The Flying Troutmans by Miriam Toews

was that, okay, yeah, chill, man, he and his buddies had planned this kidnapping for the hell of it, basically. They’d grabbed one of their friends off the street, from behind, wearing balaclavas, shoved a blanket over his head, thrown him into the trunk of one of their dads’ cars and then driven around town drinking Red Bull and Jag. The kid had beenscared shitless at first but had laughed it off in the end. His parents, though, didn’t see it as such a kick and went to the cops.
    What eventually happened? I asked Logan.
    Nothing, he said.
    That’s the case so often, isn’t it, I said.
    Not really, said Logan. Often things do eventually happen.
    Well, there’s that, I said. You guys still friends?
    Of course! said Logan. What do you think?
    I loved that. I loved that Logan and his friends could plot secretly to kidnap another friend of theirs, scare the hell out of him, probably almost suffocate him, definitely scrape him up a bit by throwing him around and everything, get his parents on their asses, not to mention the law, and still come out, natch, as friends! Beautiful.
    Logan was quizzing Thebes with a German accent. He’d spent about five minutes getting his hair to stand straight up. Now he was asking her scientific questions about histograms and grids and bio-amplification.
    Thebes told us about her book report. She’d taken one of Min’s books: Clara Callan. I wrote that Clara is independent, said Thebes, and makes her own decisions. She decides that she doesn’t believe in God and that she will stop going to church. Another decision she makes is to have an abortion in New York City after being raped by a monkey-faced hobo near the train tracks. I concluded that I thought these were excellent decisions because it means Clara is taking control of her own life, and because I knew Min would like the sound of that.
    Logan told us there were three girls with babies in his Family Studies class.
    Really? I said. And the fathers?
    He shook his head slowly, sighed like a burned-out social worker with an impossible caseload, and said in a fake earnest voice, Yup, where are the fathers?

 
    seven
    I WONDERED WHAT WAS HAPPENING TO MIN right now. Was she strapped to a gurney with wires stuck to her head and a spoon in her mouth, wild eyes, and eighteen thousand sparky volts of electroshock frying her brain, filling up the spaces with smoke and ash, and helping her to reconfigure her negative thinking into something less painful but empty? I imagined her doctor sitting in aroom next to hers, staring at a computer screen, saying boo-yeah! with every direct hit to her memory target. Or who knows, maybe she was strong enough to sit up and join the “Koombaya” gang in the common room. Hey there, Min, what do you see down by the river? Maybe she was enjoying a moment in her life, a sliver of light, a flash memory of one of her kids, something sweet and approaching reality.
    I remembered Min telling me that Logan had had an imaginary friend for a while when he was three or four. His name was Jackson Whinny. He was a football star but he could never play because he was always injured and he only ate fast food and he lived with his mom even though he was a grown man because he needed her to take care of him and his injuries. His other imaginary friend was named Willie the Ghost, but he wasn’t around too often. Min said Logan’s little mind was creating a more gradual exit for the people who had once been in it and then— BOOM —one day weren’t. She said he was subconsciously buying himself time to get his brain around it.
    Â 
    Hey, said Thebes, there’s someone behind us flashing his lights. We’re gonna get jacked!
    I checked the rear-view mirror. Two guys in a half-ton. Logan turned around for a look.
    Don’t pull over, he said. Speed up.
    No, that’s dumb, I said. But I sped up anyway. Isn’t this supposed to happen in Miami or something? I