To answer your question, they call me Fright because my father nicknamed me that when I was born. I think he didn’t like my face. As I grew up no one else did either. I never wanted any sort of trouble, but once you have the reputation it’s hard. When I got into fights I always tried to let the other guy get in the first punch, which I figured established me on the moral high ground. Later on, that wasn’t always feasible: With knives and guns you really have to get in there first, you know.
         In my line of work you don’t find too many people to talk to, so I sure appreciate this. Actually there was this one lady, they sent me to her in high school, she took an interest. She got me to talk about my childhood, and it did help me to put some things together.
         When I was seven I had scarlet fever—I didn’t know that, but she had my medical records. And actually I did remember it, sort of. Right before I got sick, I’d been reading this picture book, something about Oriental folk tales it must have been, and the only thing I remember about it for sure is this scene of these Chinese villagers lighting all these red lanterns and some of them they set off to float off on the lake and some of them must have been lighter because they drifted off into the night sky, so there were dozens of these red lanterns near and far, on the water and in the air and reflected on the water too. And that got mixed up in my mind with my real life, so sometimes it seemed like I was in my bed and sometimes it seemed like I was floating off somewhere with the lanterns, and sometimes I felt like each lantern floating away was taking part of me with it and leaving the rest of me behind. It might sound pretty but mostly it was lonely.
         One night when I was just about better my mother woke me up and hustled me outside. All our neighbors were there. The apartment building across the street was on fire. Yeah, it did remind me of the lanterns. We watched as the firemen put it out, and no one was hurt, but later she whispered to me, Don’t tell anyone what you did. I didn’t understand. I’d been asleep, I hadn’t done anything.
         But when I was all better it was hard to know what was real anymore and what was my imagination. I don’t have what you call dreams. What happens in my brain is real no matter what time of day it is. I got my arm cut last week and it was the same as watching sap leak out from a broken branch. When I get hit in the face I see red lanterns. I know this isn’t normal, but to me it always seems like the world is a kind of skin of scum on the water that I could brush all aside if I wanted to, or I could poke you with my fingernail and you’d pop like a bubble or just disappear into ripples.
         Now where were we?
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