“Hey!” he exclaims. Tailgating the Audi, a black-and-silver Ford Expedition, a huge SUV with truck wheels and a side mirror the size of a human head, keeps coming, trying to barrel through out of turn, against all decency and order. Some brat of the local rich, beered-up and baseball-hatted, with his smirking airhead buddies, gives Nelson a glazed so-what stare. Nelson sees red. “That fucker,” he says. This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down. Pru shrieks when she realizes that Nelson’s foot is firm on the accelerator and that nothing short of ramming into the Expedition will stop their forward motion. Its fat high bumper—two-tone, the lower half chrome—reflects their right headlight in a flaring smear; she braces for the bump, the crazed windshield, the crumpled metal, the thud of pain. But the cocky brat in the baseball cap sees with widened eyes that Nelson isn’t kidding; and brakes hard, so his buddies’ empty heads all bounce in unison. The Corolla skims by, still accelerating, missing by an inch. The dig-out smell of hot rubber fills the interior. The couple in the back seat cheer, a bit breathlessly. “I hate SUVs,” Nelson explains. “Pretentious gas-guzzlers, they think they own the road.”

High in the tinted windshield, so it looks greenish, a ball of twinkling fire expands. The Christian-rock music thumps away in the vast illumined excavation on their right. Nelson shivers, as if a contentious spirit is leaving him. And now Pru is attacking him, trying to hug him, her nose poking into his cheek, her breath fluttering warm on his neck. “Oh honey, that was great, the way you made that asshole chicken out. I think I wet my pants.”

“Me, too, almost,” says Annabelle.

“It’s funny about death,” Billy contributes from the back seat. “When you actually face it, it’s kind of a rush.”

To Nelson Pru says, so softly the others could hear only if they were to ignore each other and listen hard, “Let’s not hang around too long at the Laid-Back. I thought I’d stay at your place tonight.”

v. And Beyond

From: Roy Angstrom, Esq. [[email protected]]

Sent: Saturday, January 8, 2000, 8:29 AM

To: [email protected]

Subject: Thanking you

Hi Grandma and Ron—Its been a week so its “high time” to check in and thank you for the great time we had together New Years Eve. I really enjoyed seeing all those fireworks around the world moving across all the time zones. It made me feel how small the planet EARTH is. Mom said there were even some on Mt Judge we could of seen. The thing I remember best was on David Letterman the three slobby guys where the one hit a golf ball off the fat ones belly button and the third guy caught it in his mouth. He could of broke a tooth doing that.