Need Food

The commotion erupted on the corner of Sixth and 23rd, in the two o'clock heat of a summer Friday afternoon. At first I couldn't tell what was happening. Only that something was happening. I didn't even know what I could tell. It's like when you wake up for some reason and a second later, your alarm goes off.

"Faggot! Fuckin' faggot! Hey! Hey! Hey!"

As I walked west I turned to see a short, young Latino, nicely dressed in the way you'd imagine him to be for his semiserious job -- short-sleeved white shirt, tie, chinos. He held a phone up to his ear.

In pursuit was a skulking, deranged white man, a little older. Not too much.

"Fuckin' faggot! Wavin' your fuckin' arms around like a faggot!" he howled.

"Fuck you bitch," replied the first man over his shoulder. Away from the receiver.

"Why dontcha watch where yer goin', faggot?"

"Bitch. Fuck you."

The angry man held a panhandler's cardboard sign as he strode, which he seemed to be on the verge of letting go. I tilted my head to read its scrawled, black, capitalized plea:

NEED FOOD

"That's it, keep walkin'!" he raged. "Keep walkin' like a little faggot!"

"Fuck you! Fuckin' bitch."

"Faggot! Come here, you fuckin' faggot!"

I hovered nearby, as did a few other passersby. Wondering where all this would go. If anyone might need to intervene.

Just then the first man ducked into a check-cashing joint. Not too quick. Still on the phone. Playing it cool, like that's where he was headed all along.

The madman turned and vanished back onto the avenue.

What's harder, remembering your dreams in the morning or the day's events at night?

The bank buildings on Sixth Ave. loomed high above the subway exit, uniform and bright, appearing to vibrate very slightly in the sun.

On Broadway there lay a pigeon fetus in the crosswalk, by the curb at 53rd, pale-pink, waxy, assailed by a thousand tiny ants.

Chris had a baby doll's head stuck on a broken drumstick. He declared they would take it to the top of the Empire State Building later, take a picture. In the middle of the afternoon I received it on my phone, the head on the stick staring past the camera with its eerie little smile, behind it all of Downtown Manhattan.

There were two young white guys standing on the F train home, intoxicated, overheated. One said something about one of the two pretty black girls chatting on the other side of the pole. She didn't hear. Or maybe she did.

It was no insult.

Their voices rose and fell. It was hard to make sense of their conversation - they mentioned friends, I guess. Parties. Some kid they knew who followed some band around the mid-Atlantic states. To the Merriweather Post Pavillion and beyond.

"How can he afford it?"

"Dude, he's fuckin' rich!"

"Oh yeah?"

"He's so, so, so, so, so fuckin' rich! He's got like, tons of electric guitars."

"Oh yeah?"

"He had a Super Bowl party. His mom made like, Cajun food."

"Yeah?"

"'Cause of the Saints."

"Yeah."

"She made crocodile stew."

"No fuckin' way!"

I found myself idly fantasizing that they'd notice me, say something rude. Insolent. Deride me for my hat. I thought through the magnificent steps of my furious response.

They grew louder yet, at times. People sitting farther down the car looked up from the papers and the books they rested in their laps. Their electronic reading devices.

"I don't care if people look at me," one boy said. "This is how I am."

As I walked past them off the train at Seventh Avenue, this is what I thought: They're not so bad. They're not so bad at all.

The Summer Party

At the summer party there was a curious jumble of food arrayed on a table in the dark garage: pulled pork and barbecued chicken in foil trays, tubs of obscurely branded deli salads, hot dog buns with nothing to stick inside.

People sat listlessly in chairs arrayed out on the tarmac, under the stinging sun. Then it clouded over and a spitting drizzle fell. Then the sun came back, hotter than before.

Someone played Nirvana on a guitar.

A fat old man grilled what remained of the meat and flipped it onto a platter, forming a jumbled heap of charred sausages, hot dogs and burgers. Then he turned off the fire and walked away.

Running through the park in the morning, between nannies and dog walkers, into the woods by the pond and up the hill and through the big, rolling field, cans spilling yesterday's trash into my path.

Fireworks bloomed all over Brooklyn, on the rivers and New Jersey in the distance, some in haphazard bursts, others methodical, he result of civic budgets and deliberate preparations. The big ones were on five barges somewhere on the Hudson. Their reflections flashed on every pane that faced them and their thin, sulfurous smoke crept across the skyline.

At the end of it the crescent moon appeared in the left side of the sky, in a band of clouds, blurry, indistinct. It was almost cloaked again before it finally reemerged, reclaiming the night for good.

Back downstairs, we heard a solitary voice from the street, through our living room window. It was a weary, male voice, with an old-time, Brooklyn accent. Here is what it said:

Fuck you!

I was sitting beside a guy on the subway today and he had a box in his lap. A small, white box that read:

Dan

(scrawled in green marker)

And below that:

TURKEY

(printed on a little sticker).

If my name's Dan and I'm due to eat a sandwich-a turkey sandwich, and it's been provided in a little white box, with my name on it and an indication as to the type of sandwich: Kill me. Kill me now.

Lightnin' Hopkins came on the stereo and the guitar convulsed her body like a shock.

The F I rode pulled into Delancey and waited there a minute, doors closed. Suddenly the conductor burst out of his cabin: "This train's out of service," he declared.

We piled onto the platform and waited morosely, lost in electronic realities. I wondered: If the train was out of service, didn't that mean it was stuck here? I imagined complicated, time-consuming arrangements being made to tow the train to a siding. Somewhere above us the sun would set, maybe come back up again. None of us the wiser.

But just then it creaked into motion. I looked back down to my audio-visual entertainment device. When I looked back up, a train was pulling in. Or was it the old one, departing still?

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.