She reached her hand out to my guitar again today, as I played. I let her touch the strings, hoping she'd understand they were meant to be plucked, or strummed; hoping she wouldn't simply catch her fingers. She batted at them as I made a chord and made faint music.

The air conditioner in the bedroom makes little bumpy-rubby noises, the fan caressing the Styrofoam. It makes them less and less, now, as spring turns into summer and a groove is worn.

Last Sunday we were in the park with George and Stefania, on the occasion of her birthday. An array of foods from the corners of the world. Bicycles. Guitars. Parents gamely trudging down the hill to throw a Frisbee with their kids. The sky thought about rain but never did it.

Yesterday I held Sophia and we walked from the hallway to the living room. I overheard a commotion outside. Three teenage girls, one furious. She sat on a bench on the other side of the street as the others peered at her, one with arms crossed and the other arms akimbo. The group quieted and looked away when strangers passed: a woman with a stroller, a cyclist in the bike lane. Then the angry one would start anew, yelling, gesticulating wildly. I could almost hear her pleas.

The smiles come unpredictably; unaccountably, most times. Sometimes when I say her name, sometimes not.

She took an immense shit and I didn't realize at first. There was nothing changed in her demeanor. Yet when I lifted her up it had soaked through her pants. She continued to wriggle ecstatically, the way anyone does when they're new to the world. It was everywhere: her legs, back, everywhere. By the standards of civilization, a calamity. But she didn't care. And neither did I.

The old man at the liquor store made faces at her, shaking his hands like a ghost.

"Hello!" I said to her playfully, indicating somehow that we both acknowledged the stranger's gesticulations. I wanted to say: "Look at the crazy old man!" But I didn't.

"Your daddy loves you!" the man said.

"I do, I do," I cooed to her. "Gimme the Bombay gin. The litre."

We awoke a bit too late after a bad night, Sophia having cried and moaned senselessly, to an oppressively dreary morning, so dark it didn't seem the sun could be done rising. I stood in the kitchen and watched as the rain pounded the streets and sidewalks in ropy jets.

Oil & Hay - 22

About twenty laps into the race the fine mist that has lingered over the track all day grows heavy. It soon begins to rain at one extremity, the elevated, wooded section around Burnenville and Malmédy, whilst elsewhere it's dry. This phenonemon, unique to Spa, intensifies the impression one has of occupying the whimsical space of a dream.

You can't quite see where it's wet; you feel it under the car. You have to hold on tight, ride across until you hit a patch of dry on the other side. And then you're on the throttle, at the limit, angrily making up for lost time.

I come out of the sweeping right hander at Stavelot and perceive a spectral figure in my path, black robe-clad, gesticulating madly. Have we aroused some mythical being from his slumber? He bears a sign. He's not getting out of my way. I swerve a bit and he leans over; in a flash I see his contorted face leering at me as I pass. I check the rearview and see him shaking his fist at Checho.

On the following lap, though I'm petrified I'll see him again, I try hard not to lift. I come around the corner. There he is. Waving his sign. He encroaches upon my line just enough that I have to swerve again. My mouth is dry, my heart throbbing. What is that he's wearing? I know what it is. It's what a priest wears. It's a cassock. He's a priest. And his sign? I can read the first word only:

Repent!

Lap after lap I brace myself for this close encounter, always missing the madman by a foot or two as he glares down at me, mouth agape. Each time I manage to read another word:

Rejoice!

The

second

coming

is

near!
And the lap after I've read the last word, he is gone.

It's raining harder now. I chase the foggy haze around each corner, down each straight. It appears as though I soon will catch it.

Oil & Hay - 21

I'm not losing ground. In fact I'm close enough to pressure Checho at the slower corners; not to pass–yet–but to harass, to worry him a bit.

It's a pleasure to be in this position. When cars are racing close the trailing driver has a certain power–an authority, even–over the leader, by virtue of what he might accomplish should his rival make the slightest error. The leader's naked, exposed, vulnerable. Blind. His pursuer is relaxed, happy. Hungry. What bliss it is to see up close the dark maw of the engine and the pair of pipes that frame the herky-jerky helmet of the laboring pilot. All of it inflames desire.

After a few laps I'm in his draft on the straights and I know it won't be long. I nose to either side of him going into corners, sniffing opportunity. He closes the door adroitly. Here the balance of power becomes more complex. If a quicker driver can't pass, he's a fool. I try not to become impatient, unnerved.

Then I come out of Blanchimont, a fast leftward bend, with exceptional pace. I must take advantage of it. I draw up on Checho to the left, up to his rear wheels, letting him believe I have the hubris to pass on the outside of the La Source hairpin. I wait for him to defend. I wait, and wait. And wait. Finally he drifts over a little and I duck back to the other side. As we approach the corner I have to believe the line belongs to me. I have to believe he won't turn in. I know I'll have to brake late, late, late. Keep it in shape. Most of all I must fill the track with my imagination. It's mine.

I'm a little more than halfway past the Hewitt-Clark when I get on the brakes. I feel the front end go loose right away–I'm skidding, swerving in this space I've arrogantly claimed. The wall of adverts at the end of the straight is fast approaching: Esso, Esso, Esso, Esso. Photographers. Gendarmes, staring dully at us as they do. I pump the pedal to avoid losing control completely. Little gasps of traction let me keep the line. I know I've got Checho beat as long as I can make this corner. I commit to it, a little bit too fast–too late to brake again; I'd skid into the hay. The back end loses traction now and I drift around the hairpin, giving quick bursts of throttle so I don't spin around. I don't care where Checho is; I can't care. On the other side now, I've got the front wheels in the right direction. I get back on the throttle all the way and the car shakes into shape. I fly down past the pits again, elated. P1.
 

Oil & Hay - 20

The Belgian tricolor falls. I get a jump on Checho. All I see is the bottom of the straight, Eau Rouge, the little twist lined with barriers, roiling crowds amassed against them; on the hill beyond it, a sign like a giant, squinting eye beholds the scene: Gulf.

I know Checho's there but I choose not to believe it. I sense there's nothing to my right. Zé has slotted in behind me, not taking any risks. Third gear now, the flags atop the pits now gone, and now's the dip, the nadir; I decide to get there first, to make it mine. I edge slightly to the left, almost ashamed of my audacity. And at once I perceive an awful presence: a wheel, racing madly; its trembling suspension; a green fuselage; a man inside–the entire entity consisting of an angry and indignant rebuke: Get back!

I cede the way to Checho at the corner and climb back up the hill behind him, both of us fishtailing as we hit the throttle.

We arrived in the morning and traipsed blearily through the airport, killing time, as our apartment wouldn't be free till mid-afternoon. Passengers passed by us in waves, coming or going, but full of purpose either way. Not us. We took an elevator to a deserted floor containing only an angled hallway and a restroom.

We bought sandwiches at a little stand. The girl behind the counter was put upon, unhappy. An older man complained about his bill, she dispassionately pointed out his error. A homeless man hovered, asking everyone in line to buy him something.

Oil & Hay - 19

I paced the strip of grass at the top of the hill beside the starting grid on the pale white afternoon of the race, the cars arrayed in threes and twos this time; there was mine in the middle of row one, between Checho's Hewitt-Clark on pole and Zé's Cavallo on the outside. Santiago Bragato sat nearby on the Armco. He gazed blankly at the pits across the track, muttering the Rosary, one hand in his pocket and the other on his knee. I knew he was done when he crossed himself.

"You are not very religious, Malcolm," he accused in his aristocratic accent, pulling taut his gloves. "You do not believe."

"I'm not superstitious. If that's what you mean."

Santiago raised an eyebrow before putting on his helmet.

"Is that what I am, Malcolm?" He chuckled. "Superstitious?"

I shrugged.

"What are you supposed to be, Malcolm? For church?"

"C. of E. That's what I was. And am supposed to be. I suppose."

"You think you fly above it all, don't you?" he said, shaking his head in disgust.

"Surely not above it all," I protested, goodnaturedly I hoped. I felt a hollowness in my chest.

He wagged a scolding finger at me. "It is better to believe a beautiful lie than to accept an ugly truth," he stated.

He seemed angry. About last night, still? Did he find me, in my apostasy, somehow responsible for Jean-Michel's death? For Lorenzo's? I felt a gnawing dread. A loneliness. A sensation–a condition–that, I now realised, had haunted me for weeks. I tried to lighten the mood.

"Argentine proverb, Santi?"

"I invent it right now. For you," he replied. He fastened his chinstrap and got up. I worried he'd take his leave without a word. Without a gesture, nor a glance.

But as he walked past he patted me twice, quickly, on the back.

Oil & Hay - 18

Rodney was patched up today, hobbling 'round the paddock on crutches, bandage on his head. It was of no concern to him to be so handicapped; like any of us, he'll race as long as he can still sit down. Keep his head up. He lurched over to my stall to say hello.

"Malcolm, dear chap," he saluted cheerily. "How will I ever thank you?"

"You'll return the favor someday."

He laughed. "Can I trouble you for a sip of water, Mal?"

I handed him my carafe and he pulled a pillbox from his pocket, placed a little white pill on his tongue. He took a swig and swallowed hard.

"Bob's your uncle," I said. "What are they?"

"Approximatol? Fixatol? Something-atol."

"Better than nothing at all."

He told me Roger, his team boss at Hewitt-Apogee, dispensed them with a gentle warning.

"And what was that?"

"He said, 'You'll feel like you had a whiskey, so–'"

"So don't drive too fast?"

"No, no. Don't drive too slow."

We laughed a tense laugh.

"Cheers then, Mal," Rodney said, taking another sip of water. He handed it back to me and shuffled away on his crutches.

It happened towards the end of the session. I was in the pits getting fresh tyres, aiming to improve my time as I battled Checho and Zé for pole. Jean-Michel Vaton, Rodney's H-A teammate, came by on a flyer, screaming across the starting line and down to the valley below. There was a slow car just ahead. I wondered absently whether Vaton would try to pass it before Eau Rouge, the tricky little twist where you feel your stomach sink into your arse. I wondered what I would do. Probably pass it.

Vaton got on the outside but ran out of space and time. He stepped hard on the brakes and tried to slip back behind the other car. Instead, his left front struck its right rear. Vaton's car flew up, perhaps twenty feet, appearing at its peak to hang in the air a moment.

Would that it could have remained there, forever coddling its occupant. Or continued to ascend, never to touch the earth again.

Instead it flipped backwards and landed upside down, hard, where the track met the grass. Its left tyres and suspension absorbed the impact and projected the chassis back up again to spin the other way, a full rotation, rightside up and upside down again, landing in the grass on the opposite tyres. The car bounded up one final time, flipped upright, and came to rest facing traffic in the middle of the track, just past the right-hand bend, at the bottom of the Raidillon. There was Jean-Michel Vaton, head slumped backwards, his left arm hanging from the cockpit so his knuckles grazed the ground. The fingers of his right hand, still guided by some primal spirit, remained hooked to a spoke of his wheel. And then the car exploded into flames.

I felt an overwhelming, familiar physical sensation take hold of me, from my shoulders to my chest and up through my throat and mouth. In my entire head. My brain. What was happening to me?

I was laughing. I had erupted into a spasm of barking, helpless laughter. Hopeless laughter. Even as I was struck with shame my mirth continued, cruelly afflicting me with tears of glee.

I took off my helmet and gloves and slapped myself across the face as hard as I could, punishing myself for my disgraceful reaction. This stilled my merriment for a few seconds. I took a deep breath and gripped the wheel, staring at my tachometer, my oil pressure gauge, all the needles reading nil. I thought my mantra one time through and looked up again. Down at Eau Rouge, marshals waved yellow flags as cars paraded past the conflagration. I noticed that Vaton's cockpit was now empty. Across the track, a group of officials, gendarmes and other drivers knelt in a circle on a hay-strewn patch of grass. I couldn't see Vaton. But I knew he was there.

I thought about his accident and laughed again, and cursed, and stilled my tongue between my teeth. Then I slugged myself as hard as I could in the jaw. And then I laughed again.

There was an exodus from the pits now, everybody drawn, the way they always are, to the catastrophic disturbance in the distance.

Tex walked out behind me and joined the gathering throng. I tried hard to force my face into an appropriately somber expression and hoped he wouldn't turn in my direction. Still the muscles in my cheeks resisted, straining upwards against my will. I covered my mouth with my hand, as though aghast, and laughed maniacally.

I heard Tex tell someone from Cavallo Nero, "It's Vaton!"

I was struck by his use of the present tense. It isn't Vaton; Vaton is dead. But here was Tex saying, "It's Vaton!" as though the Frenchman had just appeared over the horizon, walking down the middle of the track and back to us.

It's Vaton!

Hey everybody! Come and see. It's Vaton!

I imagined a scene of joy and relief, of uncomplicated love. The ending to a children's story. The people swarming their hero. Hoisting him on their shoulders. For he's a jolly good fellow, for he's a jolly good fellow. I imagined he was coming home.

I got out of the car and watched as everyone gathered at the bottom of the hill, all pretending there was something more to do than look. As though they might summon Jean-Michel back to his feet by the force of their collective will.

I found I was trembling, traumatised. Still I could not stop breaking into airy titters when I thought about the shunt. There was something emphatically comical about it. The sequence of events had the character and rhythm of a marvelous joke; each spasm was a word and each concussion, punctuation. The explosion was the punchline, exclamation-marked, delivered with exquisite timing.

Ha!

---

A few of us gathered at the hotel bar that evening for an impromptu wake. Mercifully, my hysteria had long ago abated. When I thought of the accident now I felt a chill of dread and shame.

"I saw it happen," I volunteered to the others as I sipped my whiskey sour.

"You were behind him?" asked Danny.

"I was in the pits."

"He hit someone," Santiago noted. "Who did he hit?"

There was a pause before the Scot Rory MacDougal, Danny's teammate, shifted on his feet and cleared his throat.

"Me. He hit me."

There followed a silence as we all looked down, some nodding solemnly, in acknowledgment of the awful revelation that MacDougal had just made. We knew that he was not at fault; we knew Jean-Michel – impatient, impetuous – had brought about his own spectacular, perhaps inevitable end. I'd seen it happen.

Still, none of us wanted to set eyes on Rory now. It was as though he stood naked and trembling, defrocked by some brutish authority. He was cursed, untouchable. Of course, this made him a victim too. The shadow victim. What incomparably cruel luck it is to be the unwitting agent of another's death! To be an oblivious obstacle, rolling merrily along until he causes the furious driver behind him to vault into oblivion. Then what does he do? He pulls over, runs to the inferno, tries vainly to pull the victim out himself. The very flames guard the prone driver mockingly, as if to say: He's ours now, you fool. You're not worthy to save him.

There existed a strong–though unspoken–sentiment within our circle, and among aficionados, that death was a greater glory yet than victory. And as a corollary, there was no graver disgrace than to survive.

What's more, Jean-Michel Vaton was adored. He was strong, young, beautiful. Effortlessly charming. Had his pick of women. Never let on that he cared. A brilliant driver, fast as they come, a risk-taker in the grand tradition. Everyone knew he was going to be champion someday, and champion again for many years. People the world over bit their lips, impatient for his glorious reign to begin. And yet he was modest, even self-deprecating. I remembered seeing him in the pits at Monaco, wearing a ludicrous sombrero against the beating sun. He clowned in it, making faces. He was ridiculous and wonderful at once. Only he could get away with that, I remembered thinking to myself with envy. I, too, wanted to wear a very large Mexican hat and make everyone around me laugh. Who wouldn't? But what puzzled and disapproving smirks I'd receive if I did. Vaton was an utterly natural human being, absolutely unselfconscious, unfreighted. The sort of creature you're lucky to meet once, maybe twice in a lifetime. He was loved, loved, loved, loved, loved. And now he was dead.

I really began to feel bad for Rory.

"Something, I–" I began, hoping to change the subject. "Something funny. I had a funny reaction to the crash."

They all peered at me quizzically. It occurred to me I'd already made a hash of what I was about to say. Something funny? But there was no turning back now.

"A funny reaction, Mal?" Santiago Bragato asked me, squinting.

I sighed. And then I resumed. "I–my first reaction–I mean, I–well, this is strange. Truly hard to explain, b–"

"Spit it out, Limey!" urged Danny.

"I laughed."

"You what?" Danny asked, incredulous.

"I laughed. I'm sorry. I apologise. I laughed." I shook my head and peered into my drink, hoping this might underscore my remorse.

"You laughed?" said Checho, his temper rising. "You laughed?! I, for one, cannot understand what is so funny about the death of our friend, Jean-Michel Vaton!"

With that, he emphatically drained his Champagne, placed the empty flute on the bar, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. That was funny too. But no one smiled.

"No, Checho. I don't think it's funny, it's just that–"

"You laughed!" Danny accused.

"I laughed."

I let my admission hang in the air for a few moments. Then I tried again to make my case.

"I'm just as sick ab–"

"Why?"

"I laughed because there was something funny about it, Danny. Something about how the car hopped at the very end and..." I shook my head again. "It's horrible."

"Death is serious, Mal."

"I know, Danny. I know it is."

They all looked at me as though I'd grown a third eye. I redoubled my efforts to be understood.

"Gentlemen. I strive only to be candid with you. At a time like this. Think of Jean-Michel. Wouldn't he want us to be candid? I should think he'd be laughing too, actually," I ventured.

"Laughing at his own death?!" barked Danny.

I briefly closed my eyes. "Yes. Laughing at death. Isn't that what he was doing anyway?" I gulped from my glass. What on earth was I saying? What a stupid, stupid thing to say. Then I persisted, stubbornly: "Isn't that what we all do? Anyway?" I thought to myself: Stop talking. Stop. "Don't be such hypocritical cunts. The lot of you. If you didn't think death was funny, you'd never get into a race car."

A sheen of sweat had formed on my brow. I keenly wished to flee. If only I could somehow take it all back. Too late, too late, too late, too late.

Bragato dismissed me with a great wave of his hand. Slowly, the others withdrew, some giving me a wry, pitying glance as they turned their heads.

I went to the loo and splashed water onto my face. Had a good look at myself in the mirror. Who was this pathetic creature? This monster? He's a real nowhere man, I murmured to myself.

Just then the door banged open. I heard the creaks and scrapes of some stiff, unhuman figure proceeding solemnly, deliberately across the threshold. It was Rodney Sutcliffe on his crutches. I was afraid of what he might say. I was about to offer a preemptive apology when he spoke first.

"You know what, Mal?" he asked, gazing at his injured head in the mirror beside me.

"Yes?" I replied apprehensively.

"I was in the pits too. I saw it."

"Did you?"

He nodded. "And you know what?"

"Yes?"

He shook his head and looked into the sink. "I laughed too."

"You did?"

He nodded and sighed. "I did. Why, Mal? Why?"

"You laughed because it was funny," I replied grimly, feeling better now. Not so all alone.

"What was funny about it, Mal? A man dies before our very eyes."

"A good man."

"A great man."

We stood a while longer, staring at our reflections. Finally Rodney emitted a guffaw.

"God have mercy on us, Malcolm."

"It was funny, Rodney. Because we laughed."

"Something about the way th–"

"I know. The car landed on the track and–"

"And flipped right up again. You didn't expect it to–"

"But it did," I said. "That really wasn't called for, was it?"

"Bit much!"

"Sorry, mate, look–you're not dead enough already."

"Die some more!" said Rodney, his body quaking with laughter.

"And just for good measure–"

"Poof!"

"Bang!"

"Boom!" Rodney spread his hands to mime a big explosion.

We laughed at the mirror for a final few seconds. Then Rodney excused himself.

"Good luck tomorrow, Mal."

"You too."

I vomited copiously into the loo, rinsed out my mouth, and went upstairs for a scant few hours of dreamless, fitful sleep.

In the morning I stood with her and we looked at the beads of water on the window. After it rained all day we looked again. The glass was dry and overhead was the glinting sliver of the new moon.

On the first full day of spring fat snowflakes fell between the raindrops.

Sophia cried and strained on my lap, batting away the bottle, convulsed by her mysterious forces.

Later I put her in the crib, tamping down her cries with shhhh, shhhh, shhhh. When she finally stopped I tiptoed away as if she were my house of cards.

Oil & Hay - 17

On the morning of qualifying day I sat on the end of the hotel bed, joylessly chewing my toast and jam. Still the telephone was silent. I waited as long as I could before I had to dress and drive to the track.

She rang just as I tied my shoes.

"Mal darling, I only have a minute."

"Where are you? Berlin?"

"Yes. No–"

"No? Yes?"

"I'm in Berlin right now. On my way out the door to London."

"What for? A photo shoot? A premiere?"

"I'm going to see His Holiness."

"The Pope's in London?'

Melanie laughed. "Not the Pope, my poor, dear Malcolm. The Maharishi."

"Who on earth?"

"Maharishi Mahesh Yogi."

"I'm hearing gibberish right now, my love. Baby talk."

"He brings a message of unfathomable bliss to every man, woman and child on earth."

"Well then by all means."

"You should come see him with me, Mal. You of all people. His Holiness can open up your mind and see inside."

"Sounds rather dreadful, Mel."

"Are you ready to sacrifice what you are for what you may become?"

"Beg pardon?"

"That is the question."

"I saved Rodney Sutcliffe's life yesterday."

"Oh my God, Malcolm. Sweetie."

"He flew off the track and landed in a kitchen. I found him in bed with two nuns."

"Were they about to kill him?"

"He was soaking wet with petrol."

"Then what happened?"

"We lay him on the grass in the rain. The ambulance came."

"You need a new mantra. Guru can give you a mantra."

"You don't like my mantra? What's wrong with my mantra?"

"There is no right or wrong, my dear. You need new."

"I thought you were coming here, Mel."

"I am."

"When?"

"Tomorrow."

"In time to kiss me good luck?"

"In time to kiss you congratulations."

"I shall drive all the faster knowing such a moment is to come."

"I love you, Malcolm."

"I love you too."

I hung up and sprang to my feet, my once-heavy heart now buoyant. I sang to my reflection as I knotted my tie:

He's a real nowhere man,
Sitting in his nowhere land,
Making all his nowhere plans for nobody

Oil & Hay - 16

I'm following Sutcliffe during Friday morning practice, a mist hanging in the Ardennes. It could rain any minute, or it could not, as is always the case at Spa. I measure my progress in telephone poles, in people crowded on the hills, in the groves, the grandstands, in houses and in fields dotted with their cones of hay. My task–my obligation–is to make them disappear, again and again and again.

This track is skittish, temperamental. Deeply unnerving to drive. You're a pest on the body of a beast, vexing its rest; at any moment it might shudder and shake you off.

The rain starts falling in earnest now. Great plumes of spray rise from each of Rodney's rear wheels. He was never too fond of the wet. He enters the corners timidly, erratically, not quite sure when to brake. He overcompensates on the way out, accelerating too soon, letting the rear twitch and go squirrely. He's driving scared and angry, a toxic combination. I know how he feels.

Something terrible happens at the Masta Kink. Rodney's carrying far too much speed into the chicane; he navigates the left sweeper wide but can't turn back into the right. He loses it just before the house on the corner, hits the little concrete lip at the edge of the asphalt and flies off in a shower of mud, grass and debris.

I pulled over on the Holowell straight, got out of the cockpit and ran back to the scene of the shunt. I recognised from a hundred feet away the characteristic aura of the motorsport catastrophe. In the immediate aftermath the atmosphere grows eerie and unstable, as though breached by a precipitate void to which serene, surrounding nature must suddenly conform.

Where was his car?

This phenomenon, this nauseating mood–it occurs no matter what, I realised. Whether the driver's dead or halfway 'round the track on his merry way back to the pits. Is it in my head?

I followed the tracks in the grass past a row of bushes, down a little gulley and back up towards a farmhouse lined with pines. A haze of smoke, faintly discernible in the rain, emanated from a maw in its stone façade. Oil smoke—at least for now.

I scrambled up to the house, climbed through the shattered wall and entered a peaceful living space, a peasant's home adorned with tasteful, bourgeois furnishings and details: a side table with a lace cloth and a vase, a scroll-armed burgundy settee, sepia-toned ancestral portraits on the walls, a crucifix, a cuckoo clock. An antique globe had been devastated, with planet earth torn from its axis to roam around the hardwood floor like a marble. A wrought-iron chandelier swayed creakily overhead.

The gleaming green chassis of the Hewitt-Apogee lay sideways between the salon and kitchen, twisted and bent, hissing malevolently in a deepening pool of its precious fluids. I was struck by the absurdity of its black, diagonal number, on a circle on the bonnet. A scene of such violent incongruity, one world intruding upon another, and here was the only symbol I could see, the only code: 12. I thought again about what Melanie had said. I was frightened. Three wheels were missing but the fourth still spun.

Where was Rodney?

I examined the floor around the car. Nothing. He must have been ejected–mercifully–onto the soft, wet grass outside. I was about to climb back out the wall to look for him when I heard murmurs from down the corridor. I followed them to a partly open door. Pushing on it, I found Sutcliffe lying on a bed, bleeding from the forehead. He was soaked in petrol–its venomous stench filled the room. Two nuns ministered to him on either side, gently fiddling open his fire-retardant suit, dabbing his wounds with a towel.

"Rodney!" I exclaimed. "You're looking a bit second-hand."

"Malcolm, my friend," he answered airily. "My old, dear friend."

"Who are the nuns?" I asked.

"Aren't they lovely?"

The one to my right, the older one, turned to me with a stiff little smile and a bow.

"Monsieur," she said. "Nous étions de passage." We were passing through. Rodney gazed up at the other like a hungry babe.

"Ou sont les... habitants?" I asked in my heavily accented French.

She shrugged. "Ben, ils sont à la course, monsieur. Au Grand Prix. La d'ou vous venez, donc." They're at the race. Of course.

"C'est pas la course aujourd'hui, ma Mère," the younger nun corrected, her eyes fixed on her patient. "C'est les essais." It's not the race today. It's practice.

The other gave the faintest little shrug: Race, practice. What do I care what these men do? What do I know of these things?

It occurred to me that we must leave with the utmost urgency.

"Faut partir! Faut partir tout de suite!" I yelled.

The younger nun and I each took one of Rodney's arms over our shoulders and the three of us staggered back out the bedroom, Mother Superior in tow. Down the corridor we went, past the wreckage, out the kitchen and down a little path to the dirt lane that led back to the track. There we found a gendarme who advised us that an ambulance was just now on its way. We waited there, Rodney splayed out on the grass, the nun pressing the bloodied towel against his brow as the Mother knelt piously nearby. Arms crossed, the cop beheld our little scene impassively. Then we heard a hollow boom.We looked up to see a fireball engulf the farmhouse, black smoke and sparks beating up against the rain. From far away we heard a siren's dreary melody grow louder.

I descended into the 15th Street station, noting how clean it seemed, and empty. Lying in my path as I turned a corner was a toothbrush.

On the train a discarded Coke can fell over from the motion and leaked a slow rivulet down the center of the car. A man at the end halted his conversation to peer at the nearing trickle.

The Enterprise - 29

Neil was pissed. He called a meeting, all the execs (minus Sam), the team leads, plus me and David. Sales, dev, creative, marketing and operations. Judy and Bill were to call in from out west. He included links to some of the more provocative user session transcripts in his e-mailed invite and noted that he wanted these to serve as a "kickoff point" for a brainstorming session to "determine lessons learned," "adapt to new realities" and "establish best strategies moving forward." He remained standing even as the rest of us were seated.

"Did everyone take a look at the links I sent?" he began.

We nodded and murmured our assent. Neil made a brusque gesture of his open hand, signaling impatience.

"And?" he demanded.

A few seconds of silence ensued.

"Anyone have anything to say about it?"

Finally Bob spoke up. "It's interesting."

"Interesting?! What kind of a goddamned thing to say is that?"

Bob smirked and twiddled his pencil.

"Anyone? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone wanna tell me why I'm just a little concerned about our user base? Anyone?"

Dennis, our amiable and ingenuous COO, spoke up from his seat in the back of the room.

"They struck me as a little bit rude, Neil."

We agreed, thankful that someone had confronted the question at last. We looked hopefully at our leader.

"And why the fuck are they rude, Dennis? Why?"

Dennis grimaced and recoiled into a helpless shrug.

"Can't anyone in this room tell m–"

Just then Judy's voice crackled through the tricorn phone. "Neil? Neil? Neil?"

"Judy?" Neil responded, leaning over with his hands on the table. Debbie was visible behind him, poking her camera around his shoulder. Its lens ranged over us like the snout of a predatory beast.

"I don't know what everyone's observing on your side," Judy began diplomatically, "but my takeaway is that our audience skews young."

Neil stood straight back up and launched a volley of sarcastic applause.

"Thank you Judy. Thank you." Then he addressed us all again. "That wasn't too goddamn hard, was it? Do you all understand what Judy is saying here?"

"Our demographic is young?" piped in Derek.

"THEY'RE KIDS!" howled Neil. "THEY ARE FUCKING KIDS! For Christ's Jesus sake."

"Well, of course they're kids," Tom rejoined bravely.

"Of course they're kids?!"

"They are early adopters of technology, man."

"That's it," chimed Bob.

Neil shook his head incredulously and emitted a coarse, unhappy chuckle.

"Guys, guys, people: they are early adopters of shit."
"But Neil, kids are on the leading edge of texting, of instant messaging," Cindy noted.

"They're on the leading edge of profanity, Cindy," Neil groaned. "They are pioneers on the frontier of vulgarity. They are the explorers of the scatological depths. They are–what do you call it? In the caves?"

"Spelunkers," I offered.

"Spelunkers. Thank you, Paul. They are spelunkers in the ass of our culture."

"I dunno, Neil," Bob insisted. "The kids of today are the adults of tomorrow." He looked around for some support. "Am I right?"

"Bob. Did you read the transcripts?"

Bob sighed and bowed his head. We all knew Neil was right.

"Question: How the fuck do we monetize this? Excuse me. Sorry." Neil closed his eyes and drew a breath. "Rephrase that: How do we monetize this? I'm serious. I'm all ears."

After a sad lull, Bob responded: "Let's instruct them to find their mother's purses, take out the credit card."

A ripple of dark laughter traversed the room.

"Type the digits into the little window. Please? Kid?"

"And the expiration date," added Derek.

"The expiration date. Four digits always," said Bob.

"We'll need the full name as it appears on the card," Cindy added.

"Mrs. Whatever. Whoever Whatever. Your mom's full goddamned name, kid."

"Mrs. Mommy Mom," I said.

"The special code on the back," David noted. "Three-digit code."

"Three or four depending," Bob corrected. "American Express."

We all were laughing hard. I looked up at Neil. He was laughing too. At least for now.

The Enterprise - 28

I'd managed to leave my last job for this one rather than get laid off, which would soon have been my fate. It was another Web startup, Riot.com, founded by a few American ex-pats in Budapest in the mid- to late-nineties and transplanted to New York City when it caught wind in the first boom.

Its arc was emblematic of the era: a few friends – smart, young, ambitious – intertwine their fates, breaking down the barriers between work and play, between the professional and the personal. They observe sweatshop hours, they drink and fuck, they snowball-fight in the cobbled streets of a medieval city recently liberated from Soviet rule. Soon strangers are hired, strangers much like themselves but strangers nonetheless. Some are American, some Hungarian. Most are agreeable. Some less so. One has body odor and carries his belongings in a backpack everywhere. All are integrated into the fold. They are called upon to believe that the world is changing; that they are agents of its change; that they shall inherit it, too.

Like magic one day, an intrepid and visionary investor rained millions of dollars upon the venture. Its holding company came to be traded on the Vienna Stock Exchange. The headquarters were relocated to a vast space on Broadway just below Prince, with shiny wood floors. Satellite offices opened in London, Chicago, San Francisco.

What did this company produce? Games. Not graphically sophisticated first-person shooters, adventures or races, but rather trivia games of various configurations. Short ones, long ones. Individual player. Multi-player. Music trivia. TV, sports. History. True or false, multiple choice. All of the above. I was hired to write the questions.

When I arrived in 1999 the office had just moved from SoHo to the garment district, from retail to wholesale, to 35th Street, in the workaday shadow-realm between Penn Station and Times Square. The reason for this was its acquisition of, merger with, or acquisition by another concern that specialized in one thing: prizes. They awarded shiny merchandise to anyone who lingered long enough on their site, clicking around, absorbing brand impressions. You could collect points and bid them on a mousepad, a travel alarm, six Omahan filet mignons in dry ice. The executives and boards of both companies agreed there were tremendous synergetic opportunities here. Huge upside. Big gestalt. Their union seemed to be written in the stars.

The first order of business was to merge the two databases of tens of millions of registered users. Engineers with thick accents were flown over from Hungary to evaluate exigencies, examine risks, model schemas and perform test runs. Shouts were often audible from behind the conference room door. An atmosphere of solemn purpose permeated the office, as one might find at NASA ground control or Allied Headquarters in the weeks before D-Day. I kept my head down. Wrote the trivia.

By November, a site redesign had been launched to decidedly mixed reviews from both inside and out. Millions were spent on an ad campaign: national television, radio, billboards, digital. The TV spot featured a group of businessmen in suits busting out of prison and running jubilantly through a field, doing cartwheels, tearing off their ties and hurling their briefcases into a pond. No allusion was made anywhere to the purpose or even the characteristics of the site. The company also underwrote a backmarking team in the CART open-wheel racing series. One morning on my way to work I was jolted from my sleepy stupor to find our name and slogan – "There's a riot going on!" – adorning the side of the bus I was to ride.

The combined company grew bigger still. One day in December, a global e-mail announced that, moving forward, we would all be required to share our cubicles. My mate was a female database manager from India who smiled shyly and spoke halting, fractured English. She reported to the CTO, a Chinese wiz known as Dr. Bill. He came around periodically to bark out instructions in his own stilted syntax. "Prepare user geography distribution statistics for analysis! Column here! Column B! B!" Then he'd wander off and she'd poke around her screen for a couple of hours. It appeared to me that she never understood a word of Bill's commands. Then she'd speak to her husband on the phone for fifteen minutes, put on her coat, and leave with a smile and a wave goodbye.

A public offering on the NASDAQ exchange was scheduled for early 2000. It happened that a week beforehand, the market, which heretofore had emerged as the newest wonder of the world, magnificent and ever glorious, had plunged by about ten percent. The new president of the company, Jeff Travis, gathered everyone in the unoccupied tenth floor of the building for a pep talk. All was well, he said. Evidently he and the CEO and COO had been on a dog and pony show, lining up investors around the globe. Pension funds, mutual funds. Hedge funds. A spendthrift Arab prince. "We're gonna get there," he said. "Keep doing the great work that you're doing."

I chanced upon the three executives on my way out of the elevator one evening as they returned from a few days on the road. Their spooked, ashen faces gave the impression that they'd each, in turn, tiptoed to the edge of the abyss and taken long, pensive looks into its darkest reaches.

Many of us participated in the pre-IPO reserved for employees and other privileged parties. The strike price was thirty-four dollars per share. I threw in, I don't know, five thousand dollars. I even roped in a friend of mine to do the same. I parried his doubts about the investment with something like this: People will always love trivia. But something didn't feel right on the big day. We all observed the price obsessively. It twitched up to thirty-five then slid slowly over the course of the afternoon, settling at thirty-two something. I remembered some fine print somewhere about a twenty-four-hour grace period. I phoned the Merrill Lynch broker who was in charge of our accounts and canceled my bid. The following day, the stock tumbled another five points. Within a month it was trading in the low single digits.

A round of layoffs soon came, followed by another a few weeks later. The second took my own boss, Margaret, a fastidious and demanding editor with decades of experience. Finally we remained a patchy crew, barely able to keep the site updated. We devoted ourselves desperately to the slightest revenue-generating hope. Most were dashed as advertisers pulled out of deals and partners closed shop.

There was a methadone clinic next door. As the weather warmed, junkies sometimes lay passed out against the wall, legs splayed like they'd been shot.

Most nights, we'd gather after work at the wood-paneled Irish bar on the corner, making dark little jokes about the way things were.

The company was sold again, on the cheap, to a direct marketing billionaire. He installed his dour, headstrong, imbecilic son, who appeared to be about twenty-three years old, as chief executive of the dying operation. They picked our bones and declared that virtually everyone would be laid off come September. I was told I'd keep my rum ration if I stayed aboard the sinking ship until the last mast disappeared into the sea. I got my new job instead.

There's an undercurrent of disenchantment, bitterness and regret in middle class American life that's not present in Europe or elsewhere. This is attributable to the "American Dream" and all its derivations and perversions. We have high hopes here. High aspirations. What that means, of course, is that many - perhaps most - of us will be disappointed. In Europe, they may take to the streets, they may or may not extract what they desire from their authorities, but when they put up their feet for tea (or wine, or beer) they are largely content. Here we seethe through an evening's reality TV until our senses are sufficiently numbed to drift into fitful slumber. I am also certain that this, combined with our fetishization of guns (maybe the two are related) is why we experience gone-postal massacres with a regularity you could set your watch to. The Land of Opportunity is necessarily also the Land of Failure.

Sometimes it seems like she knows something I don't. Not the other way around. Somewhere between her helplessness and her inarticulate demands there lies a spirit of daunting authority, all the more powerful for its inscrutability. And sometimes she smiles as if to say, "I know you know."

I noticed the synagogue on Eighth Avenue for the first time today as we took the baby to the doctor for her shots. A vast building with stained glass and a Star of David perched atop the cupola, stark in the white winter sky. I felt foolish for not having noticed it before. This is our neighborhood.

A minute later, a thin woman pushing a stroller smiled at us and stopped.

"Excuse me," she said. "Is there a synagogue near here somewhere?"