96.

When Phoenix and Cairo were children, they found a duck caught in the curbside gutter grate. Like any respectable small animal in a childhood story, this duck was an object lesson.

The elder – eight, new to addiction, August bronze and already letting Cool and Vitamin D fight for his adolescence-scheduled cancer – flicked his cigarette with a virginal finesse to the curb. Scorched feathers, a shriek from the littler boy:

“You hurt him!”

“We wouldn’ta found ’im otherwise.”

Phoenix watched his idol, up-and-coming sage, wrest the object lesson free.

Phoenix grows up with a lot of scars.