Rabbit Remembered

"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."

Chapter 5

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.

The reason Mom didn't come back to the house at all was that they nearly had a fatal accident when the traffic lights went out and it left them all exausted. She says Dad will be coming out to live with us here in Ohio and thats great too.

Heres a joke-how do you tell when a Islamic terrorist is scared? Answer-he shiites in his pants. Actually it was nice that in Iran they let them go except for the passenger who had his throat cut for looking funny at the one they called the Doctor. What really took my interest in the news is this Tibetan boy just my age who was the second most important lama in the world and escaped by walking several days through a blizzard in the Himmelayas, hes called the KARMAPA. On the same website I read where the Dolly Lama (the most important lama) said of YK2 "Millennium? The sun and the moon are the same to me." You can look all this up Ron at www.tibet.com. A lot of jokes are at www.ohyesyouare.com. Sample-How do you tell Al Gore from Bill Bradley? Answer one is a bore and one sags badly. ROTFL (rolling on the floor laughing).

Thanx again for a really great time and teaching me 3-handed pinockle. I dont expect to stay up playing pinockle past midnight again until I get to college, maybe to Kent State like Dad. Its the best.

luv u both;-) (wink) ROY

"Hi? Annabelle? It's-"

"Nelson! How is it going?"

"Not bad. Good, actually. Her apartment is pretty roomy, though eventually we might look for a house. Roy would like a house in Stow."

"He must be thrilled."

"Thrills at that age wear off in about half an hour, but, yeah, he seems pleased. And Judy is pleased. She says boyfriends take you much more seriously if you have a father on the premises. She's broken up, thank God, with that creep who kept her in Ohio to go to some very stuffy party, as she described it. She wishes now she'd come to Brewer."

"Is she still going to be a stewardess?"

"Well, that's a little, where you'd expect, up in the air-"

"I knew you were going to say 'up in the air'!"