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the truth, hoping you understand. I never did understand, mostly because I wanted people to think highly of me, so it was my practice to lie about such things.
    â€œHow do you like being a cop with AISD?”
    Doleful eyes turned to me, and his shoulders seemed to slumpeven farther. “Do you know what they make me do? Do you know how I start my job every day?”
    I shook my head.
    â€œI'm not at any of the regular schools, you see. They figured with my experience I could handle being at ALC. You know what that is?”
    â€œI just started here, didn't look through my acronym dictionary yet.”
    â€œAlternative Learning Center. It's where the kids get sent when they fuck up at school. When they fight or bring in shit they shouldn't. It's one stop short of juvenile court, and pretty much every kid you see here will either be at ALC already, or will go there once you've finished with him. It's basically a school for all the little shits in Austin.”
    â€œSounds delightful.”
    â€œYou know what my job is every morning?” he asked again. “They make me sniff their fingers.”
    â€œWhat?” I genuinely didn't understand. “Who makes you sniff whose fingers?”
    â€œThat's my job. To sniff the fingers of the little assholes when they come to school every morning, and sometimes after lunch. It's to see if they've been smoking weed.”
    â€œThat's…unpleasant.”
    â€œIt's worse than that, it's disgusting. They're the punks and I'm the one being humiliated. They know it, too.”
    â€œAnd what if you smell weed on them?”
    â€œThat gives me probable cause to search their stuff. Backpacks, pockets, whatever.”
    â€œI can't believe they make you do that. Can you refuse? Tell them to buy a dog, or something?”
    â€œNo.” He heaved a sigh and looked up at me. “Truth is, I can't lose this job, Dom. It's part-time as it is. I'm hoping to live like a beggar for a year or two, cash in my retirement, and go buy out half of my brother's business, a bar on the beach in Tampa. Twenty grand, and I can spend my days wearing flowered shirts and servingdrinks to chicks in bikinis. I'm looking to start a new security gig soon, some fancy new apartment complex off Seventh Street, all co-eds and cheerleaders, I'm hoping.”
    â€œThat doesn't sound too bad.”
    â€œYeah, if it happens. Meanwhile, I gotta hold on a little while longer, and I sure as hell can't afford to lose this job, no matter what they make me do.”
    â€œJeez, I'm sorry.” I wasn't, I didn't care in the slightest, but I also didn't know what else to say. Every thought that popped into my head made the humiliation worse, and I saw no point in that right now. The guy wasn't wallowing in his misery. He'd all but given up the struggle, like a man neck-deep in quicksand, hoping against hope that by staying still he'd make it. But I also didn't have the mental energy to steer us back toward a polite and meaningless conversation, so I just asked him about the case, the reason he was there. We looked over his written report of the incident, going through the motions, pretending he needed to be prepped.
    He left after about twenty minutes, offering a handshake that my father would have described as “wet-fish”—cold, clammy, and weak. I walked out into the atrium with him and watched as he trudged down the stairs into the parking lot. I half expected him to climb onto an AISD bicycle, complete with pink ribbons and basket, but I remembered his weight and figured he'd not seen a bicycle in a few years. An image of donkey transportation popped into my head, but I held my smile until I was sure he wouldn't see me. I scanned the lot, looking for a police vehicle, wondering if they'd given him that much, but it was his own car he clambered into, a battered white Chevy with one working brake light and a rear license plate screwed on not quite straight.
    I turned back