There was an ocean nearby and a boardwalk from where one night while sleeping the boy I was rooming with came limping back howling with his ribs smashed by bandits Having been up most of the night hearing him moan even after the ambulance sped him away I was tired the next day when Paula Greenland came to visit me, smiling At sixteen she might be my first lifelong friend, I thought She walked back home because on this holiday her religion forbid riding in a vehicle and she was struck by a truck dying on the way to the hospital covered in blood I was sweeping piles of dust in the dining room when the call came and I cried into my stiff, red hotel jacket All day the radio played “Everything is beautiful, in its own way”