Adair, Nebraska, was about an hour and a half’s drive from Omaha. His aunt had offered to pick him up, but he declined. Aunt Cindy meant well, but she was a bit much. It’d be expensive, but he’d take an Uber (they had Ubers in Nebraska, right?) and maybe Cindy could lend him his grandfather’s old station wagon.

At eight o’clock the Eppley Airfield terminal was quiet. It was a haze of fluorescent lights and tired-looking TSA workers. He followed the signs to ground transport, plodding past the kiosk for Omaha Steaks and down the escalator with the rest of the herd. Some familiar faces from the plane—the guy with the bad tattoos, the old lady he helped with the bag, the pretty young woman who kept stealing looks at him—were standing by the luggage turnstile. And then he saw it. The curly-haired man with bloodshot eyes. Matt ambled over to him.

“You look like shit,” Ganesh said after the two man-hugged.

“What are you doing here?”

“Your texts from Cancún were pathetic, so I thought you could use some company.”

He was right about that.

“You got a bag?” Ganesh said, looking at the luggage conveyer belt.

Matt shook his head. He’d left his duffel in Hank’s car on that rural road in Tulum.

“Then let’s get the fuck out of here.”

They proceeded to the parking garage, where Ganesh clicked the key fob on his rental. The lights on a massive Escalade flashed.

“Trying to blend in, I see.” Adair, Nebraska, wasn’t known for its luxury vehicles.

“What’s the problem? It’s American made.” The sum total of Ganesh’s understanding of rural America was from the movies. Matt had introduced him to a favorite, My Cousin Vinny, which was set in Alabama, but it was all the same to Ganesh.

The SUV smelled of cheap air freshener.

Soon they were heading out of the garage, through downtown Omaha and its tiny skyline, and onto the interstate, which turned to a dark highway and an expanse of flatland. They flew by errant farmhouses, stray windmills, and pretty much nothing else for miles.

“There’s so much space,” Ganesh said, scanning the emptiness. “In Mumbai there’s no land left. The only way to go is up.”

“Are the rural areas of India any better?”

“Haven’t seen much of the country, to be honest.”

Matt filled him in on his trip to Mexico. The bizarre encounter with Hank. The scare in the woods. The hostile Mexican cop. The imposing consular officer, Carlita Escobar.

“You, my friend,” Ganesh said, his Indian accent more prominent than usual, “had one fucked-up week.”

“You can say that again.”

“You, my friend, had one fucked-up week,” Ganesh said with a big grin.

It was another hour before the water tower for Adair appeared on the horizon. Ganesh said, “It’s like from the documentary.”

Matt recalled the opening credits from “A Violent Nature,” which included an aerial shot of the town. The voice on the GPS said to take the next exit, and Ganesh took it too fast, the Escalade nearly careening off the ramp.

“You’re going to kill me on the way to a funeral,” Matt said.

As they made their way into town, Matt didn’t look out the window. He didn’t want to face the memories or the nostalgia or whatever would flood through him at the sight of his childhood hometown. He just closed his eyes and waited for Ganesh to take them to the Adair Motel.

The establishment’s name fit the town: no frills, straightforward, matter-of-fact. It was one of the few places that wasn’t named after the proprietor who’d started the business. Places like Parker’s Grocery, Sullivan’s Ice Cream, Anne’s Diner, and so on. Matt supposed no one wanted their legacy to be a low-end motel.

It wasn’t long before the vehicle came to a stop.

Matt opened his eyes, gazed out the window. “What are you doing?” he said. They were parked in the gravel lot of Pipe Layers, Adair’s only bar. Before Charlotte’s murder, Matt’s parents would go there once in a while, usually for a friend’s birthday or a fundraiser for the football team. On a Friday night, the lot was full, the place still the only game in town.

“You look like you could use a drink,” Ganesh said.

“I could use a shower.”

“Come on, just one.”

It was never just one with Ganesh. But Matt liked the company, and the Adair Motel wasn’t exactly the Four Seasons.

“One,” Matt said.

“Sure, sure, sure,” Ganesh said. “I can add this to my list of bars.”

Some people wanted to visit each of the fifty states, some to camp at every national park, some to dine at every Michelin-starred restaurant. But Ganesh strived to have a drink at the weirdest bars in the world. He bragged that he’d been to a bar made completely of ice in Sweden, a bar shaped like a casket in Ukraine, a bar in the trunk of a six-thousand-year-old tree in South Africa, a vampire bar in Tokyo, a bar decorated entirely with women’s undergarments in Florence, and the list went on. He was about to be sorely disappointed.

Pipe Layers looked like Hollywood’s idea of a small-town tavern. It had a long, over-varnished bar with several locals drooping on stools, staring at themselves in the tarnished mirror: weathered farmers, line-workers from the irrigation plant, some saggy-faced old-timers, a barfly. But at the high-top tables and booths, the crowd was younger. Stylish couples—carpetbaggers who worked in white-collar jobs at Adair Irrigation—and casually dressed men and women in their twenties, playing darts and pool.

All of them seemed to stop and stare when Matt entered the establishment. It reminded him of Mexico when the jungle went suddenly quiet: creatures going still from the presence of something that didn’t belong. A threat. The silence lasted only a beat, and the din of the bar returned.

“I have a surprise for you,” Ganesh said.

Matt narrowed his eyes.

From the back of the place came a procession of familiar faces. Kala led the group, looking glamorous as always. Next, Woo-jin towering over her, followed by Sofia in her green military jacket. Curtis, probably the only black guy in the entire bar, was last in line. An inconspicuous group they were not. Ganesh had mobilized the Island of Misfit Toys from Rubin Hall. And they’d dropped everything to be here for Matt. He tried to contain the emotion swelling his chest.

“You didn’t need to come,” Matt said as he hugged Kala, then Sofia. He bumped fists with Woo-jin, who wasn’t one for hugs, and pulled Curtis into a shoulder embrace.

The group convened at two tall high-top tables. Ganesh and Woo-jin headed to the bar to get some pitchers.

As usual, all male eyes were on Kala. She was used to it, Matt supposed. The subtle and not so subtle glances, leering from older men who knew better.

“Look, an old jukebox,” Sofia said. She grabbed Kala by the arm. “We’ll be right back.”

The girls walked confidently through the crowd and leaned over the smudged glass of the jukebox, pointing and giggling. The crunchy opening riff to “Highway to Hell” by AC/DC soon filled the bar. Matt got a lump in his throat listening to one of his father’s favorite bands.

“You okay?” Curtis asked.

“It’s surreal. Being back here.” He looked over at the jukebox again. Two men were talking with the girls. Sofia laughed at something one of them said. Kala paid them no mind, her standard MO.

“When did you all get here?” Matt said. “I mean, how’d you beat me here?”

“Ganesh sent a group text this morning,” Curtis said. “He’d bought everyone tickets and booked a block of rooms.”

Some say the rich are different. In many ways Ganesh was not. He was actually pretty normal by NYU standards: a bright kid living in a crappy apartment, who spent a lot of time smoking weed and trying to hook up with girls. But he was different. Beyond his eccentricities, Ganesh was uncompromising. A concert they all wanted to see sold out? He’d hire the musician to play at a private party. His friends couldn’t afford spring break? He’d charter a plane and rent a beach house. Hamilton tickets? Easy. Reservations at the Polo Bar? No problem. Ganesh didn’t care about material things. He valued experiences and friendship. Money was always available, an afterthought, a means to an end. The rich were indeed different.

Curtis pondered Matt at length. “Are you sure you’re okay? If you want to talk, want to get out of here, we can—”

“No,” Matt said. “Seeing you, having us all together like normal, it’s exactly what I needed.”

The girls found their way back. “Where the fuck are those drinks?” Kala said. She looked over to the bar.

“Were those guys bothering you?” Matt asked.

“We live in New York. I think we’ll be fine, Dad,” she replied.

Matt smiled. He preferred edge to pity any day of the week.

Laughing, Sofia said, “Their names were Stormy and Lightning. They told me their brother’s name is Thunder. I shit you not.”

Ganesh and Woo-jin finally arrived, each carrying a pitcher. Woo-jin also held a glass of water for Curtis.

And it wasn’t long before Sofia was nattering on about politics and the latest Twitter outrage, the guys talking sports, and, of course, Matt and Kala launching into a fierce debate about the best film directors. It was like they were at Purple Haze on a typical Friday night.