When we walked inside, the clerk, a square-shouldered man with a wide jaw squinted at us, but when we returned his stare he looked down. Everyone stared at us. Angrily, with visible suspicion, bald hatred, even menace. When we approached the counter Hand said hi to the burly man, with a little wave. The man did not return the greeting. We paid our money and the man slammed our change on the counter in a way that told us to leave, quickly, that we were not welcome. Now we were driving again through the frozen everything, on a two-lane road cut through a dark forest of straight thick unbending trees.

"They should like you," I said, pointing out that Hand, with his Aryan looks, his blond hair and dark eyes, at least seemed to belong here.

"But you're the Pole," he said.

"I'm a fourth Polish," I said. It might have been less. It was my father's name, which diminished my attachment to it, to its origin, to the ancestors whose genes gave way to that man.

"I know this comparison is going to sound weird," Hand was saying, "but I feel like we're black and in the Jim Crow south. Like they know they have to accept our money but they don't like it one bit. Like everyone here's just waiting for us to leave. I mean, do we look fucked up or something? Are we dressed funny?"

"You look like a snowboarder, I look like a junior explorer, and my face looks like something rotting."

– Why are you people the way you are?

– You cannot judge us.

– I know you.

– We have been overrun for centuries. The Swedes, the Germans, the Russians. Then the Germans again, the Russians again. In the last thousand years, we have known twenty years of peace. You have no place to judge. You know nothing.

– But I do!

– You can't ever guess at life, at pain. All pain is real, and all pain is personal. It's the most personal thing we have. It eats each of us differently.You cannot know.

– But I can! I can!

The road was tedious, without light or interruption. For a while we drove with our tongues. The road was empty and dry and I was behind the wheel and tried it first. I pushed my tongue down hard and got a sort of grip on the wheel. I could easily keep the car straight, but did not try turning. Then Hand, leaning over, licked the wheel to steer. It didn't work as well from the side. We kept veering. I wiped it down with one of Hand's shirts.

"That was fun," he said.

It wasn't all that much fun. For more fun we stopped for a second to practice rolling over the car like stuntmen, in case we got hit from the side while walking, or if we were chasing someone with a gun. We stopped and Hand got out. Then I drove, very slowly, and Hand ran from the side of the road, jumped, and rolled over the hood, regaining his feet on the right side. It was pretty smooth. Then we switched and I did it. For a moment, sliding over the hood, I knew I could have been a great cop. But being a cop requires you are forced to react only – your destiny daily is determined by the failings of the world.

We didn't have coats and after a few minutes couldn't feel our extremities. In the car we threw the heat on.

"I can't believe we never tried that before."

"I know," Hand said. "It's totally a skill you need."

Stopped in the road, our headlights were the only illumination for what seemed like hundreds of miles, though they, feeble and pointing down, made clear only the fifteen feet ahead of us.

"Let's run," Hand said.

"Where? The road?"

"Through the woods."

"Okay."

We ran down the embankment into the woods. It was absolute black. I knew one of us would hit a tree. I ran with my hands outstretched, like a blind sprinter. Hand hooted. We were running at full speed, dodging the trees, our footsteps skatching loudly under us on the thick crosshatched forest floor. My eyes were tearing up in the cold wind. The tears were leaving my eyes quickly and shimmying toward my ears. Hand was running with his arms out, too. I turned around briefly to see how far we'd gone. The car was visible but small. When Hand and I were young, before we knew Jack, we ran from the older kids. At high school football games, which were too boring to possibly watch, we'd throw acorns at their heads and run. We were never caught; we knew every hiding place, every gully and footbridge along the creek behind the field. Lord – just now I jumped over a circle of stones, the remnants of a fire in its center – what were we doing in Latvia?

Now there was snow again. It was black but the trees were slightly blacker, and the snow poked tiny holes into the surface of the night. My breathing was becoming louder, filling my head, and the leaves underfoot were hitting my feet harder -

I fell. The ground was soft and it was a relief to fall. It was warmer on the ground. Hand was ahead and still running. I turned onto my back and looked up through the black interlocking boughs, their edges silver. My breathing was so loud.

I had the fake star stickers on the ceiling of my room at home. The room had been Tommy's first, and he'd done it, and now they curled from the ceiling at their points. They didn't glow.

I would get up. I would walk the cold steps to my mom's room and as soon as her door was cracked her eyes would be open. She did not sleep the way people should sleep. She rested but never slept. C'mere sweetie, she would say and open her covers. The smell was sweat and lemon; her breath was so warm. It was so hot under that I wondered if I should go back, to my bed with its space, my cool blanket, my cool pillow. She would scratch my back softly for a few seconds and whisper

Oh Will

Oh William

Oh William honey

Oh Will my dearest one

Will, Will my son

then stop, falling back asleep, or wherever it was that she went. I would lie, staring at the painting on the wall, it appearing black and white in the dim foggy light. In the painting was a sailboat on sawhorses, tilted, with a green lake in the background. Or maybe a river. It was a boat being repaired – the picture was called "By Spring We Sail" – painted by my grandfather, she had explained once, hands on my shoulders as we looked at it. In her bed I would stare at this painting, its yellow greys and grey blues, its hollow whites, at the way the naked trees bent and the ground beneath them twisted and knotted.

Sometimes I wouldn't fall asleep and would slip out of the bed – from her hot face a breathy "Okay, sweetie, you go back to bed now" – and would slowly open her door, its bottom shushing over the carpet, slowly close it again, shushing again, and then would sit in the hallway, in front of the linen closet, sliding its two doors back and forth, slowly, first one open then the other. I would sleep in that closet often, on the floor, covered in towels. I would sleep anywhere; I would love to hear her looking for me in the mornings. I slept in the bathroom, head under toilet. I slept in the living room, under the glass coffee table, waking up to the white-ringed bottom of my milk glass from the night before; in the car I slept again and again, in the driver's seat, as she had so often done on long trips, after pulling over to rest on the heat-blurred highway.

– Hand you're the one we never were sure about. When something had to be done, it wasn't you we went to. I went to Jack and Jack went to me. I trusted Jack. I trust you, too, but I knew, we knew, that you would not be there – not always. You were usually there but you have to always be present. Most of being a man is being there, Hand.

– You're talking about your father again.

– I am not!

– You are.

– I am. He was not there and that means you must! It means I know a man from a worm. And it means I have no patience for men who are worms. For men who are not there.

– But this whole trip, Will, is about you not being there. You're not anywhere. Where are you? Who are you there for? You're halfway across the world, driving at 100 mph through countries you know next to nothing about.