I will never go 100 miles per hour again. I did it once, when I was sixteen. I was with my stepbrother, Erik, on Sunrise Highway on the way into the Hamptons, and we wanted to see if his red Toyota Supra would display 100 in its digital speedometer. It did. The lights went on behind us. The police officer asked if I knew I was going 90. At sixteen, I said, “I actually thought I hit 100.” He didn’t laugh. He asked Erik if he could drive home. Erik was pretending to be asleep.

My mom used to make me breakfast in bed every morning when I was a tween and a teen. Occasionally, she would have to go to work early and would tell me the night before that I needed to make my own breakfast. Sometimes, it bothered me. She was working all the time and had cancer, and I was miffed because I wasn’t getting maple and brown sugar oatmeal in bed with orange juice. Brat.

A long time ago, I made the decision to stop pulling at strings that never end. When someone doesn’t want to answer, that is that. I am no longer in the business of investigation and would much rather spend my time shuffling my fantasy football roster at the last second on a late Sunday morning than trying to drill into steel to get a dixie cup of lukewarm water.

The hair falls down Bobby’s neck in the barber chair. He sees hair from three people merging at his feet. He tells his mom he will be late for dinner. He tells a story to tell a story because everything else seems so beige. The real story is that there is no story. Bobby is just bored.