tower on the apex of the roof and a blue neon cross mounted above the entranceway. In back were a mechanic?s shed and, next to it, a cemetery whose graves were strewn with plastic flowers and jelly glasses green with dried algae. Even with the windows wide open, the air inside the building was stifling, the wood surfaces as warm to the touch as a cookstove. Pete had arrived early at the meeting, and rather than sit in the heat, he went outside and sat on the back steps and looked at the strange chemical-green coloration in the western sky, the sun still as bright as an acetylene torch on the earth?s rim. The sedimentary layers of the mesalike formations were gray and yellow and pink above the dusk gathering on the desert floor. Pete felt as though he were sitting at the bottom of an enormous dried-out riparian bowl, one shaped out of potter?s clay in a prehistoric time, the land giving off an almost feral odor when rain tried to restore it to life.

The man who sat down next to Pete on the step was wearing an immaculate white T-shirt and freshly pressed strap overalls. He smelled of soap and aftershave lotion, and his dark hair was boxed on the back of his neck. His thick half-moon eyebrows were neatly clipped, the cleft in his chin shiny from a fresh shave. There was a bald spot in the center of his head. When he stared southward at the desert, his mouth was a gray slit without expression or character, his eyes dulled over. He pulled a cigarette out of his pack with his lips, then shook another one loose and offered it to Pete.

?Thanks, I never took it up,? Pete said.

?Good choice,? the man said. He lit his cigarette and blew the smoke from the side of his mouth deferentially. ?I?m new at this meet. How is it??

?Don?t know. This is my first time here, too.?

?You got some sobriety in??

?A few days, that?s about it. I?ve got a twenty-four-hour chip.?

?Twenty-four hours can be a bitch.?

?You work here?bouts?? Pete asked.

?I was hauling pipe between Presidio and Fort Stockton, up to last month, anyway. I got a service-connected disability, but my boss was a pretty hard-nosed character. According to him, time in the Sandbox was for jerks.?

?You were in Iraq??

?Two tours.?

?My tank got blown up in Baghdad,? Pete said.

The man?s eyes drifted to the long welted scar that ran like a pink raindrop down the side of Pete?s face. ?You start drinking when you came home??

Pete studied the deepening color in the sky, the hills that seemed humped against a fire burning just beyond the earth?s rim. ?It runs in my family. I don?t think the war had much to do with it,? he said.

?That?s a stand-up way to look at it.?

?How much sobriety you have??

?A couple of years, more or less.?

?You have a two-year chip?? Pete said.

?I?m not big on chips. I do the program my own way.?

Pete folded his hands and didn?t reply.

?You got wheels?? the man said.

?I hitched a ride with a guy who smelled like a beer truck. I asked him to come in with me, but he said Jesus?s first miracle was turning water into wine, and his followers weren?t hypocrites about it. I couldn?t quite fit all that together.?

?Want to get some coffee and a piece of pie after the meet? I?m springing,? the man in overalls said.

During the meeting, Pete forgot about his conversation with the man he?d met on the back steps. A woman was talking about going on a dry drunk and experiencing flashbacks that returned her to the inside of a blackout. Her voice, like that of a benighted soul forced to witness light, became threaded with tension as she told the group she might have killed someone with her automobile. The room was quiet when she finished speaking, the people in the pews and folding chairs staring at their feet or into space, their faces wan, each knowing the speaker?s story could have been his or her own.

After the meeting, the man in overalls helped stack chairs and wash out cups and the coffeemaker. He glanced in the direction of the woman who thought she might have committed vehicular homicide. He lowered his voice. ?That one is about to talk herself into Huntsville pen,? he said to Pete.

?What you hear and who you see here stays here. That?s the way it?s supposed to work,? Pete said.

?Anybody who believes that