Rant

disruption of the sacroiliac joints with impaction, and fractures of the acetabulum. For those of you on the North Side, the northbound exit from the 614 to the eastbound Helmsberg Freeway is slow, due to a Student Driver stalled on the right shoulder. For Graphic Traffic, this is Tina Something.
    Shot Dunyun: Green’s lurking us behind a student driver, trailing, weaving through traffic for a better angle, hoping to split the target onto a side street where a solid tag won’t soak up too much attention. Maybe police attention. Green’s keeping a van, a taxi, a busanything big and bright—between us, so the target won’t see our flag flying.
    Watching for Sharks, I ask Rant if he’s looking for a boyfriend.
    And Rant goes, “Nah.” He’d screw a German shepherd, Rant says, if it would make his folks love him less. Save them from pain. “Part of my strategying,” Rant goes, his head turning to cover two quadrants, our three to nine o’clock. “The worse my folks think of me,” he says, “the less they’ll hurt about me being gone.”
    The bus driving next to us, it brakes, drops back for a stop. We’re exposed for the time it takes Green to say, “Gentlemen, brace yourselves,” and the Left B-Pillar Lookout in our target is staring back, straight at our flag.
    The target dives around the next right turn, down a dark lane of parked cars, and Green throws us past the bus in pursuit. Two student drivers, leaving rubber and smoke.
    From DRVR Radio Graphic Traffic Reports: This update just in from the meat wagon, en route with our earlier 213 rollover: We won’t know for sure until the autopsy, but it looks like another minor laceration of the proximal jejunum with communication with the peritoneal cavity. Inside word is, just two thousand milliliters of purulent material leaks into your peritoneal cavity and the ambulance driver shuts off those sirens and fancy lights. Somethingelse to keep in mind as you hurry through your commute today.
    Shot Dunyun: Our target’s cruising slow, too close to parked cars for us to make our tag without costly collateral damage. Putting a dent in a game car is fair, but denting an innocent bystander, you have to fess up. Pay for repairs. Our target banks on this fact and tucks close beside parked cars, staying safe until he can lose us around a quick exit. An alley. Ora cop.
    Keeping an eye on my game quadrant, I ask Rant if he’s queer or not. That’s the night Green Taylor Simms started calling him Huckleberry Fagg.
    And Rant goes, “Truth is, I won’t never be a doctor. Don’t even ask me to do long division.” He goes, “I can’t do much to make my folks proud…” And he leans forward, reaching into the front seat to turn up the radio. Tina’s yakking. Her taking calls from paramedics and traffic cops and pasting together her rubberneck deal.
    “But,” Rant goes, “if I get my folks’ expectations low, and pester them with the worry they messed me up, then just the simple miracle of me getting a girl in trouble—that will bust them open with joy and relief.”
    From DRVR Radio Graphic Traffic Reports: One last report from the boys in the meat wagon, regarding the fatality rollover on the 213: The song they died hearing was “My Sharona” by The Knack. And that makes Brian Lambson our newest Death Song winner. Brian, if you’re listening, call in the next hour to accept your prize. This has been Tina Something for Graphic Traffic: We Know Why You Rubberneck…
    Shot Dunyun: As Rant reaches into the front seat, to fiddle with the radio controls, written on the back of his hand in blue ballpoint pen it says: P295/30 R22…P285/30 R22…425/65 R22.5. Obviously tire sizes. Big tires.
    Nodding at the blue numbers, I ask him, “Been car-shopping?” And Rant goes, “How good do you know Echo?” He sits back. Good enough, I tell him. Pretty good.
    Green Taylor Simms feathers the gas pedal, patient. The target car almost touching-close. Almost brushing the line of parked cars. Our two cars moving first-gear slow. The smell of insecticide. The flavor of rabies.
    And Rant goes, “Figured maybe I’d get her a present…”
    Echo is off, working, tonight. Doing some bullshit I don’t want to explain here. Complicated shit. Rant goes, “Really truly with her whole entire heart, does Echo hate somebody?”
    I go, doesn’t Rant mean “love”?
    And Rant shrugs and says, “Ain’t it the same thing?”
    18–The City
    Todd Rutz ( Coin Dealer): The kid