“He looked smaller once he stopped talking into the microphone,” Matty said.

He hooked his round glasses back over his ears and pushed them up his nose with his thumb.

“People usually do once they quit shouting,” I said.

I pulled off the left boot and rapped the toe against the porch step, watching another handful of Sandbridge sand fall into the dirt.

“Did you know Master Chief Vance would stand up?” Matty asked.

“I knew he was at the table right next to ours,” I said.