His fly was still open. His cock was still out. He was limping. And he didn’t look like he saw us at all. His face was all wet. And when I looked back, he was staggering toward Hogg’s truck. The last I saw, he’d gotten the door open, and it looked like he was trying to reach in and feel around for something under the seat.

I could still taste that funny stuff.

I wish I’d made him come.

With Denny it never did take that long.

8

“Shit!” Hawk stood on the gravel shoulder, scowling and knuckling his crotch with one thumb. “Goddamn motherfuckin’ shit!”

“Cocksucker,” the policeman said. He wasn’t talking to me. It was halfway into evening. “Do I ever have your ass! Three people on the bike. None of you got helmets. The black boy’s riding barefoot—I don’t know, but that’s got to be illegal. And then that—” With a sick grin he pointed to the limousine, on its roof, wheels to the sky and still turning. One headlight fanned off into the trees. “Do I ever have your ass, cocksucker!”

“He was the one who tried to run me off the road!” Hawk shook his head. He was really angry. But he was scared too. “The motherfucker came screaming up behind us—he jumped the damn divider, man—and went rollin’ wheels over headlights down the goddamn highway! I mean, look at him.…” Hawk gestured with a greasy fist.

The policeman was looking at Hawk. “You guys who like to run around wavin’ your armpits in the batman costumes, or whatever you call that get-up: I get a kick when I get a chance to put one of you fuckers in your place.” He gave the same sick grin to Hawk he had to the wreck. “I really do.”

“Aw, fuck off!” Hawk said, and looked around.

The nigger was standing quiet by the back of the bike, his arms crossed, one foot across the other and digging at a twig or something with his toe, pretty much staring at the ground.

I walked away from the ’cycle toward the car.

“Hey …” the policeman said. “Where the fuck is the kid going?”

“Same place I was,” Hawk said. “Same place you ought to be. Suppose somebody’s left alive in that thing!”

“Hey, you!” the policeman hollered. “You can’t go messin’ with wrecks like that. Sometimes they explode! Or just catch fire or something. You can get hurt. Hey!”

Gas was running from under the hood. The green gum of oil snaked through, gleaming in the evening. It was a big, black limousine, with curtains in the back windows, like a hearse. It slanted off the road, head first, tilted down. The car radio was playing an old Mamas and Papas song, “This is Dedicated.”