Summary

After Soot and Paul's encounter with the cop, Soot started seeing his dead father. His imagination comforted him and allowed him to escape to a place that "felt like home" (249). It was a place where he never felt "alone or afraid or ashamed," a place he "could love himself always" (249). Yet while this place gained dimension in Soot's mind, it did not have a name and was in fact "a dream" (250).

After the meeting, the narrator takes a walk. He realizes how beautiful "the quiet of small towns" can be (253). He cannot remember anything he said at the church, but knows that it "captured something" (253). He wonders if his poor memory is a form of protection. Dwelling on the past too long, "terrifies [him]" (254). While walking, he encounters a White man "with a vaguely familiar look" (255). He soon realizes that the White man...