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“Apologizing? For stalking me?”

“No. On account of I was drinking so much, last time I saw you. Well, finally I quit it, praise God.”

“You did?” It seemed we were both doing New Year’s resolutions, without the New Year to help us out.

“Swore it off. Had to. The long arm of the law caught me falling down, you might say, and they were going to confiscate my truck and my license, so I had to go into this treatment group. I did it. I swore it off and I’m making amends. Hardest thing I ever managed to do.”

“You sound different.”

“Well, I am different. Ashamed of the way I acted. I don’t know what-all got into me. And besides I forgave you for all the stealing, you loaded down with my stuff. I didn’t care about that worldly goods anyway. It was castoffs. You could have had it, you being Oscar’s wife, if you’d asked.”

“I never stole anything. Really.”

“Okay.” He waited. “I know that was what you said. Well, you got your story and I got mine. Difference of opinion. I guess everybody’s got a story, right?” He waited for me to agree with him, and when I didn’t, he said, “Anyhow Oscar’s gone. Poor kid. I guess I was angry at him way too much.”

“That’s right.”

“I was so surprised and done in by events that I pretty much got dead drunk when you asked me for help on the funeral arrangements. I don’t know what got into me, what I done or said. The devils, I guess. I got a problem with the devils, I can tell you right now. Sorry I couldn’t do more. A kid his age, he was too young to have a heart attack. You told me where you put his ashes, but you’ll have to tell me again. I blacked out on everything after he died.”

“In Saginaw Forest,” I said, lying to him.

“That’s a pretty place, I been there. Well, now he’s dead, Oscar might do the trees some good, the way he did you. He was a handful. And sometimes he sure acted too smart with me. That boy was constant trouble.”

“He did me some good,” I said. “He was the best person I ever knew.” I could have hung up, but I didn’t. “Yes,” I said. “He was.”

“Well, is that a fact? I’m sure glad. You know, Oscar was so often a terror, and when he wasn’t a terror, he couldn’t be moved off the sofa. The drugs did that to him. They made him lazy, and then he had a mouth on him when I’d get on him. We had quite a household. Between us, it was like a war, so I’d make myself scarce, and when I was around, he could be as mean as my own daddy had been. ‘Course I miss him. You always miss your children.”

“Yes,” I said.

“It must be there was a side to him I almost never saw. I was mostly proud of him when he was running. That boy could run the relay as fast as anything, and that was when I was happy to claim him as my own. But so much of the rest of the time, I just had to put up with him and his drugs and troublemaking and his smart mouth, but like I say, maybe there’s another side to matters and I’d like to hear your side. You probably saw things I never saw. You got a side?”

“Yes,” I said. “I have a side.”

“Well, see, that’s just what I’m saying. You got a side. You’ve got a story. You probably got a story about Oscar. You probably know something about him that even I never got me no idea of.”

“Probably.”

“So what I was thinking was, you should tell me your side, since I want to hear it so much, with my son dead and gone and his ashes in Saginaw Forest.” The Bat waited, and all at once I thought I had caught his drift. “We oughta you and me meet face to face, so you can tell me your side,” he said, as if thinking it over. “I want to hear about Oscar from you.”

There was a long pause in there, while I waited. “What’re you suggesting, Mr. Metzger?”

“You mean I’m not being clear? I sure thought I was. Goddamn if I’m confusing you. I was kinda hoping you’d invite me over that apartment of yours.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe a restaurant’d be better.”

“You want to come over here?” he asked. “It’s kinda dusty. I’d have to clean up and mostly I’m too tired at the end of the day to do that.” He sighed. “I could,