He'd shown the first signs of actually being drunk around 6 pm and it had only gotten worse since, with him having stripped down to just his jeans and tattoos and begun to stalk the house like a wild man, one minute singing to “Cotton Eye Joe” by Rednex (emanating tinny and monotone from the boombox he’d found in the basement and plied with D batteries from the junk drawer) for the 20th time and the next bellowing taunts and challenges to “Silent Jim”—the raptor’s official name now—from the back deck. Nor had he forgotten about the rifle—at least not for very long—although it was hoped that Nick and Selena’s stealthy intervention early in the evening (in which they’d emptied the clip and hid the bullets in an old VHS case) had mitigated the threat. Still, Nick had to wonder as the man grew
