"Me? Nah." Stony sat up straight. "I just got outta high school."

"Fuck college." He shifted lanes. "The only college worth two shits is the college of life. Am I right?"

"Yeah." Stony leaned back, extracted a cigarette from his shirt pocket.

"So whatta you doin' now, spongin' off yer old man?" The cabby winked in the mirror.

"My father's dead," Stony muttered.

The cabby sucked air through his teeth like he'd just slammed his finger with a hammer. "Hey lissen, I was only fuckin' aroun'. Look, don't mind me, I'm an asshole."

Stony chuckled.

"Where'd you go to school?"

"The Mount."

"Oh yeah, over on the border, right? I went to Evander. You know Evander?"

"Sure."

"I was on the football team there in sixty-two. I was a split end. Although as you can probably tell, I ain't got no split ends no more," he said, caressing his gleaming scalp. "The last fuckin' game a the season, we're playin' Clinton for the city-wides, we're down seventeen-thirteen. Tommy Algiers calls for a stop an' go long bomb, right? Ten seconds to go an' then it's all over. I pull a fuckin' fake on this Polack safety they had, I think the fuckin' guy is still lookin' for me. I'm out all alone on the two-yard line, nobody for miles. Algiers lets loose with this pass, God himself couldn't a thrown a more perfect spiral, I'm standin' there, 'Come to Poppa,' right? The fuckin' ball had radar. So what happens? The fuckin' ball slipped right outta my hands and we lost the championship. Meenga!" He put the fingertips of his right hand together and suddenly released them. "The guys on the fuckin' team were so fuckin' pissed they got me in the locker and shaved my fuckin' head, an' I wore it shaved ever since." He nodded sadly. "Now my friends call me Cleanhead."

"Jesus Christ!" Stony felt the pain.

"Hey, kid?" Cleanhead smiled mischievously in the mirror. "You believe that story?"

Stony frowned at the question, then remembered Evander didn't have a football team in the sixties because a girl had been knifed in a fight after a game with Clinton in fifty-eight. Cleanhead watched Stony's expression change from confusion to the old you-got-two-tens-for-a-five?

Cleanhead cackled again, pleased with himself. Stony debated telling him that they were even, that his old man wasn't dead, but he thought better of it.

"You know what I do? Every other time someone comes into the cab, I try to make up a story on the spot about how come I got a shaved head. Some a those fuckin' stories are fuckin' gems too, an' I never use the same story twice." He burst out laughing. "Yesterday I tell this fuckin' guy my wife useta like me rubbin' my head in her pussy, then she got the clap and all my hair fell out, right? I turn aroun' to see if the guy's laughin' an' I see he's wearin' a priest's collar." Cleanhead hit the steering wheel with the flat of his palm. "Can you beat that? But dig this! You know, I say, 'Hey Jeez, Father, no offense.' I didn't know, but the fuckin' guy is laughin' so hard he didn't even hear me. For a second I thought I was on "Candid Camera.' "