Todd ran. He ran through the stacks and past the shelves. He ran like he’d never run before, like he never thought he could run before. Behind him, the Harley’s engine roared. Silence in the library! Todd thought mirthlessly. He could hear the bike getting nearer by the second. Desperately, he tore through the building, looking for a doorway.

And then, miracle of miracles, there was a doorway. Todd grabbed the handle. It was stuck. The bike was rounding a corner now. Todd tore at the handle, and it turned. He looked behind him. The bike was bearing down on him now like a missile.

She grinned.

Her teeth were white.

Her teeth were red.

Todd yanked the door open, leapt through, and slammed it behind him.

*  *  *

The truck was only doing fifty when it hit him but it splashed him across the sidewalk like paint.

A small crowd gathered. A man who said he was a doctor bent down.

“There’s nothing we can do,” he said.

“Ambulance is on its way,” said a store owner.

The driver of the truck jumped down from his cab.

“I saw it all,” said a woman. “It wasn’t your fault.”

They looked down at the body on the ground. It was still moving.

“He just jumped out,” said the truck driver. “He just jumped out right in frunna me.”

*  *  *

The Harley and its rider waited in an alley until the paramedics came. They put Todd’s body on a gurney, and placed a sheet over his face.

The Harley roared away into the night.

Epilogue

EPILOGUE

It was a Saturday night in June, 1986, in Madison, Wisconsin. “Live To Tell” by Madonna was number one and a group of college students were talking in a bar.

“No,” said one of them. He was wearing a greatcoat with the cuffs rolled up and his Ray-Bans were brand new. “Women aren’t like that.”

“Kevin,” said a girl. She was called Zoe and had just discovered Marlboro Lights. “I am a woman. You need to defer to me on this.”

“She’s got you there,” said another guy. He was called Lewis and he was uncomfortable in his tight Depeche Mode T-shirt.

Kevin shrugged. He wasn’t going to defer to someone because of mere facts. Facts were tools, and when tools didn’t work, you discarded them. Like his girlfriend back in Wisconsin.

Kevin adopted a conciliatory expression.

“It’s like the guy said…”

“What guy?” said Lewis.

Kevin ignored him and took a deep breath.

“Men were men, her father always said, and women were women. But looking at the flabby old fool now, sitting there in his vest like a soft queen of some race of grubs, she saw that some men were not men.”

Even Zoe was impressed when Kevin quoted stuff. When he was done, she said, “Wow. What was that from?”