The Book of Joe

needle creeps up past one hundred, and we can now feel every dip and pebble in the warped pavement of the
    old road. I tighten my grip on the wheel, thinking to myself that no good can come of this. In the passenger seat, Wayne appears even more depleted, and I find myself worrying irrationally about the pressure of the wind on him, as if it might pull his gossamer skin right off his flimsy bones. “Faster,” he says.
    “You’re not even wearing your seat belt.”
    He turns to me and smiles ironically. “It’s one of the few perks of my condition,” he says, and then, affecting an exaggerated Mexican lilt, shouts, “We don’t need no stinking seat belts!”
    The trees rush by us in a haze of green as the Mercedes’
    tires churn against the blacktop. The needle now hovers at 115, which is, to the best of my recollection, the fastest I’ve ever driven. We shoot through the night, Wayne and I, two lost, lonely souls, vibrating in our seats like pistons as we hurtle over the road on borrowed power, the air desperately parting and diving out of our path in the xenon glare of our low beams. And maybe it’s not about speed exactly; maybe it’s about time, and trying to catch it, to overtake it and just slow everything the fuck down for a little while.
    “Faster!” Wayne bellows jubilantly. “You pussy!”
    “You’re really a terrible influence on me,” I say.
    “Come on,” he exhorts me. “What are you so worried about?”
    As if on cue, we hear the growing wail of a police siren behind us an instant before the flashing lights appear in my mirror. “Busted,” Wayne says, unable to conceal his glee.
    “Shit.” I brake heavily. “I hope you’re satisfied.”
    Wayne leans forward to check his side-view mirror. “I think we can take him,” he says earnestly, a wild look in his eyes.
    “You can’t be serious.”
    “Come on. Live a little.”
    When I slow down, Wayne goes into a pout, staring out the window like a petulant adolescent. “Fine. Be that way,” he mutters.
    I frown at him as I pull over, the police car coming to a stop about ten yards behind me. “It’s Mouse,” Wayne says.
    “What?” I lean over him to rummage through the glove compartment for my registration.
    “From high school. Mouse Muser.”
    “No way.” I peer through my side-view mirror as the cop approaches the car.
    “Afraid so.”
    Dave Muser, the starting point guard for the Cougars during my tenure at Bush Falls High, was nicknamed Mouse because of his small stature and the frenetic manner in which he scurried around the court, distributing the ball among his teammates. In most cases, finding out that you’ve been pulled over by an old classmate might be a relief, but obviously this isn’t most cases. Mouse, along with Sean Tallon, had been instrumental in terrorizing Sammy Haber back in high school, and in my novel I portrayed him as a truly grotesque character, even shorter and uglier than he was, more of a mascot than a friend to Sean and his henchmen.
    Mouse’s father was the sheriff back then, and apparently Mouse has gone into the family business.
    I roll down my window. Because of his diminutive height, Mouse’s face is only slightly above eye level, and a cursory glance reveals that he’s changed very little in seventeen years.
    With its primitive, jutting forehead, squinting eyes, and acne-scarred cheeks, Mouse’s face suggests that sometime in his past, his progenitors might have been given to swimming a little more than they should in the family gene pool. “Well, well,” he says with a nasty grin. “Look who we have here.”
    “Hey, Mouse,” I say. “How’ve you been?”
    “No one calls me that anymore.”
    “I’m sorry, um ... Dave.”
    “It’s Deputy Sheriff Muser, as far as you’re concerned,” he says, and there is no mistaking the naked hostility in his voice. “You have any idea how fast you were going?”
    “Not really.”
    “Hey, Mouse,” Wayne calls from the passenger seat. “How’s it going?”
    Mouse looks past me and grimaces when he sees Wayne.
    “Hey there, Wayne,” he says, clearly uncomfortable. “I didn’t see you.” Wayne’s coming out was a first for a former Cougar, and his ex-teammates had vociferously denounced and shunned him, no doubt fearful of casting doubt upon their own proclivities through association.
    “Do you think maybe you could cut us a break, just this once?” Wayne says. “A last courtesy for an old teammate?”
    “If you’d