I've dropped out of college, and spent the last $200 on a one way train ticket to N.C., living with my until-now estranged dad in a small, foreign, southern town and no friends. One week onto a construction job, I hear the guys talking about how one of the carpenters won't be coming in.

"He got arrested," somebody says. "He stabbed his brother at the dining room table."

This revelation is greeted with collective shrugs. "Yeah, they were arguing over the last piece of chicken. Stabbed him right in the gut." More blank head nods and that's-a-shames. But not much more; there is wood to stack.

"Wait," I say, horrified. "He stabbed his brother over a piece of chicken??"

A foreman who I've never spoken to before has been listening in. He has sleepy eyes, a long handlebar mustache, and the biggest hands I've ever seen on a person. He puts one of them on my shoulder. "Son," he says with a soft drawl. "It's never about the chicken."