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back
across the center line, shot back into the right lane.
    The fat chick with
the open door is really screaming now. My turn caught her by surprise and this time she damn near
falls out of the frigging car. Not that I would miss her.
    My wild-ass turn
doesn't quite make it up on two wheels but I come close. If Gail's boobs hadn't got caught in the
door she would have went out.
    Morrison's tossing
out bottles of beer, eating the joint in his mouth, yelling something at me from his green mouth.
Everybody's yelling at me but I'm too busy for conversation.
    I wiggle-waggle
across a couple of lanes, trying like hell to straighten out this runaway crap pile of Detroit
metal.
    Sirens getting
louder and louder and I respond by slamming the gas pedal into next week. For once, I get the
shifts right. The front end lifts up, the tires squeal like scorched demons and we go whipping
along.
    Everybody's pushed
against the backs of their seats and I'm trying to keep us there.
    I'm hoping I can
get going so fast toward them that by the time the cops know it's us, we'll be so long gone they
won't be able to turn around in time to catch us.
    Accelerator
buried, I get up to eighty-five miles an hour and the car is vibrating like two mating chain
saws.
    Then the sirens go
screaming by... on an ambu­lance.
    "Shit!" I don't
know who says it but it sums up the whole thing pretty well.
    I ease up on the
gas, ten years older, downshift and miss a gear. Jesus! Here comes another intersection! Engine
sounds like it's going to go into orbit! Shift again. Miss it again. I duck.
    There's a big grey
blur like a World War Two torpedo streaking across our bow. We just miss the tail end of a black
car by the width of two and half molecules. Just ran another stoplight. Becoming
habitual.
    One of the girls
is screaming. I don't know which one 'cause my head is under the dashboard, looking for
religion.
    I pull my head up.
Morrison's got the wheel and we're still going straight, beginning to slow up. I rise up,
believing in miracles and wondering if maybe there is a God who is betting on our
team.
    Morrison gives the
wheel back to me and I'm okay. Had enough of this street though, so I turn down a one-way street,
luckily going the right way and plenty slow. I shift, miss it and stall the car again.
    "Do you always
drive like this?"
    I look back in the
rearview mirror. It's Gail. She looks like yesterday's menu is forcing itself back up to­day's
throat.
    "Usually I'm not
this good," I say, looking at the fat marks under her chin. "Maybe you'd like to drive? I'm
having a little bit of trouble with the video portion of this broadcast." Understatement. Only
thing I'm doing well at the moment is heartbeats. About three million of them a
minute.
    "Sure. I'd feel a
lot safer. Besides, I really dig driving. If I had me some wheels, I'd be cruising all the
time."
    What a relief! So
glad to get to let go of the reins. Be­sides, I've just done something brilliant on an
interga­lactic scale.
    Gail, bursting
with youth, several thousand pounds of it, can drive and sit next to Morrison and ooze her fat
out at him. Me, I'll be in the back with Sandy (Let's-pick-her) Peaches and (see if she knows how
to) Cream. My time to get lucky. Maybe I'll get to be the juicer and she can be the
juicee.
    The car doors fly
open, and before I can orient my­self, Morrison is climbing in back with the looker and doughnut
overdoser is slamming me across the front seat with a hip that Moby Dick would have been proud
of. Oh, Jesus!
    I'm not saying
this chick is fat, understand, but if you saw her running around naked and you were a lit­tle
nearsighted, you might think her clothes badly needed ironing.
    I look back at
Morrison. He's grinning like a Chesh­ire cat discovering downers. I look at the whale beside me
and she gives me a look that makes me shudder. I think they once made an Edgar Allan Poe movie
about her: Masque of the overfed