He woke a cold fingers on his wrist. She plucked his slung forearm from her waist, fingers braced like pinchers, as though she were handling a dirty pair of underwear or a vial of some exotic virus. There was no sun in their room. The sun couldn't shine through his blackout roller shades. They slept on a worn mattress. Their hand-me-down headboard shivered and creaked while she slid to a stand. He heard her padding into the bathroom. He heard the toilet flush. He peeked at her with his cheek mashed against his pillow when she returned, his dog click-clacking on the farmhouse's tired floors, tagging at her heel. She didn't look at him while she shaped her hair like a ballerina's, jabbing at it with safety pins until it made a tight bun. Her eyes were set steadfast on the mirror above the dresser, but she felt his gaze. "The radio isn't on," she deadpanned. "I know." She glanced over him while she smoothed the skirt to her uniform over her glossy brown legs. Her legs were skinny. They had always reminded him of a fawn's. "Do you?" She sniped back. And just like that, she was gone. Off to work; the AM shift at a tourist seafood chain along the Bayou. —- He returned to the port three days later and didn't bother helping the boys drag their measly catch from the trawler. He hopped in his truck smelling heavy of fish and cold sweat. He peered over the rearview mirror while the truck wobbled and turned over. The sun had cracked his skin like starbursts around his eyes, his cheeks blackened like a miner. Disembodied talk radio voices cut through the silence, but his reflexes were quick, and he jammed the heel of his palm against the dial. His tags swayed from the rearview while he gunned it down swampy rural roads. —- The farmhouse was his daddy's, and his daddy's daddy, and his daddy before that. It stood three stories tall, built like a too-narrow shelf against the night sky. It was flanked by acres upon acres of bygone cotton fields and had a warm front porch that still smelled like fresh-brewed tea and butter loaf. He got married on that porch. He was eighteen years old and balls-deep in love with the little black girl from the next town over. His mother wept uncontrollably into her Virginia Slim while he fumbled through his vows. "What're you doing out here?" He cooed to his border collie who had sprung up from the welcome mat to greet him. Her eyes were zany and fluorescent yellow in the moonlight, she whined and circled him nervously while he scratched behind her ears. The house was dark, but that wasn't unusual, seeing as how Stella had been staying out later and later these days. But the dog outside, well, that was a bit odd. At first nothing seemed unusual. His hand swatted at the wall blindly, fondling for the light switch as he always did when he walked inside. A rustic chandelier cued a spotlight on the foyer and he moved through the house like clockwork. He tossed his keys on the kitchen counter and smeared his shirt above his head and dropped it in a basket in the mud room. And that was when he gave pause. He backpedaled one, two feet, and stared into the kitchen. The wall where she insisted he build a rack for their pots and pans was barren. The tight crease of his lips gave away a little bit. His brows dipped. He began to open drawers. No silverware. No postcards with palm trees melting in a candlewax sunset from his sister in L.A. Now the drawers were thrashing. No stamps. No rubberbands. No, no, no—- He bolted up the stairs and tore through the empty hangers in her closet. He turned to stare at the dog, bug-eyed in disbelief. Her tail drooped between her legs and she hung her head. "I'm sorry," he said to no one. —- He wanted to take a bath. He stood stark naked in the bathroom over the tub. The fat, globe-shaped vanity lights sounded like bumblebees. He wanted to take a bath because he liked the way it singed his skin. He liked to imagine he was a despairing lobster boiled alive. But he couldn't take a bath. He couldn't take a bath because of her fucking hair. They used to joke that she shed worse than the dog. But it wasn't really funny anymore. There was a curly clump of her hair wadded up in the drain as per usual. Usually he'd pull these out without a second thought and toss it in toilet. In fact, he always thought it was kinda cute, touching her hair. Touching her hair whether it was attached to her or not. But now he felt anxiety welling in his chest and he felt the cold sweat break out at his temples. A lump caught in his throat and he just stared, and stared. Ten minutes passed before he finally sprung forward like a game dog snagging its kill. He went to pluck the seemingly inane little tangle of hair from the drain when the strangest thing happened—-it wouldn't end. He was pulling the hair from the drain like a magician's scarf trick. It was never-ending, ceaseless. He was pulling hair and it was dropping at his side like a limp rope. The horror he felt in that moment was unparalleled; maybe it was because he understood that the detached limbs flying through the air were related to the boom of an IED, maybe it was because when his father dropped to one knee at the kitchen table with his hand splayed at his heart like he was pledging allegiance was a sign of a heart attack—- but this, this made no sense. It was absurd, there was no logic. The hair kept coming. It just kept coming. He didn't hear himself scream, if you could even call it that, because it was muted and warbling in his throat. He didn't remember dashing from the bathroom and grabbing his shotgun from behind the couch. He didn't remember his dog jumping obediently into the bed of the truck only for her master to command her to join him in the cab instead. He didn't remember that he was taking the route to Stella's daddy's house ten miles away and that his headlights were off. But he did remember that the radio was on, and that "War Pigs" was blaring so loud he thought his ears would bleed. It was because the radio was always on.