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Show 27 was still a virgin, but not for lack of effort. I thought I had some faith, but it didn't feel like fire, the way others described it. Brad, Travis and Chris were Mormon too, but they had already made adamant and repeated declarations that they were never going on a mission. That Alan-less summer I usually just aimed for Travis' house once the sun went down. But after he got caught shoplifting three energy drinks and a VHS of Magnolia from Smith's, he was in trouble with his parents for the first time I was aware. He was grounded and that deflated the summer even more. I didn't see a lot of nighttime options except walking around alone. But there's at least this to say about being sixteen years old in Pleasant Grove, Utah: the streets are as quiet and dark as an empty church if you can keep the dogs content, and the sporadic street lights glimmer with openness and the apocalyptic feeling of being the last one alive. There are few enough street lamps to keep the lighting dim enough to see the stars, some of them anyway. I never knew if I was seeing planets or satellites-dim lighting mixed with my mediocre vision made the sky look like the residue of a fire with glints of glass mixing with ash. I walked either up the street to Walkers or Smith's, or into the apple orchard. I mainly saw only cats from my house until Smith's if I took that route, and I tried to emulate their ability to look more wiry and sleuth at night. In the orchard I scared myself with the possibility of running into moon-lit deer that I imagined would be potentially violent at night. From the orchard I could sometimes hear barking far off, but distant enough to be no more obtrusive than a |