A BAD DAY FOR RED DOGS

    The nurse flapped around the bed picking things up and putting
them down and then came to put her fingers under my chin and turned
my head back and forth while she frowned into my eyes.
    "You know your name, don't you?"  she asked.
    "Yes."
    "What's your name?"
    "Joseph Alan Ramey."
    "Uh huh." She was writing something on her clipboard and her
hair bounced when she nodded.
    "Joe Ray Me,"  I said.
    No reply.
    "Call me Joe,"  I said.
    She glanced at me with an I'm-alone-in-this-room look and
said, "How old are you, Joe?"
    It was like meeting someone on the street and you sort of
know who they are but not really, so you only smile at them and
hope they go away soon.  I smiled at her like that.
    Her lips kinked with irritation.  "You're twenty six years
old, Joe."
    "That's right."
    "We're sending you home today, Joe.  Your aunt is coming to
get you.  You need to get your things together and be ready,
 okay?"
    She was speaking louder than she needed to, as if I had some 
kind of hearing problem.  Since I didn't know I had an aunt and I
had no idea where home was, I supposed it was not unreasonable
that I might have a hearing problem I didn't know about too.
    She said, "Now, we don't want to see you back in here again,
okay?" 
    "Okay."
    Her pen made scratching sounds on the paper.  I could hear
that well enough.  Then she hung the clipboard on the foot of the
bed and left without saying anything else.
    As soon as she was gone, the curtain to my left squealed back
and a kid about fifteen years old grinned at me from his bed.
    "Hey, man, you okay?"
    He had a face like a fist, like a newborn baby screwing up to
cry.  It was the color of an old penny, but his teeth were very
big and white.
    "I guess so."
    He laughed, letting his head fall back on his pillow, and
waved his arm at me.  It was wrapped in a cast.  "Got this here
busted wing when I tried to fly."
    "Tried to fly?"
    "Didn't fly as high as you, though.  Man, you was so spaced
out when they brought you in, it was like a tv show or somethin.
You were howlin like a dog and you tried to bite the doctor."  He
pushed the back of his head into the pillow and made a howling
noise.  "That's how come they had you strapped in like that."
    I held my hands up to look at them.  There were red marks on
my wrists.
    "Yo, Joe!"  A voice called from the curtain on the other side
of me.  "You know where you at, man?"
    "I guess so."
    Other voices laughed all around me, coming from everywhere.
"Man," the kid said, "I ain't never gone do no acid.  Is that what
you was on?"
    "He gone home today," a voice said.  "We gonna miss you, Joe."
    "He ain't gone home," the kid said. "More likely to jail."
    "You heard the woman say his aunt is comin."
    "Man, he ain't got no auntie.  You ever seen your auntie come
to visit, Joe?"
    "No, but he seen your mother come visit him, ain't that
right, Joe?"
    I could think back as far as the flapping nurse with the
fingers under my chin, the cold flat brown eyes studying me. I
sat up and swung my legs over the side of the bed.  The room did a
slow loop and then settled nicely, like a cowboy roping a steer's
horns.  I eased myself down with gingery caution.  The floor was
very cold under my bare feet, but it only moved a little.
    I was in a gown tied at the back.  I got back into the bed and
pulled the blanket over me.  The kid was watching me, half
 smiling.  "Lookin for your clothes?  They probly in a bag or
somethin under the bed."
    I slid out of bed again and got down on my hands and knees and
there sure enough was a paper bag.  In the bag I found a pair of
ratty jeans with a leather belt in the loops and a white Arrow
shirt.  No underwear or socks, but a pair of worn black leather
loafers.  Everything was too big;  I had to take the belt in to
the last hole.  By the time I had got the shoes on, someone was
going up the row of beds with a cart that smelled like food.  My
stomach growled after it.
    A woman with long stringy hair and tired eyes came dogging
after the cart.  She stopped by my bed and said, "Good.  You're
dressed."
    "I guess so."
    "Well, let's go then.  You got anything you need to take with
you?"
    I looked around.  Apparently not.
    She turned and started walking and I walked behind her.  That
was how I left the hospital.

    "Are you listening to me, Joe?"
    I snapped my eyes open.  I was in a big chair sitting across a
coffee table from a man in another big chair, and he was leaning
forward, glaring at me.  "Damnit, boy, try to pay attention when
I'm talking to you."
    The woman with the stringy hair was sitting on a sofa to my
left.  She said, "It's all those damn drugs they gave him at the
hospital.  We have to cut them back a little at a time."
    "Well, he's no damn good to me like this."
    "He can just ride with you for a few days until he gets his
feet under him."
    "Jesus."  The man sounded disgusted.  "Sissy, what have you
got me into?  There's no way I can work with this space cadet.
Just look at him.  His brain is so fried he don't even know us."
    They both stared at me.  I said, "You're my aunt Sissy."
    "Oh, great,"  the man said.  "Just fuckin great."
    "I'm your aunt Maureen,"  she said.  "And this is your uncle
Vic.  Remember now?  I'm your daddy's sister, God rest his soul,
and this is my brother from my momma's first marriage."  She
looked at the man and said, "Come on, Vic.  He's only met us a
couple of times.  What do you expect?"
    "Any normal human being would remember his own goddamn family,
for Chrissake."
    There was an edge in the woman's voice like the edge of an ax,
dull but kind of scary.  "Cut him some slack, Vic.  He just got
here and he's been through a lot."
    He made a sound and turned his face away, taking a swallow
from a can he had wrapped in his fist.  There wasn't a lot of the
can showing.
    "Well, I can't fool around here all day,"  he said.  "I got a
business to take care of."
    "Well, take him with you.  Even if he just rides around, I
can log it down in your book."
    "Yeah, yeah, yeah."  He got to his feet and crushed the can
and threw it into a wastebasket.  "Three hundred hours with this
kid and I'll be wishing I took jail instead of community service."
    "You just be grateful Earl let us do it this way.  If I didn't
work at the courthouse you'd be coolin your heels up there right
now."
    Vic gave me a sour look.  "God must hate my guts."
    I looked at him.
    "Well, come on, damnit,"  he said.  "You waiting for an
engraved invitation, or what?"
    We went outside into the sudden dazzle of the summer
afternoon.  At the end of the walk there was a big black tow truck
parked half in the yard, half in the street.  On the driver's door
there was a cartoon vulture painted in garish red and yellow and
purple.  The V of its upturned wings formed the first letter of
the word VULTURE, and under that balloon letters spelled out
WRECKER SERVICE.  Vic climbed in and pointed at the passenger
seat.
    "You do remember how to ride in a truck, don't you?"
    I got in and closed the door.
    Slamming the gearshift up, he barked, "Putcher seatbelt on!"
    The truck gave a couple of liquid coughs and a fan belt whined in
a note so high it hurt my ears, then we were off.  
    The neighborhood passed us in a blur of trees and blue exhaust
fumes, and then we were roaring up an entrance ramp while lesser
cars crouched down before us.  Two radios mounted under the
dashboard spoke in the kind of staticky voices machines will have
when they learn to speak in their own language.  There was no
headrest on the seat, so my skull was pressed flat against the
window with the force of our acceleration.
    Vic scanned the freeway with restless, predatory eyes.  "I
always start out on the loop,"  he said.  "I love the loop. 
Everything in this city is tied to it, one way or another.  When
something goes down, you can catch it from the loop no matter
where it happens."
    He shot me a look as if to see if I was listening.  I nodded,
the road in front of us swimming up and down a couple of times
even after I stopped.
    "Hear that?"  Vic looked at the radio.  "That's not five miles
from here.  Let's roll on that one."
    We rammed our way into traffic.  Anyone going under sixty five
miles an hour was the enemy.  Vic kept up a running commentary as
we swerved in and out among the halt and the lame.  When we swung
up onto the loop, he stayed in the far left hand lane, running up
on cars so ferociously that they skittered out of the way in a
panic to let him pass.
    "Now when I go to teach you how to drive, that's something I
don't never want to see you do,"  he said.  "Somebody runs up on
your ass and you're going sixty or better, you just drop your
speed and make em either hit their brakes or rearend your ass. 
They won't hit you.  I guarantee it.  First rule of driving, don't
let anyone run you off the road."
    It was getting easier to nod.   
    Vic grunted his laugh. "Especially a cop.  They rearend you,
the city buys you a new car.  But a firetruck, now, you let them
on by.  They won't hit you on purpose, but they got airbrakes and
they can't stop as quick.  Anyway, hell, it might be your own
house burnin down."
    On the rise of the hill ahead of us the cars had slowed to a
crawl.  Vic geared the big truck down, scowling.  "Damn.  Nothin's
been called in along here.  We musta got lucky, unless it's
somebody lost a mattress or somethin."
    Rumbling along the shoulder of the road, we passed the left
lane of traffic until we got to the crest of the hill.  There were
two wreckers already there, one on each side of the freeway.  In
the center lane, causing all the trouble, was an old primer-gray
Camero with its hood up, a sly wisp of steam writhing up from the
engine.
    "Now there's an accident waiting to happen,"  Vic said
cheerfully.  "Old piece of junk like that ain't worth towin on
its own, but it could make us a dollar or two before it goes to
its grave.  Someone's bound to hit it sooner or later."
    He turned and grinned at me with those predator's teeth, and
pulled up behind the bright red wrecker on our side of the street.
Vic got out, but I couldn't open my door because of the slow heavy
traffic on my side.  Then I saw the other wrecker driver get out
and a girl with him slid across the seat and dropped to the road
from his door, so I did the same thing.
    "Wiley, my man,"  Vic said, and I realized he had another
voice besides that of barely suppressed rage.  "What you got
workin here?"
    Wiley was short and thick, like a fire hydrant.  He wore a
white tank top that emphasized his breasts.  His left arm was in
a cast.  The girl with him looked about twelve years old until you
saw her face; she must have been between thirty and forty, with
hot red hair and big light eyes.  She was smoking a cigarette with
wide, deliberate gestures, like Bette Davis.  She glanced at me
and smiled.  "Who's your buddy, Vic?"
    "My sister's nephew.  I'm showin him the ropes.  Joe!"
    He gestured and I went to him. "This here is Wiley E. Coyote
and his lady, Marie."
    "Margie,"  she said.
    Wiley gripped my wrist in one of those street handshakes.
"Hey, Joe.  How they hangin?"
    "Okay."
    There was a screech of brakes and we all looked around, but it
was only someone avoiding the Camero.  A woman shouted over the
noise of traffic, "Move that thing, you goddamn asshole!"
    "Not before it buys us lunch,"  Wiley grinned.  
    Vic said, "I was headed for that pile-up on 45 North."
    "Hell, Richard already picked that up,"  Margie said. 
    Vic swung around on her.  "No way.  I heard him pick up a call
half an hour ago down on 225."
    "You know Richard,"  Wiley laughed.  "He can be in Bumfuck
Egypt and still beat you halfway around the world.  That crazy son
of a bitch must go like a rocket out of hell."
    Margie said, "Cops are here, hon."
    "Well, hell."  Vic leaned over the freeway divider and spat. 
"We'll be seein you."
    Back in the Vulture, Vic muscled through the line of cars
until we were moving steadily forward again.  He said, "You see
that cast on his arm?  He musta beat her up again."
    "Busted wing,"  I said.
    He shot me a look with his eyebrows pointed up in surprise,
then laughed.  "Yeah. And you can bet who busted it.  He slaps her
around sometimes and she waits until he goes to sleep and then
goes after him with a baseball bat.  You'd think the dumb son of a
bitch would learn."
    Because most of the traffic had been held up at the stalled
car, there was a sudden open expanse of freeway ahead of us. Vic
drove only a little over the speed limit, but other cars went by
like birdshot from a sling, as if unable to bear the empty space.
    "If you're gonna learn to drive a wrecker, you're gonna have
to learn the rules of the road,"  Vic said.  "Remember, the first
rule of the road is to get there first, however you can. You get
there, you put the car up on your cable, and it's yours. You hook
that sucker up and you've got your money made.  That's the name of
the game."
    He swerved the truck suddenly from one lane to another, then
back again.
    "You'll know you're an expert driver when you can do that," 
he said.
    I looked at him with Do what? in my face, and he said, "Feel
anything?"
    "No."
    "The catseyes."  He veered a little to the left, and I felt
the rumbling bumps under the tires. "They put em there so blind
people drivin will know they're in their own lane."  He gave me a
quick look and then sighed.  "You got to learn to go between them
without touching them. That's how you'll know when you've got
total control of your vehicle."
    The radios went on squawking all the time.  I couldn't make
out a word of it, but Vic squinted and grunted in response, or
shook his head.  Finally he patted the dashboard and said, "Hot
damn.  That's just down Fulton.  Fresh meat!"
    We dropped off the next exit ramp and made a U-turn under the
freeway, then raced back up and jumped into traffic the way a kyak
jumps into a running river.  In another five minutes we pulled up
at a corner where a blue van lay on its side.  It had spilled its
contents onto the street;  two people lay like chalk drawings in
obscene positions.  The woman was humped up like a baby sleeping on its stomach, butt in the air.  A small red car had folded itself against a
dumpster. The driver was still in the front seat, shreds of an
airbag fluttering in the wind.
    There were many people there.  Vic pulled to a quick
stop and said, "Go see if there's air in the back tires of that
foreign job."
    I got out and went to the red car.  A very young policeman was
standing beside it, talking into his handheld radio.  He saw me
and said, "You guys keep out of the way."
    The driver in the red car turned his head.  He looked up at me
and said, "I really need to get to Sears before it closes."
    I said, "I knew a woman who died."
    "One of those?"  He looked towards the deflated things that
used to be people.
    "No."
    I could see that his legs were somewhere under the crumpled
nose of the car, under the dashboard.  He was extremely still,
staring at the dumpster.  
    Then he said, "I hear a siren."
    I heard it too, in the distance.                             
    "Do me a favor, will you?" he asked.
    "Okay."
	   "Look down there and see how bad it is."  His eyes met mine
and I saw tears running from them.  He said, "It doesn't hurt. 
That's bad if it doesn't hurt, isn't it?"
    "I guess so."  I bent over him to look but all I could see was
the dashboard and tangled metal and some bloody shreds that might have been the lower parts of his legs.
    Vic came trotting over.  "How you doin, buddy?"
    The driver took a long shivering breath and didn't say
anything else.
    "Here's the ambulance coming now.  Where you want us to haul
this thing, buddy?  I know a body shop that could handle this.
We could have it driveable by the time you're back on your, uh..."
Vic leaned over and looked at the mess under the dashboard and
didn't finish.        
    A swarm of people descended on us, and Vic and I had to get
out of the way.  He went around to the other side of the car and
leaned in the window to open the glove compartment.  No one paid
any attention to him;  a fire truck had rolled up and they were
busy prying the red car apart like they were prying open the jaws
of a pit bull.
    Vic came back.  "I found the papers.  You stay here a minute,
kid.  Don't let anyone back up to this thing.  Make em run over
you if you have to, but stay right here."
    As the paramedics lifted the driver from the red car, the
Vulture rushed up to it backwards and Vic jumped out.  He fastened
the cables and then ran around to tighten the winch. The red car
stood on its hind legs and Vic said, "Let's go."
    The cops came over and talked to him for a minute, then we
were waved through.  We picked our way through the maze of people,
cars, other wreckers.  A young woman stared at us with a
malevolent gaze.  As we passed she shouted, "Goddamn vultures!"
    I turned my head back to watch behind us;  other wreckers were
slowly circling the kill.
    Vic said, "I know a guy who can put this little jobbie back
together in a week. He'll give us a hundred dollar bounty just for
bringin her in.  That's over and above the towin fee.  Pretty good
day so far, huh?"
    "I guess so."
    "Guy's got insurance up the ass.  Had his policy right there,
full coverage.  Nine times out of ten they let whoever we take it
to fix it up.  Not much loyalty to mechanics these days, but why
should there be, the way those bastards rip you off?"
    In the side mirror I saw the traffic jam, the bodies, the
milling people all fading away.
    Suddenly a carload of teenagers roared past us, kids shouting
and laughing out the windows, waving paper cups of soda at us as
if in a toast.  Vic checked all his mirrors, his face narrow and
crafty.  Then he hit the accelerator so hard I was thrown back
into the seat, my head bumping the back window with a melony
sound.  We caught up to the car, one of those bright blue models
that looked like a jogging shoe on wheels, and then abruptly
swerved in front of it.  Vic reached down and turned the
headlights on, then turned them off again.  Looking behind us, I
saw the driver of the blue car lean forward to jam on the brakes.
All the passengers went flying forward, and soda splattered the
inside of the windshield.
    Vic watched in the rear view mirror, nodded, then slid off
down a ramp.  He said, "See, you hit your lights like that, they
think you're brakin.  You can get people off your tail without
running the risk of bein rearended.  You can't trust kids not to
rearend you.  See what I mean?"
    "I guess so."
    He gave me a thin tight smile.  "I know what you're thinkin.
They was in front of us.  But nobody stays in front for long, Joe.
Not for goddamn long."

    I woke in the silky darkness and saw through the window a big,
round moon, the kind that makes the alligators howl.  I was
sweating all over.  I rubbed my face and my hands came away wet.
    There was a small lamp burning in the shadows, and in the
chair across the coffee table Sissy was smoking a cigarette. She
picked a piece of tobacco from her tongue and said in a soft
voice, "How you doin there, Joe?"
    I looked at her for a long time while the room dipped and
swayed and finally lay flat again.  When it was absolutely still I
said, "Is Elaine still dead?"
    She stopped with the cigarette halfway to her mouth, a shroud
of smoke over her head.  Then she nodded and said, "Yeah.  Yeah,
she is, Joe."
    I turned my head back to stare at the cloud of shadows that
hung just above me.  I thought I heard someone laughing, a nice
laugh, far away.
    Sissy said, "You're gonna be okay, Joe.  Honest to God."
    "I guess so."
    "The doc said it would just take a long time.  I mean, you
won't be able to teach school again or anything like that, but
you'll be able to drive, and one day you'll even be able to get
your own place.  Not that I mind havin you here.  Not a bit."
    There was a moth twirling around the lamp like a lost angel.
    "Don't take on so,"  Sissy said in that soft, hurt voice.
"Things will work out."
    There was a rustling from the kitchen;  I heard the
refrigerator door open and close. Vic came padding in, pulling
the ring top on a can of beer. He wore striped boxer shorts.  His
body was lean and hairy, the knees sticking out.  He stood between
us, looking down at Sissy.
    "What's everybody up for?"  he asked.
    "Joe and I was just talkin, brother."
    "I bet that was a real interestin conversation."
    "Now, Vic."
    "Don't now Vic me.  You look straight into his eyes, Sissy?
He's got little pinwheels in there turnin round."
    "Head injuries are real funny, aren't they, Vic." 
    "Oh, come on.  He don't know what we're sayin."
    "He just asked me about Elaine."
    Vic looked at me.  His lips thinned until they disappeared.
He said, "Is that right, Joe?"
    "That's right,"  I said.
    "Hey, I'm sorry.  I didn't mean nothin, kid.  I wouldn't
disrespect the dead."
    The moth thudded again and again under the lampshade.
    Vic took a swallow of beer and sat on the arm of Sissy's
chair.  "Joe tell you we picked up a hundred dollar bounty today?"
    "Did you?"
    "Picked up one of those Mercedes convertibles.  Guy trashed
the front of it, but I hauled it over to Mitch's.  He gave me the
cash up front, too.  Even if the guy decides to junk it, we can
get a hell of a lot on parts from the yard."
    "I didn't think people who could afford a Mercedes came down
to the yard to get parts."
    "They don't,"  Vic said.  "But their mechanics do."
    Sissy said, "Maybe Joe will bring you a run of good luck." 
    I was looking out the window at the big round moon and I
blinked when I heard my name but I didn't turn around.
    "Joe?"  Vic said.
    I still didn't look around.  I didn't want to see the moth
drowning in the light. 
    Vic said in a quiet voice, "Why don't you give him a little
extra shot of that medicine, and then we can all get some sleep."
    
    In the morning the world had the shiny finished look of an
airbrushed cartoon.  The clouds looked like falling sheep and
someone had pasted a phony looking little moon against the
brilliant blue sky.  I noticed that my feet had grown during the
night, though fortunately my shoes still fit all right.
    It was a bad day for red dogs.  We weren't on the road half an
hour before we saw a dead chow on a feeder as we were taking the
exit, and Vic had to swerve to miss it.  Before we got to the 610,
we saw what looked like an Irish setter scattered across the
lanes, and cars were braking and dodging to avoid hitting any of
the bigger pieces.  
    I wondered if the dog was going to have puppies when it was
killed.  
    Vic said, "You lookin kinda funny, kid.  You're not gonna be
sick on me, are you?"
    "No."
    "Hey, I seen a lot worse than this in my day.  When I was your
age, I used to work for an ambulance company.  Back then the city
didn't run those services, so everybody was independent.  The
traffic laws weren't quite so tight, either, and there were wrecks
all the time.  You show me a major intersection in this city and
I'll show you a place where somebody bought the farm."
    Ahead of us a little fox-colored mongrel was trying to make it
from the divider to the shoulder of the road.  A Mustang clipped
it, and it flew cartwheeling back into the divider.  But then it
got up and ran, dragging a hind leg, and made it through the
onrushing cars to the edge of the ramp, and disappeared.
    Vic downshifted and changed lanes so quickly I was thrown into
my seatbelt with a grunt.  He pulled off onto the gravel shoulder
bordering the ramp and left the engine running.
    "You wait here a minute,"  he said.
    I watched in the side mirror as he went wading down through
the grass growing on the hill that built up the ramp.  The little
red dog was getting up and lying down again.  When Vic reached it,
it rolled over on its back.  I saw him bend down as if to pet it.
A minute later he was straining back up the hill.  He got into
the truck and sat rubbing his hands on his thighs.
    I stared at him.
    He said, "I can't stand to see an animal suffer.  If I was on
one of those machines, I'd want someone to pull the plug."
    He threw the truck into gear and dove onto the ramp, sliding
in between two black cars. I heard the shriek of tires, someone
shouting.
    "Quit lookin at me like that,"  he said.  "The dog was hurt. I
just helped it out of its misery."
    I looked at his hand on the steering wheel.  He rode with his
left elbow on the window ledge, his  hand hanging flaccid.
He had brown bony hands, the skin flecked with discolorations.
On the third finger of his right hand he wore a massive gold ring
set with diamonds.  His fingernails were very long, like a
woman's, but square and ragged instead of tapered the way a
woman's are.
    He said, "You got to weigh one thing against the other, you
know?  We got to help those who can't help themselves."
    I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the cool window.
    Vic said, "Now what was I sayin?  Oh, yeah.  Back when I was
drivin an ambulance, we used to collect a bounty from the funeral
homes. When you got a dead body, you took it to a funeral parlor,
and they called the relatives, and nine times out of ten the
family would go ahead and get the guy buried right there, and the
undertaker would make a big chunk of cash on the casket and all
that.  Don't nobody think ahead when it comes to dyin, I guess.
So anyway, they used to offer us fifty bucks for every fresh stiff
we brought in.  And let me tell you, back then fifty bucks would
feed a man's family for a month."
    I watched his profile against the background of cars
streaking by in the opposite direction.  
    "So needless to say, some of those old boys on the road got a
little greedy, if you know what I mean.  They'd find someone layin
on the road all banged up, and they'd wirebasket him.  Kinda like
today if you put somebody that wasn't quite done breathin yet in a
body bag to snuff him.  Of course they'll deny it today til hell
freezes over, but a lot of that kind of stuff went on back then.
That's one reason the city took over all those services."
    Vic alerted suddenly.  There was a big bright yellow car on
the side of the road, its hood up. Someone was in the front seat,
and a man with white hair and glasses was peering down into the
engine thoughtfully.
    We sheered over and then rolled backwards on the shoulder at
only a slightly lower speed than we had been doing in forward
gear. "See that triple A on the bumper sticker of that Volvo?"
he asked.  "That's sure money.  You never pass one up."
    But even while we were rolling backwards, another truck,
shimmering huge and white in the hot morning sunlight, pulled over
just in front of the Volvo, so we had to pull up short.
    Vic sucked his breath in through his teeth.  "Son of a bitch!"
    We got out and the driver of the other tow truck got out.  The
man with the white hair looked from Vic to the other driver, who
were walking towards each other like two cowboys in a showdown.
The other driver was an enormous blond man, with a massive jaw and
a rosebud mouth.
    "I called Triple A from my car phone," the white haired man
said.  "Which one of you is Triple A?"
    The blond man had a voice like someone talking into a bucket.
"Well, sir, we both are. I believe I got the call, however. If you
don't mind, Vic."
    "And what if I do?"   
    Another wrecker slowed as it passed us, but didn't stop.  As
it crawled by, I read the logo on the side panel:  "The Happy
Hooker."  The blond man raised his hand and waved, and the other
wrecker picked up speed and disappeared into traffic.
    I stood buffeted by the wind generated by the cars hurtling by
on the other side of the divider.  They made a sound like the hiss
and roar of surf.  
    Vic was rubbing his hand, the one with the ring on it, and his
eyes were so narrowed it looked like he was trying to keep from
spitting them out of his head.  A black boy who looked no more
than twelve years old was manuevering the white wrecker around,
waiting for the troughs in the waves of traffic so he could back
it up to the Volvo, but Vic was so busy glaring at the blond man
he didn't seem to notice.
    He finally said, "I believe it's your call, sir. Whichever one
of us you want will haul it for you."
    Closer up, the wrecker, which looked so stunningly white from
a distance, was marked by dozens of bumper stickers like raised
blisters over smooth skin.  They said JESUS SAVES and STOP THE
MADNESS and WHEN THE RAPTURE COMES GRAB MY WHEEL.
    The black kid hopped out.  He was little and quick, and he
looked like the boy in the hospital, only younger, and glistening,
like he had just been polished with a cloth.
    "We all ready to go,"  he said.
    The white haired man gave Vic an apologetic look and said,
"Well, since he's already got it hooked up..."
    Vic shot the blond man a last look and then turned around
without another word and went back to the Vulture.  I followed
him, banging my leg on the rear bumper because I had my head
turned trying to read more of the stickers on the white truck.
The sign on the door said "Richard's Mobile Service."
    Suddenly a big hand closed over my shoulder and I looked up
into the blond man's face.  He was at least a head taller than me.
"I don't believe I've had the pleasure,"  he smiled.  "I'm Richard
Mann."
    He was shaking my hand.  I said, "My name is Joe.  Joe Ramey."
    He threw back his head and laughed, a big sound, and I saw
indignant birds wheeling overhead.  "Joe Ray Mi Fah So Lah Ti Do,"
he boomed.  "Well, bless you, son.  Have you heard the good news
about God?"
    A shrill whistle penetrated the spell.  I turned to see Vic
hanging his arm out of the truck waving me towards him.  I trotted
back to the Vulture and got in beside him.
    "What was he tellin you?"  he asked, as we shot into traffic.
    "He asked me if I'd heard the good news about God."
    Vic banged the heel of his hand against the steering wheel and
spat out a laugh. "That son of a bitch.  You know who he is?"
    "No."
    "Well, he's somebody you don't want to know."  Vic glared into
his mirror and then stamped on the brake.  I heard tires squeal,
horns blare.  I hadn't put my seatbelt on and I had to catch
myself against the dash with both hands to keep from hitting the
windshield.
    "Goddamn tailgaters."  Looking slightly cheered, he eased back
up to normal speed.  
    After a few minutes he started talking again.  "We call him
Mobile Dick. He used to be a real hellraiser until he found Jesus
and started smackin people around with the Bible instead of with
his fists.  Guys like that think they know the way things are, and
they think they can stuff it down your throat.  But Jesus don't
hitchhike on these roads, no matter what crap the truckers tell
you.  It's just us out here.  Just us."
    His eyes got that sharp look, and I saw a girl ahead walking
backwards along the side of the road, tan, with long dark hair.
She wore blue jean shorts and a tank top and she had her thumb out
in a casual request for a ride.
    Vic slowed the truck.  He gave me a strange smile and said,
"What do you think, Joe?  Think we ought to give her a ride?"
    "I guess so."
    He laughed and picked up speed again.  The girl vanished
behind the overpass as we dove down it.  "Like hell,"  Vic said.
"She's just a little crumb of meat that's fallin down into the
lion's pit, Joe.  Next time you see that little girl it'll be on 
the ten o'clock news when some kids find what's left of her in a
dumpster somewhere."
    I twisted around in my seat, looking back through the glass.
Something was slipping away, something irretrieveable.
    I said, "Let's go get her."
    Vic grinned, baring his long teeth.  "You horny, kid?  Hell,
you can do better than that, good lookin boy like yourself.  Whoa!
What have we got here?"
    It was a copper colored Saab on the shoulder.  The hood was up
and a woman standing in front of it had a child on her hip.  She
looked relieved when she saw us, and Vic pulled over.
    When I got out I saw other kids in the car, jumping up and
down, hair flying.
    "What happened here?"  Vic asked.
    "I don't know.  It just quit on me.  The engine just died."
    Vic frowned into the cavernous recess under the hood.  "You
got gas?"
    "I just filled it yesterday."
    He reached inside and jerked things around.  "How long ago was
this battery put in?"
    "It's the same battery we've always had."
    "You got a loose cable here."  He lifted his head.  "Joe!"
    I walked back around the car to where he stood, and he
pointed at the Vulture.  "Go get me my toolbox."
    Five minutes later, the woman was behind the wheel trying to
start the Saab, which was connected by jumpers to the Vulture.
The children pushed their faces against the windows, flattened and
distorted, like gargoyles with their noses sideways and their
tongues making smeary streaks against the glass.
    The woman said in a hopeful voice, "It's trying."
    I looked up to see something enormous looming up on the
overpass, wavy and trembling in the heat, moving with the slow
majesty of a giant.  Behind me I could hear the cranking of the
Saab, over and over, whining, grinding.
    The white wrecker seemed to nose other cars out of its way
like the cattlecatcher on a train.  It slowed as it neared us, but
everything else slowed too, almost frame by frame.  Richard turned
his head and looked directly at me, the sun in his eyes like fire.
He raised his hand in a two-fingered salute as he passed, and
behind me the engine of the Saab roared into life.
    Then time caught up to us and the world swept by, tiny raging
men encased in fragile metal shells, racing each other around the
endless loop.

    The morning sky was yellow, and there was a boom like thunder
in it.  Geese crawled in slow formation across the horizon,
writing fluid letters, first V, then M.  I thought if I could
watch them long enough, they would spell out a word.
    "Hey,"  Vic said. "Lookit that."
    There was a long dark streak on the highway, terminating in a
motorcycle lying on its side just beyond the columns of an
overpass.  A white Toyota was parked next to a column, one fender
smashed in so that the wheel was caught and flattened. A woman sat
in the driver's seat, the door open, her feet on the asphalt.  We
pulled over just as a motorcycle cop rode up, flashing his rotator
lights. Another car pulled over, and an ambulance, and another
wrecker.
    People got out, moved around, talked to each other.  I sat
watching the sky.  It was as if the geese were on some strange
mission, writing messages to people all over the city, all over
the world.
    The wail of a siren made me look at the small crowd that had
formed around the Toyota.  They were putting a stretcher into the
back of the ambulance, a pair of cowboy boots sticking out of one
end of the white sheet.  Vic and a man were facing each other
across the open door of the Toyota.  Their faces were red and they
were shouting at each other, but their voices sounded small from
where I sat.  The woman sat between them, staring into space with
a thoughtful look.
    I rolled my window down.  Vic was shouting, "That's not the
point.  The point is, I was here first."
    "Let's just let the lady decide,"  the other man shouted.
"Hey lady.  Hey lady."
    I rolled my window back up.  The cop went over to talk to
them, and then everyone was shouting except for the woman, who was
looking up at the sky, at the message of the geese.
    A truckload of teenagers swarmed past, laughing and
noisemaking.  The sound rose to a crescendo and then faded, but
not before one of them threw something out the window, a plastic
cup with ice in it, and it hit the Vulture and sprayed liquid
across the hood and up onto the windshield.
    When I turned my head again I saw that everyone had changed
position.  The other wrecker driver was kneeling on the pavement,
holding his hands up to his face.  Vic and the cop were talking,
and Vic's hands were behind his back, held together by handcuffs.
A patrol car slid up behind me and two cops got out.
    I was beginning to get very sleepy.  I was just closing my
eyes when the motorcycle cop tapped on my window with his
flashlight.  I rolled the window down.
    "We're taking your buddy downtown,"  he said.  "He says for
you to go on home."         
    Then everyone left.  The other wrecker driver lifted the
Toyota and disappeared into traffic.  The patrol car took Vic
away.  The motorcycle cop got on the back of his motorcycle and
drove off.  Then there was just the Vulture and the other
motorcyle that was still lying in the grass. 
    I slept for a little while.  I may have had a dream about the
white wrecker, the moth thudding against the lampshade, Elaine's
face in the water.  When I woke up I was hungry and I had to go to
the bathroom.
    I slid over onto the driver's side and turned the key in the
ignition, firing up the Vulture.  My hands and feet knew what to
do.  I waited for a lull in traffic and then pulled into the right
lane.  I was on the loop.         
    I drove for a long time, until I recognized something.  It was
the motorcycle, lying in the grass, still dead.  I pulled up next
to it and got out of the truck and stood on the far side of it,
away from traffic.  I unzipped my pants and urinated, hearing
myself groan with relief.  Back in the truck, I adjusted the side
mirror, and as I did, I saw the blunt white face of Richard Mann's
wrecker.
    "Joe!"
    He was right there, right at my window, huge, enormous.  He
opened the door and pushed his face inside.
    "Hello, there, Joe Ray Me."
    I looked at him, at his big mild blue eyes.  
    He said, "I heard the patrol boys call in that little fracas
this morning with Vic.  You handling his calls for him til he can
make bail?"
    "No."
    "No?"  He leaned forward, and then his face was my father's
face, and his voice was the voice my father used when he wanted to
make that single disbelieving word of denial into a lie.
    I said, "No, sir."
    He laughed.  He reached in and took the key out of the
ignition.  "God loves a fool, boy, and so do I.  Come with me, and
together we'll find your way home."
    The interior of his cab was twice the size of the Vulture's. 
I slid in and the black kid slid over against Richard, rolling his
eyes at me like a frightened horse.
    He said, "You be that crazy man ride with the Vulture."
    "Now, Pepper,"  Richard said.  "Settle down, boy.  This is
Joe. Joe, this is my number one man, Doctor Pepper."
    The child grinned, showing perfect teeth.  He was much smaller
than I remembered.  "My mamma she lock me in a closet all night," 
he said.  "What's your excuse?"
    His face looked so funny I tried to laugh.  It was a strange
sound.  Pepper stopped grinning and crept closer to Richard, who
looked at me and said, "You drove the whole loop, didn't you?"
    "I guess so."
    He gave a nod of satisfaction.  "I thought as much.  Then
you're part of it now."
    It was getting dark.  Cars were starting to turn on their
headlights.  The radio in Richard's truck was like Vic's;  it kept
up that constant muffled static voice.
    Richard said, "You and Vic been running days, haven't you?"
    "I guess so."
    "That's a shame, son.  Everything happens at night.  Vic
misses a good part of the action by just working days.  You know
why?"
    "No."
    "It's because Vic is nightblind.  I guess he never told you
that, did he?  When it gets dark, he goes home and goes to bed. 
Am I right?"
    "I guess so."
    "Now me, I work best when the sun goes down.  Business is
good.  I can always use some help."
    Pepper said, "Aw, Richard.  Ain't I help enough?"
    "How would you like to make some real money, Joe?  Some cash
to fatten up your wallet?"
    His voice sounded like my father's voice when I was very small
and lay with my head against his chest.  You could feel it more
than hear it, rumbling around in there.
    "You come work with me, while Vic is ah, indisposed, shall we
say, and I'll teach you what the road is all about."
    Tiny anquished figures hung from crosses that dangled from his
rearview mirror.  Richard said softly, "I've been looking for you
for a long time, Joe.  What do you say?  Are you with me?"
    I said, "I guess so."

    Sissy made me a thermos of coffee and a sandwich.  She patted
me as impersonally as someone checking for weapons, but then she
grabbed my shoulders and kissed my cheek.  I kept waiting for her
to say, "Now you be a good boy, Joe," but she didn't.  Still, her
eyes held that same first-day-of-school worry when she watched me
go out the door with Richard Mann.
    "That woman thinks the world of you, Joe,"  he told me, as we
got into the big white wrecker.  "It's a good thing you're doing,
making some money for her while Vic is out of commission.  She
works down at the county courthouse, doesn't she?"
    "I guess so."
    "A woman's a wonderful thing,"  he said, as we pulled slowly
away from the curb.  Pepper was curled up on the seat between us,
his head squashed against Richard's thigh.  He was sleeping with
his thumb in his mouth.
    Richard said, "You ever loved a woman, Joe?"
    The sun was going down and the streets were all streaked with
orange.  It must have rained earlier in the day.  
    I said, "Yes."
    "I don't mean had one in bed.  Or had a hundred in bed.  I
mean the way you loved women the first time, when you were
thirteen or fourteen and saw your first buck naked female.  The
way you just wanted to go down on your knees and thank the Lord
for creating something so amazingly beautiful for us."         
    Pepper stirred and said in a sleepy voice, "First nekked woman
I ever saw was my grandmother.  And she was UG-lee."
    Richard's laugh shook the cab, echoing off the metal.  "Go
back to sleep, little man."  He put his giant hand on the child's
head, and it covered it completely, thumb and little finger
touching Pepper's ears.  I thought he would squeeze it, pop it
like a grape.  But Richard just petted him, and Pepper's eyes
closed as he curled into a tighter knot.
    We turned into a big empty lot with warehouses all around.
Richard said, "Here's where we separate the men from the boys,
Joseph."
    He opened his door and got out.  "Slide over, son, and let's
see what you've got."
    I crawled over Pepper and got into the driver's seat.  Richard
went around to the other side and opened the door.  He lifted the
boy like a puppy and repositioned him, then got in.
    "Now I know you can drive, because you drove the loop
yesterday and that's forty miles around," he said.  "But you
always need to get the feel of your vehicle before you put your
trust in her."
    I started the truck.  I gave it a little too much gas and it
snarled with a great bass cry, like a furious animal.
    Richard chuckled.  "She won't bite you, son."
    I took my foot off the accelerator and felt a grateful purr
through the vinyl upholstery, a trembling of pleasure.  I looked
at Richard.        
    "She likes you,"  he said.  His face in the twilight was as
big and round as the moon.  "Usually she's shy with strangers."
    I drove around the lot for awhile and then followed Richard's
directions and took a maze of streets back to the freeway.  The
loop felt different;  I could feel it rolling under me, moving.
    "These roads aren't called major arteries for nothing,"
Richard said. "The whole system is alive.  Anyone who drives it
can tell you that.  We're like cells in a body, making it alive,
but it's bigger than we are.  A hell of a lot bigger.  We're what
makes up its bloodstream, rushing and stopping like in a big
heart that started beating when the first road was built in this
country.  Vic and the other vultures, they're like white blood
cells. They go in and find the clogs and blocks and sick parts and
they clean them up, clear the way for the healthy cells."
    His voice was in the same deep register as the engine, like
someone singing to the exact pitch of a piano key.  He talked on,
but I stopped listening to the words and just heard the music. 
There was something in the night that wasn't there during the day,
an electricity, an energy.  Traffic ran fast and hot and low to
the ground.  Caught up in it, I swerved around the hesitant, the
timid, the inexperienced, the old men in hats who peered over
their steering wheels with tight-lipped ferocity, the young girls
in red cars who shot me the finger when I thundered by them.
    Pepper was sitting up, yawning.  He had a funky smell, like an
old dog that needs a bath.  "I'm hungry, Richard."
    "We're on a call right now, Pep.  We'll pick something up
afterwards."
    Pepper bounced a little on the seat between us.  His head was
just high enough to see over the dash.
    "You drive good, man," he said.
    "Take the next ramp," Richard said, pointing. "We want to get
up on the bridge."
    "That's 610 North,"  Pepper said.
    Richard smiled.  "What's the 610 called?"
    Pepper rattled off like a child reciting his letters. "610
West is the North Loop, and 610 East is the South Loop, and 610
North is over the ship channel on the Sidney Sheldon bridge."
    Richard laughed and said to me, "Put the boot to it, son.
Hear that on the radio?  That's the cops looking for us."
    Cars seemed to melt away as a patrol car veered in front of
us, lights flashing. "He's just clearing us a path.  Follow him
wherever he goes."
    Traffic thickened and congealed, but guided by the patrol car
we climbed the brontosaurus back of 610 North, higher and higher
until we reached the wreck, a monstrous eighteen wheeler lying
across the road on its side.  It was surrounded by orange flares
that smoked and wavered in the darkness like offerings to an idol.
Cops with light sticks waved us through.
    "Stop here,"  Richard said.  He got out of the truck and was
immediately surrounded by men.  They all walked to the wreck
together, Richard talking and gesturing.  In a little while
Richard came back and opened my door. "Slide over, Joe," he said.
    Only two other wreckers had made it through the confusion of
cars.  Richard stationed one on each end of the eighteen wheeler,
and positioned the big white wrecker in the center.  All three
gunned up like cars starting in a race.  They had winched the side
of the truck and were trying to pull it over onto its belly.  All
three moved forward a little, then stopped, straining. I could
feel the front of the truck us coming up.
    "Take the wheel, son," Richard told me.  He got out again and
went to the knot of men.  They followed him back across the road
and split up into groups of two.  Each pair climbed on the hoods
of the wreckers, weighing them down.
    "Try now, Joe,"  he called.
    Even with the men on the hood, I could feel the strain on the
engine and the white wrecker trying to lift her nose.  I
downshifted and we moved forward, and suddenly there was slack in
the cable.  With a slow scream of metal, the eighteen wheeler
began to turn, coming down over us like the shadow of death.  The
wreckers took advantage of the slack to scoot forward, and the big
truck righted itself and came down bouncing on its tires.  There
was a cheer from the crowd and everyone began unhooking.
    Richard got in and said, "Let's roll, son."
    The road ahead was completely clear because of the jam behind
us.  The white wrecker shuddered with the joy of freedom and
rushed into the night, sliding down the steep hill on the other
side of the bridge, past the smell of the ship channel.
    Pepper said, "That was the coolest thing I ever seen."
    "We were blessed to have a chance to help our fellow man
tonight,"  Richard said.  "That is what we're here to do, you
know. God wants us to help each other.  Even Vic understands that,
eh, Joe?"
    I said, "Vic helps out dogs."
    Pepper burst out laughing, but Richard nodded gravely.  "And
the dogs shall lick his blood,"  he said. "Listen to that.  Do you
hear that, Joe?"
    I heard noises from the radio, pecking sounds, like a chick
trying to break out of its shell.
    "That's pretty close,"  Pepper said.  "Get off at the next
exit and we can pick up 59 North. That's the Easttex Freeway."
    As I was rounding the corner, Richard said, "Have you ever
asked yourself why you're here, Joe?"
    "Vic's in jail,"  I said.
    "No, I mean, why you're here on earth.  What did God create
you for?  What does your life mean?  Where are you going with it?"
    "Take the next exit,"  Pepper said.  "Not that one, but the
one after that."
    Between the glow of the dashboard lights and the windshield, I
saw a reflection, but it wasn't from any of us in the cab.  It was
a woman's face, the lips drawn back so the teeth were showing a
little, as if in extreme pain or pleasure.
    I said, "Elaine."
    Pepper nudged my arm.  "No, stay in this lane."
    Richard sighed.  "Don't you think it's more than a coincidence
that we found each other, Joe?  God works with both agent and
principal, you know.  And nothing happens by accident."
    Pepper was pointing at the flashing lights ahead; an ambulance
was pulling up next to the smoking bodies of a couple of cars.
"That ain't no accident?"  he asked.
    "Hard to believe, but no, it isn't, Pepper."
    "Coulda fooled me."
    A cop nodded at me and said, "Pull this Toyota off to the
side, will you?  It's got us blocked over here."
    Richard looked at me and said, "And what are the angels, but
agents of God?"
    He opened the door and Pepper sprang out like a Laborador
Retriever that has seen a duck fall from the sky.  Richard got out
and wandered off.
    Following Pepper's signals, I maneuvered the wrecker so he
could hook up the Toyota. He came to the truck and lifted it on
the winch, then hopped on the running board while I pulled it off
the road, dragging sparks from a broken muffler.
    Thrusting his head next to mine, he said, "Let's pull it
across the street to that lot next to MacDonald's.  I need me some
supper."
    Pulling the car made the wrecker feel strange, fishy. It
seemed to want to wag the towed car like a tail.  I thought the
drag was holding us back until Pepper reached down and released my
parking brake.
    While he was in MacDonald's I went back across the street to
find Richard.  I didn't want to drive anymore.  He was easy to
find; something about him, more than his size, even, make him
stand out even in the dark.  He was standing amid the torn metal
and broken glass talking to a man on a stretcher.
    "You have to listen to hear the word of the Lord,"  he was
saying patiently. "You have to open your heart."
    The man was breathing hard through his mouth, his face all
slick with sweat.  "Is my wife okay?  Just go look and tell me if
she's okay."  He made a violent effort to raise his head.  "Gena!"
    "I can help you,"  Richard said.
    But the paramedics brought the other stretcher over and loaded
both into the ambulance and drove away.  Richard saw me and put
his arm around my shoulder and we walked back to the parking lot
where Pepper was sitting on the hood of the wrecker eating
hamburgers out of a paper bag.  
    "Anybody killed?" he asked.
    "Couldn't tell,"  Richard said.  "But no one was saved; I can
tell you that."

    Vic was walking up and down in front of the sofa, his fists
clenched.  "On top of everything else, they impounded my goddamn
truck!"  He was shouting.  "All you had to do was drive it home!
That's all!  Was that too goddamn much to ask, to just drive it
me?"
    Sissy had given me a bowl of Fruit Loops when I came in, and I
sat on the sofa trying not to leak milk from my spoon as I ate
them.
    "Then Sissy tells me that asshole came to my house and got
you.  Came to my goddamn house!  Didn't I tell you he was a crazy
son of a bitch?"
    "You never said anything to me about it,"  Sissy said.  She
was in her robe, her eyes smeary and sleepy, and she was curled up
in her chair with her hand on the side of her face.  "How was I
suppposed to know you didn't like that guy?"
    "HE knew!"  Vic threw his finger at me so hard I thought it
would come off the end of his hand. "HE knew!  I told him once if
I told him a hundred times."
    I crunched my cereal, looking up at him.  The morning sun
coming in through the blinds made brindle stripes across his body
as he paced up and down.
    "If he hadn't given Joe the money, we wouldn't have been able
to pay the bondsman,"  Sissy said.  "That's the fact of the
matter. It seems to me the guy did you a favor."
    Vic threw his hands in the air with an inarticulate cry of
rage and banged out of the room, almost knocking over a ceramic
elephant on a table by the door.
    Sissy and I looked at each other.  She said, "Richard told me
you drive real good.  He said you handled yourself like a pro.
You get Vic to let you drive when we get the Vulture out of
impoundment."
    A voice from the other room shouted, "When hell freezes over!"
    Sissy winked at me. "You get some sleep now.  I'll talk to him
when he cools down."

    Sitting on the curb, watching the sunset drizzle down the sky
like spray paint down the side of a building, I felt warm breath
on my ankle and looked down to see a Golden Retriever sniffing me.
The dog was attached to a leash and the leash was held by a man
who stood frowning down at me.
    "Joe?  Joe Ramey?"
    His face floated above me, his head round and smooth, the eyes
crunched up.  I knew him.  He was the man who had the boat beside
us.
    He pushed his hand down and I shook it and he helped me get
up. "Frank Reisner,"  he said. "Remember, we had the slip next to
you in Clear Lake?"  He kept shaking my hand, and with his other
hand he patted my shoulder.  "I heard about the accident.  Hell of
a thing, Joe.  Hell of a thing."
    "Hell of a thing,"  I said.
    A picture came into my mind:  this man's wife had really long
legs and they were always bare and whenever she caught me looking
at them she would wink at me and Elaine would say, what's wrong
with you, Joe?                      
    "So you're living in Houston now?"
    "That's right."
    "Sally and I live about a mile from here."  He let go of me
and took out his wallet.  "Here's my card.  Give us a call and
we'll get together for dinner some night."
    He patted my arm again.  "Really sorry about Elaine, Joe.  She
was a fine girl."
    He went down the street with the dog sniffing along in the
grass of every yard.  I sat back down and put his card on the
sidewalk beside me.
    A shadow fell across the walk in front of me and I looked up
to see Vic standing there.  He was wearing his undershirt and he
hadn't shaved and I could smell him. 
    "You know that guy?"  he asked.
    I squinted up at his face.  It looked like a cartoon cutout
pasted onto his body, outlined against the blue, blue sky.
    He said, "Maybe I came down too hard on you this morning.  I
didn't mean nothin by it."
    I nodded.  He said, "See, if Mann was tryin to help, he'd've
just towed the Vulture back here.  But he knew I wouldn't be able
to get it out.  The son of a bitch is sly."  He leaned over and
spat in the grass.  "So now he's got me over a barrel.  I can't
ask Sissy for the money to bail out my truck.  So it's sort of up
to you.  What do you think?"
    What did I think?  I looked down the road, but Frank Reisner
was out of sight.  I looked up at Vic and said, "Elaine is still
dead, isn't she?"
    He crouched down beside me and put his hand on the back of my
neck. "Yeah, Joe.  She is.  And she's gonna be dead tomorrow and
the next day and for the rest of your life.  And I'm real sorry
about what happened.  I'm not just sayin that.  There's no damn
sense to it, none at all.  Life gave you a raw deal.  But you
gotta let it go, you see what I'm sayin?"
    I watched his eyes when he talked.  "I guess so."
    "I hate Richard Mann's guts and I hope he fries in the
hellfire he's always preachin about.  But I need the Vulture to
make a livin, and this way we can at least get somethin out of the
son of a bitch.  You game?"
    "I guess so."
    He slapped my back lightly and stood up.  "You're all right,
Joe,"  he said.

    Our first call that evening was to apartment complex where
someone had parked in someone else's space.  Pepper and I lifted
the car, a turquoise Mustang, while Richard went to the manager's
office to leave his card.  We were sitting with the engine idling
by the driveway exit when a man came running up to my side of the
truck.
    "What the hell do you think you're doing?"
    I looked at him.  He was fat and he didn't have a shirt on. 
His hair looked wet, but it was just slicked back with Crisco or
something.
    "That's my goddamn car,"  he said.
    Pepper put his hand on my knee and leaned over me to look out
the window at the man.  "Mister, once we lift it, we can't let it
down til you pay the tow fee."
    "But you haven't towed it anywhere."
    "Thass the law, Mister."
    The man was big and he was strong, too.  He reached inside the
cab and got his hands on my shirt and jerked, pulling me through
the window the way you'd pull a snake out of a hole.  He pushed me
back against the side of the car, my feet just barely touching the
ground, and snarled in my face.
    "You gonna put that car down or am I gonna break every bone in
your body?"
    I said, "I can't."
    He shook me once, hard.  I felt things rattle in my head.
    Pepper came flying out of the truck and grabbed the man's
arms.  "You let him go!"
    The man did something with his elbow without letting me go,
and Pepper fell backwards, both hands over his mouth, and blood
coming through his fingers.
    The man's breath smelled like beer;  his big lips were almost
against my nose.  "One last time.  You gonna let that car down,
boy?"
    "I can't."
    He let me go, tearing the front of my shirt and slamming me
back again, and then I saw that Richard had caught him from behind
and had torn him from me. The man struggled, dancing around, but
Richard held him without apparent strain, holding both the man's
arms twisted up and back.
    "You can pay the sixty two dollars and fifty cents here or at
the yard,"  Richard said. "It's entirely up to you."
    "I'll get the police on your ass." 
    Richard smiled at me. "Why don't you get on the radio and call
for the police, Joe.  It might be a good idea to report the
assault of a minor.  Pepper?  Where are you, boy?"
    Pepper came up to us, his mouth bleeding and tears in his
eyes.  "Lookit what he done, Richard."
    "I never laid a hand on that kid," the man said.
    "The Lord tells us to forgive our enemies, Pepper.  What do
you say?"
    Pepper couldn't seem to think of anything to say.  He stood
glaring, sniffing and wiping his mouth with the tail of his shirt.
    Richard said, "You can pay us now or take a cab to the yard
and pay us later.  OF course, there'll be storage charges."
    "Sixty two dollars?" The man tried to wrench himself free and
this time Richard let him go.  "That's highway robbery."
    "And fifty cents," Richard said.
    The man took out his wallet.  "You'll hear from my lawyer
about this."
    "We'll be looking forward to it, sir." Richard had never
stopped smiling, and when the man gave him three twenties and some
ones, he was courteous about returning the change.
    Richard and Pepper unhooked the Mustang while I sat behind the
wheel.  When they got back in the cab, I let the clutch out and
rolled forward.   
    Richard leaned over Pepper to pat my leg.  "You handled
yourself well, Joe." 
    "That ole boy gonna rip Joe a new one,"  Pepper hooted.  "But
Joe got some balls, don't he just?   He don't let those cars down
for no one."
    "I can't,"  I said.  "I don't know how."

    "God, I love Saturday nights,"  Richard said. We had been on
the road for a long time, picking up abandoned cars, wrecked cars,
cars with flat tires and blown radiators and broken belts.  "You
stay on the road long enough, you'll see everything, but the best
time to see things is on a Saturday night, when everyone comes out
to play."
    The loop jammed up, coming and going, as the night deepened. 
I drove with a group of cars going sixty five miles an hour,
passing groups going fifty five, occasionally being passed by a
group  going seventy five.  As traffic tightened up, I found ways
around it.  People shouted at us and shot us the finger and
sometimes tried to come after us with gunned engines and waving
fists.  Pepper yelped, caught his breath, grabbed my thigh,
flapped his foot on the floor as if to operate brakes there, but
Richard leaned back, half smiling, all the time.
    "Relax, Pepper," he said. "You put a man behind the wheel and
you discover his soul."
    "Joe got a crazy soul,"  Pepper said.
    We were driving along the center lane of Bellaire Boulevard at
the time;  I had two wheels up on the curb to get around a line of
cars waiting for a light to change.  The left lane was clear, and
the arrow was green.  It was just a matter of getting to it.
    "It only looks crazy because we can't understand it," Richard
said. "But you should realize by now that God has his eye on Joe
for some very special reason."
    "But do he have his eye on us, too?"
    "Of course.  That's why he brought Joe back from the dead to
help us."
    Pepper rolled an eye in my direction.  "You been dead, Joe?"
    "I guess so."
    "Sooner or later, God's plan will be revealed,"  Richard said.
"We can only wait and watch for signs."
    "What kinda signs?"
    "Wondrous signs, Pepper.  Signs in the stars. Signs to point
the way to understanding."
    "Understanding what?"
    "God's plan.  Everything in this world is part of it, Pepper.
Everything, living and still.  A gigantic, magnificant, brilliant
plan thought out by God before the beginning of time.  And we're a
part of it."
    "What part are we?"
    "Well, think about it a little bit, son.  You're some lady
driving home, and your car breaks down.  You're scared and alone
and you don't know what to do.  Then over the hill here comes this
big white wrecker to help you.  Wouldn't your heart just
naturally know that God sent that wrecker to help you in your hour
of need?"
    "I don't wanna be no lady,"  Pepper said. 
    "The first words out of that lady's mouth are 'Thank God.' The
heart knows who to be grateful to.  When we help people we just
remind them."
    I pulled up behind a pickup truck that had its emergency
lights on. Another wrecker skidded in behind us, the young driver
leaping out.  When he saw Richard he hesitated, fretted a minute,
then pounded back to his truck and screeched away.
    "You see?"  Richard said.  "Just his presence drives the
devils out."
    The driver of the pickup was under the hood.  He waved us
on, shaking his head.  Pepper said, "But it's you that man scared
of, Richard. On account of you so big and all."
    "A man is only as big as his passion,"  Richard said.  "No
more, no less."
    Pepper put his hand on my shoulder.  "I'm sorry, man. I didn't
know you been dead."
    Richard said, "Whosoever believeth in me, though he be dead,
shall live.  There's only one way to come back from the dead, like
Lazarus, and that's through Jesus.  Look at him well, Pepper.
Here's a man who has had the opportunity to see Jesus.  And one
day he'll tell us about it, won't you, Joe?"
    "I guess so."
    Pepper said, "Man, you don't testify worth shit."
    "Let him be, Pepper."
    The city went spinning by under the wheels of the white truck.
Things chattered and squealed on the road, passing us, passed by
us.
    Richard said in his soft musing voice, "Men live and die on
this road, and never know why.  It's very sad, isn't it, Joe?"
    I glanced at him.  Pepper said in a deep voice, "I guess so."
    Richard ignored him.  "Did you ever notice that every man on
the road considers himself the enemy of every other man?  Best
friends, father and son, brothers;  you put them in separate
vehicles and turn them loose on the road, they'll kill each other
over who gets in a lane first.  It's only when you breach that
hard metal shell that we can reach in and pluck out that fruit
which rightfully belongs to the Lord."
    His voice washed over me like the light, in soothing waves.  I
swept around the loop, gathering momentum, while the sky tumbled
overhead with stars, or maybe it was the reflection of headlights
on the windshield.  From time to time I glanced in the rearview
mirror and saw my own eyes floating there, watching me narrowly,
as if waiting for something to happen.
    But everything in the world that was going to happen had
already happened, and the only thing left was our orbit, only
occasionally interrupted to help people, around the road that
always ended exactly where it began.
    
    Sissy rubbed her upper arms as if the doctor's office was
cold.  "All I want to know is will he be able to take care of
himself on his own?"  she asked.
    The doctor smiled at me.  I looked away.  He said, "Well,
you've lived with him for a month now.  What do you think?"
    "I think if I wasn't there he'd forget to eat half the time. 
Look at him.  He's lost twenty pounds since the accident."
    I thought of Richard.  Nothing ever happens by accident.
    "Have you thought about a halfway house?"  the doctor asked.
    "I'm not saying he's not welcome right where he is," she said.
"I just want to know what to expect in the future."
    "In what respect?"
    "Is he going to get better or not?"
    "Better than he is now?"  The doctor shook his head.  "That's
hard to say.  Most of the physical damage that's going to heal has
healed.  Brain injuries are curious things.  Sometimes, as in
Joe's case, all the motor functions come back, but that doesn't
mean there isn't other damage."
    Sissy made an exasperated noise. "I know all that. But what's
wrong with him?"
    "What do you mean, wrong?"
    "What do you mean, what do I mean?  He's not all there, Doc.
He's missing some marbles.  Look at him.  Does he even know what
we're talking about?"
    The doctor drew spirals on his yellow notepad.  He said,
"Well, his behavior is detached from his feelings.  But not his
logical functions."
    "I know that.  What I'm asking is, will he ever get better?"
    The doctor's pen made a blot on the yellow pad, and he drew
legs on it.  "If the problem is, as I suspect, caused by the
damage to his brain sustained in the accident, then I'd say no,
he's never going to regain the full range of emotions that
influence behavior in most people.  But whether or not that's such
a bad thing is a matter of opinion."
    "Spoken like a true doctor,"  Sissy said.
    The doctor laughed, "Heh heh heh heh," and Sissy and I looked
at each other.
    When we got home the Vulture was parked in front of the house.
Vic met us at the door wearing an apron.  He had a beer in one
hand and what looked like a small pitchfork in the other.
    "I won five hundred dollars at the dog track,"  he said.  His
smile was sloppy and sweet and he patted Sissy awkwardly on the
back. "I got the truck out of hock and now I'm barbequin us
hamburgers for dinner."
    "You smell like a brewery, Big Brother."
    "Well, I got plenty for all of us.  Come on back."
    In the backyard there was a redwood table with benches and a
barbeque set, and Vic poked his pitchfork at several flaming black
disks on the grill.  "They dropped the assault charges to
disturbing the peace, and then the cop didn't show up for the
hearin so the judge dismissed the case.  Can you believe the luck?
I was out of there by eleven and I just took my little run of luck
down to Galveston and won four races in a row."
    He thrust a beer in my hand. "Come on, boy.  Let's celebrate
your freedom."
    "He don't drink, Vic."
    "He just don't get the chance, right, Joe?  Here you go,
buddy."
    He popped the top for me and breathed in my face, and my eyes
burned.  Sissy opened a beer for herself and sat on the bench.
    "So I guess Joe will be riding with you again now."
    "Hell, yes, he will.  I don't want him with that son of a
bitch one minute longer than he has to be."
    "Richard Mann pays him fair, Vic."
    "Richard Mann is a psycho, Sissy.  Next thing you know, he'll
have Joe poundin the Bible and spoutin that Jesus crap.  Is that
what you want?"
    "I want what's best for Joe."
    "Well, take my word for it, it ain't no good for him to be
ridin with that Jesus freak."
    "What is it you hate about him so much, Brother?"
    "I just can't stomach a man who thinks he knows all the
answers."               
    I finished my beer and opened the cooler to get another can.
    "Take it easy on that stuff," Sissy warned.
    "Ah, hell, lay off the boy," Vic said.  "After all he's been
through he's entitled to a good old fashioned toot."
    The charcoal on the grill burned white and then began to fade.
When I went inside the house the doorbell was ringing.  Sissy was
curled up asleep on the sofa and Vic was snoring in the bedroom.
    I opened the front door and Pepper was standing there with his
hands on his hips.  "You comin or not, man?"
    "I guess so."
    "Wee--yoo!"  He held his nose and fanned his other hand.  "You
better not get around Richard smellin like that, dude.  Can't you
brush your teeth or somethin?"
    I went into the bathroom and he tagged behind me, looking
around the house. 
    "This place ain't half bad,"  he said. 
    I brushed my teeth, rinsed my mouth out with mouthwash, spat
into the sink.  Pepper looked at me in the mirror, his eyes
worried.
    "You drunk, Joe?"
    "No."
    "You look kinda funny."
    I looked at myself in the mirror.  My eyes were dark, strange.
I looked back at Pepper and smiled.
    "Sometimes you scare me, Joe."
    I started for the door but he clutched at my belt.  "Don't
drive tonight, okay?"
    I stopped and looked down at him. 
    "Not tonight, okay?"
    We went out to the truck.  Richard was sitting in the
passenger seat reading a newspaper with the overhead lamp on.  He
looked up and smiled when he saw us coming, and for one minute in
that strange light his eyes and his smile looked so familiar I
almost knew him by another name.
    Pepper opened the door on Richard's side and said, "Scoot over
and drive, Richard.  Joe's sick.  He been puking his guts out. 
Yeah, Joe?"
    "That's right,"  I said.  
    Richard's eyes changed back into my father's eyes again.  He
searched my face, concerned, and said, "You all right to drive,
son?"
    I felt my head nodding as if the spring in my neck had broken.
    "Then let's go,"  Richard said.  "We've got a call waiting on
the I-10."
    There was a third seatbelt in the middle of the truck;  Pepper
strapped it on.  When I started the engine it was like a lion or a
tiger or something big and dangerous coming up to lick my hand.
I put it in gear and we leaped away from the curb with a snarl.
    The night rocked back and forth, holding its sides and
laughing.  In the distance the sky was lit with an eerie glow.
    "Big car fire,"  Richard said.  "Eight or ten cars piled up
and a diesel spill." 
    Traffic was backed up in all directions.  Even the feeder
roads were stopped up.
    "No rush, Joe,"  Pepper said.  "Can't do nothin til the
firetrucks finish."
    With the windows rolled down we could smell the fire from a
mile away.  The sky grew lighter, and when I wasn't watching the
row of cars ahead of me, I could see the devils dancing against an
orange background of flames.
    I drove down the grass of the ramp, the wrecker grabbing and
sliding.  We took out a couple of signs, just small stuff. 
Richard pointed out the side streets and I followed his
directions, and we re-emerged into traffic one exit from the
accident.
    The wreck was spread out across the overpass and there were
cars upside down like dead bugs, smoking curling from their
entrails.  Other wreckers had smelled the carrion and were there
ahead of us.  I could feel their uneasy quiver as we crawled up
behind them.
    "Nothing here but hellfire and damnation," Richard muttered. 
"We're going to have to leave this one for the police tows. Let's
see what else is going on."
    Firefighters waved us back, but I drove past them and went
down the ramp on the other side and made a U-turn, driving the
wrong way.  But no one had time to stop us as we bumped along the
curb looking for fender benders in the hot angry braid of traffic
that had wrapped itself behind the wreck.
    Half a mile down the road we found a brand new BMW with two
front flats.  The driver was a woman dressed in some kind of
Spandex outfit, like she'd just been to the gym.  As we slid up
beside her she came to my window and said, "Are you Triple A?"
    Richard said, "We're anything you want us to be, mam'n."
    "Well, I just called Triple A from my car phone, and they said
they'd have someone here in forty five minutes or less."
    We all got out and looked at the BMW.  She had tried to jump
the curb and come down too hard;  there might have been some
damage to the front axle, too.  Cars around us honked unhappily,
but they weren't going anywhere anyway.
    Richard explained the problem to the woman. "Your car is
hooked on this esplanade, and if we lift it from the front, we'll
have to pull it all the way over, risking damage to the back tires
when they come down.  If we lift it from the rear, we could pull
the front over the esplanade and mess up the tires even
worse than they're messed up now."
    "You do what you have to do,"  she said. 
    Pepper got out with nightsticks and began manipulating cars
out of our way.  I moved in whatever direction Richard told me to.
We finally got the car down onto the street and then lifted the
front end.  Just as the winch engaged, bright headlights flashed
in my eyes, blinding me.  Someone was shouting my name from a
distance, but I thought I was the only one who could hear it until
Pepper and Richard stopped what they were doing and looked up the
hill totwards the freeway, where a truck was rattling over the
grass down towards us.
    It was the Vulture.
    Pepper said, "Oh Jesus."
    "I got this call!"  Vic shouted from his window.  He banged on
the door with the flat of his hand and pointed at Richard.  "This
is my call!"
    "Sorry,"  Richard said, in his deep calm voice.  "We were
here, and now the car's been lifted."
    "Then put it down."
    Vic's eyes blazed into mine.  I could smell burning meat
somewhere.  I said, "I can't."
    The woman looked from Vic to Richard.  She had been walking up
and down the curb nervously the way you rub your hand back and
forth over cloth and then put it over your head to make your hair
stand up.  She looked like somebody who could make your hair stand
up.
    "Are you Triple A?"  she asked suspiciously.
    Pepper gave a short laugh.  "We all Triple A, lady."
    "Then who did I call?"
    Vic had jumped out of the truck and was striding towards us,
his fists swinging at his sides.  "I've had about enough of your
bullshit,"  he told Richard.  "I wake up and my nephew is gone and
then while I'm lookin for him I hear this call, and who do I
find?"
    "The car is lifted," Richard said.
    "It's my call and Joe is my nephew.  Joe!"
    I got out and went over to them.  The woman looked me up and
down.  "You boys had better settle this little spat in about two
minutes, or I'm getting on that phone and calling a cop."
    Richard said, "Vic, you shouldn't be out after dark, should
you?"
    "There's nothing wrong with my eyes!"
    The two men were almost nose to nose.  Pepper was hopping
around between them, saying, "Les go, Richard.  Les go les go."
    Vic jabbed a finger at me. "You.  Go get in the truck. I'll
deal with you later."
    I went to the white truck and got in.  I could tell by the way
the engine growled up at me that she been waiting.  Vic was
shouting and Richard was talking and the woman's voice cut through
both of theirs.  Horns honked occasionally in the background like
a rhythm section.
    It was a warm, sweet night.  The lights wheeled around and the
smell of cooking meat in the distance was faintly like Vic's
barbeque.  My stomach made a noise and I tasted beer and vomit in
my throat.
    A cop came down the hill, sliding a little in the wet grass,
waving his Mag-lite beam in all directions as he stumbled.
    Richard opened the door of the wrecker and the woman in
Spandex slid in. Then Richard got in, then Pepper.  "Les go, Joe,"
he panted.
    I looked in the side mirror as I was pulling around the line
of cars and saw the Vulture was gone.
    The woman said, "That man shouldn't be allowed on the road.
He's smashed out of his skull. I wish that police officer had seen
him like that."
    Pepper was looking out the back window.  "He's pretty mad."
    "A disgrace," the woman muttered.
    The BMS tugged at the winch like a trout on a line.  I eased
around traffic and down a side road.  Pepper pulled out the Key
Map and began to navigate us off the main roads.
    "Poor Vic,"  Richard said.  "It's no easy thing to give up the
bottle. I should know.  I was a drunkard until I met Jesus."
    "Yes, I know,"  the woman said. "I read your bumper sticker to
that effect."
    Traffic lights ahead indicated a main street, and I pulled to
a stop as they went red.  It was beginning to rain, and the truck
slid a little into the intersection.  I shifted into neutral and
looked out the window on my side and saw the Vulture sitting
beside us.
    "There's that man," the woman said.
    The light changed and we both pulled away together.  Vic's
windows were up and so were ours, but I could see him saying
something and waving his hand.
    Richard said, "We could save you some time if we could just
drop this off at your garage instead of taking it all the way to
your house."
    "I'm sure my husband will be able to change the tires
himself."
    "Yes, mam'n, but if the front axle is damaged..."
    "I've got full coverage, and besides, towing is free,
remember?  It's not going to cost us anything."  She looked away
from him, to me, and said, "Shouldn't you be further over in this
lane?"
    I looked at her.  She had a nice female smell, although I
could smell the Spandex, too.
    "Earth to driver,"  she said, waving her hand in front of my
eyes.  "Hello?"
    Vic was edging the Vulture over closer and closer into our
lane until he was driving with his wheels straddling the white
line, and I was running with my tires on the shoulder.
     Richard said, "Better pull over, Joe."
    There was a service station ahead, and I turned left into its
entrance.  Vic drove past, his exhaust smoking in the rain, tail
lights winking at us as he tapped his brakes.  He slowed to a stop
and sat there, cars going around him.
    "What's going on?"  the woman asked.
    "We'll see."  Richard opened the door on his side, but before
he could get out, the Vulture started moving forward again, and
the bright red lights swirled into the darkness.
    Richard pulled his leg back in and shut the door.  "Follow
this street down and pick up the loop,"  he said.  "It should be
clear as we head back into town."
    The night was like someone had splattered brilliant colors on
a black velvet canvas.  We were dipped in the warm wet blackness
with electric lights sparkling around us.  Everything ran into
everything else, spilling, dripping.  I couldn't look at it
enough; I wanted to get out and taste it, feel it in my mouth,
like the shape of dark rich chocolate pieces under candy shells.
    Passing under the freeway, I saw the Vulture again, parked
behind the support columns.  His headlights came on as we went by.
I had to adjust the rearview mirror because he put his brights on
when he got behind us.
    We were just going up the ramp when the BMW gave a shudder;
the trout had revived, and was jerking at the hook.
    The woman said in a high thin voice, "What the hell was that?"
    "You losin the tow?"  Pepper asked.  He rolled down his window
and hung his head and shoulders out.  The rain, coming down
sideways, seemed to erase him from the waist up.  He pulled back
in quickly and rolled his window up, looking at Richard.
    "It's that crazy man,"  he said.  "He hit us!"
    We all lurched forward with the second impact.  I made it up
onto the freeway and the Vulture roared up beside us.  Through the
dark and the rain I saw Vic's white teeth;  he was grinning at us.
    "Slow down and pull over,"  Richard said. There was no
shoulder on the right side of the road, and the HOV lane on the
left was protected by a divider.
    "I can't do that,"  I said.
    "Then get off at the next exit."
    The Vulture crowded us to the edge of the road, right next to
the rail.  The woman was saying, "Oh my God, oh my God" under her
breath.  I was trying to look at the Vulture at the same time I
was trying to see through the blurry windshield.  Light ran in
rivulets everywhere;  I swerved and clipped the Vulture with the
white truck.  Metal shrieked against metal for a split second.
    Then it was gone.  I saw headlights dancing on the highway,
reflected in the windshield.  Richard reached around the woman and
patted my arm. "Good move, Joe.  Now let's get off the highway
before he comes back."
    "I'm calling the police," the woman said.
    A wave of traffic broke over us with a hiss of noise.  Cars
slipped by, going seventy and eighty miles an hour;  I was doing
sixty and all I saw was the smoke and lash of their tires on the
wet pavement, and all I felt was the buffet of wind as they went
by.
    A city bus pulled in front of us and I had to brake as we
approached the exit ramp.  I had just started the descent when
something happened.  It was a sound like thunder and a flash like
lightning.  I felt my body swing forward and the seatbelt catch
it with a violent jerk;  the woman moved away from me, leaping to
meet the reflection of Elaine in the windshield, but not stopping
there.  Everything was flying forward, hard, and the night began
to swing around in circles, the way it had wanted to all along.
The white truck snatched the steering wheel from my hands and
began to drive itself, and all I could do was hold on.  The woman
rolled across the hood.  Richard hung at the end of his seatbelt
like a parachutist caught in a tree.  I couldn't see Pepper.  A  
million tiny bullets of rain shot through the open windshield.
There was a deep agonized bass cry from the truck, and then all
the noise in the world froze in the air and fell to the ground and
shattered there.
    I rested on my side, my head against something soft and
yielding.  It was Richard's hip.  I tried to sit up, but
everything was sideways, and my seatbelt kept me from falling on
top of Richard's body.  Fumbling with the clasp, I  managed to
open it, and then I dropped onto him, but he didn't protest.
Standing up, I found myself at right angles to the truck, and
finally realized that the truck was on its side.  I boosted myself
out and sat on the door for a minute, looking around.  The white
truck and the BMW were tangled up in some intricate relationship I
couldn't begin to understand.  About fifteen yards away, also on
its side, was the Vulture.  Hot steam panted from it in the cool
rain.  It looked badly wounded, but not dead, like a big dog lying
on the pavement.
    When I lowered myself to the street, a sharp pain shot up my
leg from my foot, and I looked down to see my shoe mashed up,
blood on my ankle.  But I could put a little weight on it, and hop.
    The Vulture was blocking the ramp, lying on its left side. 
The right window was broken out, and I dragged myself up and
looked inside.
    Vic was in there, all curled up.  He twisted his head around
and looked up at me.  "Joe!"
    His voice sounded different, not so mad.
    "I'm hurt, Joe.  Help me."
    I raised my head, listening.  The words "help me" echoed like
a drumbeat in the rushing air.  
    "My legs are stuck under here.  God, don't look at me like
that, Joe.  I'm hurt.  Help me."
    Help me, help me, help me.  The cab smelled of vomit and that
coppery smell of blood.  One of his arms was trapped under his
body.
    I thought about Elaine, how delicate and small she looked when
the cleat snapped and the boom swung around and caught her, how
she looked in the water, falling, falling forever, her hair
waving around her face, so lovely, just beyond my reach no matter
how hard I swam after her.
    "Joe!  You there?"
    I leaned down.  He sounded further away.
    "Don't look at me like that!"  he cried.  "Help me out of
here, Joe.  Don't leave me here like a dog to die."
    No.  I couldn't do that.
    I humped over the seat.  My foot felt better when I lifted my
weight off it.  The seat was slithery with blood, and I slid down
easily, hooking my good foot on the window so I was suspended just
above him.
    He looked at me, so close his eyes were just white blobs
shimmering around in the dark well of the cab.  I pushed the hair
back from his face with both hands, touched his cheeks, cupped
them like I'd cup my hands around a woman's face.  Then I let them
slip down to his neck.
    "Joe."  He coughed, and then laughed weakly, looking up at me,
but even from a couple of inches, his face seemed to be getting
further and further away.  "I knew you'd help me, buddy."
    I curled my fingers together so that they touched.  He closed
his eyes and then opened them suddenly, looking surprised.
    And then I helped him.
 

end