

"Don't nobody try to steal from you or nothin'?" Lamar asked.

"I think we'd find out pretty quick. But my money's a separate issue. I don't have to worry about that too much."

"Damn! He got so much money he don't even care," Josue said.

"How much money somebody need, though?" Lakesha asked. A very good question that I once asked JJ, too.

And I said, "That's the thing. At some point, you have to ask yourself what the hell it's all about. Why it came to you."

"So just give money away all the time, though," Carla said. "My sister's kids get they shots and school clothes from you."

"That's good to hear."

"He get all guilty about it sometimes," Lakesha said.

"How come?" Maria asked me.

"Cause somebody gave it to 'im," Lakesha said.

"Dude! I wish somebody would hand me some serious money," Victor said. "I wouldn' think twice."

I shrugged and said, "I just feel like I didn't earn a lot of things that made life easy for me."

"Like bein' fine as hell," Carla said. And the girls all said "Amen," behind it. And laughed when I blushed.

"You know how you look," Carla said.

"Yeah, well...it's...genetic. Luck o' the draw."

"Life is like that, though," Lamar said. "Din nobody ax to be born black or poor or whatever. Some folks gets and some folks don't get. Jus' cause you got what you got, that ain't your fault. You jus' lucky as hell, that's all."

"How come 'poor' always got to come right after 'black?'" Lakesha asked. "I'm proud to be black."

"Girl, black as you are, you have to be," Lamar said.

And I said, "Whoa, are you hearing yourself, son? What's that about?"

"He ignorant, that's what," Lakesha said, giving him a stare that made him squirm.

"And we got off the track, here, too--you never gon' get married?" Maria asked, fluttering her lashes at me.

"Oh, Lord, here we go," Lakesha said.

"No, for real, though. I mean, you got all that at home and whatnot, but that's not, like...you know what I mean, right?" Maria asked.

"I would like to," I said. Dangerous territory, this was. So I tried to get my fried brain cells to wake up and keep me out of trouble.

"Why? Oprah din," Lakesha said. "She smart! She make the money, she keepin' the money."

"I want to feel whatever you feel that makes you want to take it all the way, though," I said. "That's something you can't buy. That's a blessing you have to earn or that someone else has to give you, I guess. And I don't think a lot of people ever get there. Not really. So that's something worth wanting. Something I can't just walk into a store and point to."

"He like kids, I know that," Lakesha said. "Boy almost kilt himself for his kids."

"Well, they're miracles," I said. "I'd lost my whole family, and then all of a sudden, it was like I had them all back again. They're everybody who ever was, you know? All the people who came before me. And they'll take us on into the future. But mostly, I just can't believe I made 'em, you know? These little...creatures that crack me up all the time. They're just amazing. I can't wait to see them every morning. They're my favorite toys, man. I'm not kidding."

"Dude's chokin' me up," Josue said.

And Maria went, "Least there's one real man out there doin' right by his kids." With this interesting smirk that opened up a big old can of worms. Or could have. Only they all knew the story already. I let it ride.

"How your women feel about that, though?" Josue asked. "You havin' kids by some other woman?"

"They're fine with it."

"Naw, I mean, like...women you go out wit."

I shrugged and said, "I don't really go out. Not a lot. Now and then."

"He don't have to," Lamar said. "We already established that."

He winked and brushed off his shoulders when he hit that word "established." And we all laughed.

But Carla said, "You ain't wit nobody for real?"

I smiled and said, "I'm...working on it."

"Oooooo, who she?" Lakesha asked, getting all focused when I said that.

"I'm keepin' it on the down low for now. I don't wanna jinx it."

"It ain't that woman got arrested, is it?" Lakesha asked me, all frowned up like she'd smack me if it was.

"No, she's—"

"Crazy!" Maria said. "How she gon' mess up like that wit all she had goin' on?"

"That may be why she did it," I said. "It's harder than it looks, that kind of life. The world does all kinda weird stuff to famous people. And then you all go after 'em, too, her own people, sometimes."

"Talkin' 'bout how black she was," Lakesha said. Giving Lamar another stare.

"You gon' help her?" Lamar asked. Sounded just like Aisha. A male Aisha.

"Yeah, if she gets it together. She wrote this really nice script. It should be out there."

"Where you come from, man? You like a angel or sum," Lamar said. I liked the smile. Kinda drunk but really sweet.

"Are we ever gon' see you again, I wonder?" Carla asked. Real wistful. But also real sincere. Like dawn was waking her up.

"Anytime you want," I said.

"Yeah, right. Like we could jus' show up'n' hang."

"If I'm here."

"And you ain't walkin' the runway or jettin' off to Vegas or goin' to the Oscars."

"Or buyin' up the rest of Fourth Avenue," Victor added, slapping five with Carla.

Lakesha got all puffed up and said, "Girl, leave the boy alone. Ain't he give you enough?"

"Maybe I could give him somethin'," Carla said. "Maybe he need somebody normal around sometimes."

"If you normal, we in trouble," Lakesha said.

"No, she makes a good point, though," I said. "I've kept a lot of my old friends around. It's important to take somebody with you, if you can."

"Well, you can take me," Carla said.

"He can take us all," Lamar said.

"I thought you was goin' to the NBA," Lakesha said, shoving him upside the head.

"You want to play?" I asked Lamar.

"He the bes' we got," Lakesha told me. "Only one gon' pro'bly get some kinda scholarship money, too. Them people don't even care about his grades, they want him so bad."

"Yeah, they do," Lamar said. "They be lookin' at my scores'n' er' thang else. Coach all up in my face right now. Fightin' wit the teachers'n' stuff. Ain't nobody ever done nothin' after they leave there. He want it more than anybody."

"You think you'll do it for him?" I asked.

Lamar shrugged and said, "I don't know. I jus' always been slow about school work. I'm so far behind I cain't pass them tests they give you. That one you got to pass before you leave, I'm always 'falls far below.'"

"You gon' buy him a team?" Josue asked.

They all laughed. But my heart was broken. Again. There really was a Grand Canyon sized gap between my reality and theirs. I could build a bridge, of course, but there were millions of Lamars. And then there was that thing Delores had been talking about—the Indian kids up by Tia, too. At what point are you almost doing more harm than good? Messing with destiny. Dignity.

It made my head throb. I was in no condition to mess with anything right then.

Lakesha put an arm around me and said, "We need to get you home--y'all get on up outta here! Boy about to keel over!"

I left a ridiculously big tip on the way out, because I felt bad about making them do the whole damned menu for us at that hour. And I heard Loretta freaking out about it as we were heading for the limo. She sounded like a little bird chirping, she was so happy.

Money. The magic wand.

Maybe that was what kept her running, Wyatt. Maybe it scared her or something. That canyon between us and the real world.

I really thought I had one of the answers for a second or two. Or was sneaking up on one. And then my brain got all scrambled up again.

And stayed that way until what happened next. See, we were driving along, and somebody mentioned that we weren't too far from the new school. She actually said something like, "They gon' have to drive all the way over here next fall."

And after all we'd talked about, and being still sort of stoned, I decided I wanted to go see this beat up building Lakesha'd told me about up close and personal.

The limo dude was up for anything. He probably would've driven us to Mexico if we asked, given how much we'd paid his company to keep him on standby for as long as we needed him. I'd decided to hire a local company because we couldn't have the church people waiting up for us so late. The helo, either, really. That was just for show, to make a big entrance with. But I wasn't about to have a pilot sitting around waiting for a bunch of silly kids to leave the prom.

Limo drivers are kind of used to that. So our driver rolled us right on over there without hesitation. And talk about "which one of these things doesn't belong here," boy, that limo pulling up in front of that bombed out looking a building was the sore thumb to end them all.

It was way worse than I expected. First off, they had this real high chain link fence around it, but it'd been ripped to shreds almost, so all the addicts and whatnot could just about walk right in pretty much.

And the lot around the building was all full of garbage and old mattresses and stuff like that. Trash up to your knees in some places. So when I eased my way in, I stepped on a bunch of those little baggies and vials they put rock in. I mean, crack and whatever else they put in them—a lot of those glass tube pipes, too. God knows what else.

I was leaning down to stare at some of that stuff when Victor goes, "Phew! There's all kinda shit over here on this side, man!"

"All kinda shit over here, too," I said.

"No, he mean real shit," Lakesha said. "Don't you smell that?"

They were over one of those portable bathrooms like the ones Wyatt and I had hidden in over at DeGrazia that first day we met. They're not like the porta potties at concerts and fairs and whatnot, they're like a real bathroom. And even though it wasn't hooked up to any plumbing anymore, the people who broke into the building had decided to use it anyway. It reeked to high heaven.

"Goddamn, these people," Maria said. Her voice sounded like she was about to cry. She was just standing there in her prom gown, hugging her little shrug closed and looking all around, all sad.

But I was mad. Fighting, spitting, head splitting mad. I took out my cell and started walking around shooting pictures and videos of everything. The poop, the drug stuff, the inside that had been busted and graffitt'd up 'til there wasn't even a tiny bit of empty wall space left.

On one wall, somebody had written some kind of prayer but somebody else wrote "AINT NO GOD" over it. There were two dead...somethings in one dark corner. I couldn't tell what kind of animals they were. I hoped they were animals. And then I wondered what they died of. Maybe just of winding up in a place like that. Better dead than alive in a place like that.

Carla leaned down and picked up a gun with her thumb and forefinger and Josue snatched it from her and threw it away. It was a little rusty snub nose with no cylinder.

"Y'all hands gon' fall off," Lakesha teased them. "From leprosy or sum."

"I hope whoever decided to put kids in here gets leprosy or something," I told her.

"You think Miss Wyatt seen this?" Josue asked. I liked that they called her that now. I could tell she'd become a friend more than just a teacher.

In fact, that Brandon guy finally spoke up to say, "Damn, I hope she didn't."

His girl's parents had picked her up, but he stuck with us. And that pretty face of his was all mad, too. He kicked a big old beer bottle and looked around at the mess like it was personal.

"Hard as she work, they gon' do her like this?" was all he could finally say.

I had to walk away, I was so upset. And I couldn't let them see how upset I was because they might put two and two together which would just make more trouble for her.

They wouldn't understand. I knew that, too. They'd probably be all confused and maybe angry with her. And me. Her mostly, though. To them it'd be all wrong. All twisted. And then all the good she'd done would be tainted forever. She'd be gossip. Then a joke. A dirty joke.

Delores was right. There was no way this could turn out but bad.

Lakesha came over with her hand over her mouth and said, "This smell's gon' make me thow up all them waffles. Let's git outta here!"

So we eased back through that fence. And I looked back one last time. And it was like the windows were eyes, staring back at me all haunted. The ghost of the future. Waiting to kill generations of kids like us the way it killed those two things in the corner.

When the limo pulled up to each house after we left, I suddenly wanted to cling to them. Never let go.

The girls gave me the sweetest little teary eyed kisses and bear hugs like they knew why. The guys socked me on the shoulder or did some kind of crazy hand shake and said, "Peace!" or "I'm out!" and walked off real fast like they knew what I was thinking, too.

Lakesha held onto me for the longest time. Or, actually, I think I was the one who did the real holding. That girl was precious to me. Is precious to me. She's my sister love. Up there almost with the girls. That kind of love. Since then, we've had some great times—just so you know. She's family now. We see her all the time.

She hitched up her skirt finally, and I saw she was barefoot.

So I go, "Where'd your slippers go, Cinderella?"

And she picked them up from the ground where she'd dropped them to hug me, and said, "I'ma hang 'em right on my bedroom wall. So I could look at 'em an' remember there's miracles sometimes."

"All kinds, all the time," I said. "I promise."

She gave me one last good look and then said, "They gon' steal the hubcaps off that limo if you don't get outta here, boy."

So I kissed her on the cheek and let her go.

And as soon as I got back into the back of that empty limo, I got out my cell and sent some of the videos to Wyatt. I didn't ask her to answer me or anything. I just sent them, one after the other. Hitting "SEND" like I was trying to poke someone's eyes out. Mad at the world, not her. Okay, a little mad at her. Confused about her. Everything.

And then the craziest thing happened. She sent me a picture, too. Of this mesa that was lit up by the moon, so that you could still see the red color of it, even though it was dark. Or maybe it was lit by her headlights—I have no idea how she did it. But it was incredible. Like she was on Mars or something.

And the text message said, "There's this, too, though..."

And then she sent another picture of this hummingbird drinking from a cactus flower.

Which is when I just sort of chuckled and said, "She's lost her mind."

Only I was sort of enjoying whatever the hell she was doing. Maybe we'd both gone crazy.

But I didn't think so. And I was suddenly wide awake. Something interesting was going on here. I had that gut feeling, you know? That tells you to just ride the wave.

So I texted back, "Where are you? How are you?"

And she sent me a picture of one of those road marker signs, which told me how far away she was in physical miles, but then, she answered, "I'm with YOU."

"Yep, she's lost her mind," I said.

But like I said, I knew she hadn't. She was playing with me. Not in a mean way, not cat and mouse stuff. She was a young girl again, out there, no net, no plan, no fences. Maybe a little scared, too. Feeling alive after sleep walking for so long.

So I just typed, "Love you so much" in case she needed a little extra encouragement. Because hell, I did love her. Nobody understood that but us. And I didn't want to clip her wings.

Damn, this was complicated.

Especially when she typed back, "I know. I'm the hummingbird."

Okay, at first, I didn't get that. And then I did. Totally.

She was depending on me in some way then. Needed me, still. And I missed her bad. In spite of everything. Everybody.

So then I wrote, "Take a picture of yourself right now."

She sent me a hawk in the sky—a little video. And then a picture of herself. She was in her car. Sitting in the passenger seat, facing out, resting maybe. Watching hawks fly.

I wondered where she was headed so early in the morning. Did she even know? Should I ask?

I just wrote, "Please be safe. And light somewhere, wouldja?"

"Almost there," she wrote.

I almost wrote back, but something let me let go.

And then I remembered where I was. And I looked at the driver and said, "God, I'm sorry. I'm all done. We can go now."

"You sure?" the driver said. I think he'd gotten a kick out of us.

"Yeah, I'm runnin' on fumes right now."

He just chuckled and eased on off. And I kicked back, watching that damned hawk video and looking at the picture of her over and over again. Free as a bird, she was. A hummingbird, she said. And I was that cactus flower. Juice. Food. The stuff she lived on.

How could I leave her out there to starve? If that was what she really meant, that is. My head started throbbing like mad and I sat back and rubbed my temples. My eyelids.

And I must've dozed off good, because the next thing I knew, the driver was giving me a gentle shake.

"Home sweet home," he said.

"Shoot me," I said, with my eyes still closed.

"Hey, I'll go if you don't want to," he said. "I'm a big fan."

I managed to open my eyes and ease my way out somehow. And he gave me a pat on the back and said, "It's been an adventure!"

I gave him a big tip, too. There'd be more when the office settled up, but I figured he'd gone above and beyond. And he saluted me with the bills and said, "You ever need this again, I'm your man."

He watched me 'til I got in the house, too. I'd made a new BFF. Two, if you counted poor Loretta back at the Waffle House.

But all I really wanted was a hummingbird.