As he swings the truck from the parking lot to the looping driveway back to 302, Fosse cuts in front of him far too closely and at a speed that causes the Blazer to fishtail. Sam narrowly avoids rear-ending him. Though he knows rationally Pete’s handling of the Blazer is just high-spirited horsing around triggered by the adrenaline rush of winning, he finds himself as furious as if it were a deliberate provocation.
Pete turns his head, craning at Sam through the Blazer’s rear window. Bither and Tim Kasten are in the Blazer too and they also look back, their faces contorted by the rollercoaster excitement of the fishtail. Pete’s eyes meet Sam’s and Pete laughs. He straightens around to fix his eyes back on the road again but he raises his right hand, middle digit up, blindly and casually flipping Sam off. Pete’s passengers are convulsed by the act; they writhe around clutching their guts, pounding the heels of their palms against their foreheads.
That’s it. Sam gooses the accelerator. All at once the Blazer jerks and sags like a bad vaudevillian on a hook as the front bumper of Sam’s truck climbs its rear bumper. Deanie yelps and flails and braces herself. Sam gives the truck another squirt and shoves the Blazer forward.
Alarmed angry blobs of faces waver in Pete’s rear window now. Up and down the line of exiting vehicles, there is a chorus of horns. Deanie hoots with savage delight. Sam throws the truck into reverse and the guys inside the Blazer take another jolt. Shifting into drive again, he slams the truck’s bumper back into the Blazer. Pete’s vehicle jerks and shimmies and shudders a few more feet forward. There is a muffled shriek from Deanie as she bounces off the dashboard and tumbles to the floor.
The Blazer’s door swings open, Pete jumps out and Sam shoves the Blazer harder. Pete dives back inside, the door flopping open and closed with the impact. The headlights of the other vehicles are flashing on and off and the horn chorus grows crazier and people are hanging out of their windows, like a bunch of fight fans in a blood frenzy. Sam backs up again. Pete flings open his door again but when he sees Sam’s door jerk open and Sam moving, erupting from behind the wheel wearing his gunslinger’s face, Pete has second thoughts. He tromps on the gas and skids ahead.
Sam settles behind the wheel again. The Blazer is scooting away from them, the rearview a forest of middle digits and snarls. Only then does he realize Deanie is still on the floor, with a hand clapped over the hurt side of her face. He lunges toward her.
“I’m okay,” she chokes, as he pries her hand away from her face. “I just bumped it.”
He can’t see any further damage but she winces when he touches it.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he keeps saying. The muscle in his jaw aches along with his throat.
The vehicles behind the truck begin to swing around it, blatting horns in passing. Headlights flare in the side mirror.
Deanie lies on her back on the daybed, bare head resting on her crooked arm. In the clean sweatpants he’ll sleep in, Sam scooches beside the daybed and she rolls her head slightly to meet his eyes but not before he sees the puffiness over her cheekbone. Her pupils are big and wet with Percodan.
“The looks on those guys’ faces—I almost wet myself.” Her mouth curves in a smile that makes him smile back. “Next thing I know I’m landing on my face. It felt like getting punched again. I couldn’t believe it hurt so much and all I could think was now I’ve done it, I won’t be able to play. I should have had my seatbelt on. I was as mad at myself as I was at you.”
“Maybe we should have gone to the hospital, got it checked?”
She shudders. “No way. It’s okay. It didn’t open up. By the time we got home the pain was already a lot less.”
He knows who is most to blame. Going up to his own room, he sits on the edge of his bed and undoes the chains around his neck. He holds the puddle of chain contemplatively in his palm. Raising his eyes to the image of himself in the dresser mirror, he fills his mouth with the chains. The corners and angles of the tags bite into the roof of his mouth. The twists of metal chains scrub at the soft tissue of gum and tongue. He tastes not only the metal but his own sweat on it. Tipping back his head, he lets the chain slip slowly back toward his throat. Then he gags, leans over his knees and spits out the wet chains with their burden of cross and dogtag into his hands.
His mind refuses to give up the nightwatch on Deanie. But he hears nothing and spends the whole night in his own bed. He gets off to a better start, not even trying for the downstairs bathroom, just going straight out to water the lilac and then shaving at the kitchen sink. Truck coughs like a three-pack-a-day septuagenarian with emphysema but it starts.
Pete Fosse is waiting at the gym doors. “Hey Sambot, you’re fixing my bumper you fucked up, right?”
“Wrong.” Sam starts past him.
Pete grabs him by the forearm. “No, you’re the one who’s wrong. What do you think Wild Bill’s gonna say about it? You just got off probation for kicking a ceiling down, dumbo.”
Sam shakes off Pete’s hand and deliberately studies the ring of keys in his other hand to find the one for the gym. One small blessing is Deanie has gone directly to an early makeup exam. This is not a moment he needs
