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Thrown Rod, Cruel Stars
     after Intergalactic by The Beastie Boys

After their seventeen-year-old son Mikey was killed in a car crash, all Steve and Deb Carson (our neighbors of ten years) talked about were Satanic barcode scanners at the grocery story, the secret societies American presidents belonged to, false cryptoscientific work trumping the efforts of true cryptoscience, any places of worship built atop a catacomb, sewer system, or salt cave, the number 6 and the number 7, vapor trails, various man-made structures visible from space, any contemporary rock band or book that did not glorify The Eternal Battle, and the various conspiracy theories surrounding the Apollo lunar landing.

For the entire month of December, after her International Scout blew a rod, I gave Deb a ride to the Lazy-J Motor Lodge, where she worked nights cleaning rooms. It was a particularly brutal winter, and we all got tired of the weatherman telling us how many records were broken. Even the stars seemed cruel. On our trips together, Deb confided in me her deepest anxieties about the CIA and the Jewish media. The last time I gave her a ride to work, the unmistakable shape of a man’s face appeared on the inside of my windshield. It stayed there for all fifteen miles of our ride, and I looked through the space where his eyes were, trying to keep track of the road as it disappeared in the fog. She gave me chance after chance, but all I could say was, Have a good one, See you soon, Take good care.