There are no more windows, only openings where the windows used to be. Otherwise, the sky is beautiful and the breeze is pleasant. There is the faint sound of whistling in the distance and then footsteps on gravel or broken glass. A man comes to the void where one of the windows used to be and says, everything alright in here? I move my head to better see him and notice that his name patch says: Mr. Meticulous. Just as I’m about to answer he says, fuck. What, I ask, and he shakes his head and says, no bueno. What, I ask again and he says, it’s all fucked up—not to worry though, choppers are heading in this direction. Choppers? Yeah, he says, carrying eight suicide victims. Victims? Unfortunately—ocean burial. But they’ll get you to the field hospital in Fallbrook. I follow his eyes over to the television, where a commercial for American Girl dolls is playing in which the dolls, dressed in silver spangly pants or Tartan tutus, dance and otherwise move according to a primitive or slightly-off version of stop-motion animation while the Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers song “American Girl” plays in the background. Jesus, he says, even during all this they can’t stop selling shit, can they? I look back at him, and he’s looking at me with a great deal of sympathy in his eyes. Used to carry morphine he says, but now all I got is this China White. He turns his fanny pack around so it’s above his groin area and starts rooting around in there, pulling out a spoon, a lighter, and a syringe and setting them neatly on the ledge where the window used to be. In a quick motion, he hops inside and spreads his works on the bed, ties me off with a bit of rubber tubing, then cooks the heroin, loads it into a syringe, and sends me on my way to la-la land. The television plays an old-fashioned debate show where two men argue about Aldous Huxley, socialism, and the innate wickedness of mankind. I look over at his helmet and notice he has a playing card taped to it, only it isn’t a normal playing card but a Walt Whitman playing card. I point to it, and through half-closed eyes, say: Walt Whitman. He touches it and says , oh this, got it from a deck of poet playing cards I swiped off a body in Warsaw, Indiana. He pulls out a few—Emily Dickinson, the two Roberts (Frost and Lowell), and Sylvia Plath. Brecht? I ask, and he says, only Americans. I nod. Putting his works back in his fanny pack, he says, Whitman was a nurse—during the Civil War. Isn’t that beautiful—rather bind up Jonny Reb’s wounds than cut him down. And then, knowing the answer myself, I ask him if Whitman ever had sex with any Confederate soldiers, and he closes my eyes with his gloved fingers and says, shh.