There are days when whole cities are harried and unshaven; sleepless nights when the sunrise brings no cleansing promise to man or woman alike. Apocalyptic neon columns cut the dawn, leering over the desert, where hundreds of thousands of souls linger in disillusionment and fear as the sirens endlessly scream. It was the morning of October 2nd in Las Vegas, 2017. Sleep-deprived nurses from area hospitals dragged themselves through drive-thrus for coffee, listlessly muttering their orders, shocked by the carnage they’d witnessed only the night before.

In line at the Goodwill in Henderson, just south of the city, one of the nurses seemed liable to combust. His eyes hung down, morose and lamblike, somehow ancient in their grief. He moved up in line clutching a t-shirt bearing the word “HOGWARTS” — a gift for his girlfriend, he said. It was only his first week as a clinical nursing student. As the cashier’s …