The concert had been great. Tony's ears were ringing and he couldn't hear himself think, much less hear what the others were talking about. The crowd was thinning but it was still hard walking. There were no lights in the Swing Auditorium parking lot and out here in the valley there wasn't nearly the background glow of electric L.A. It was like being stuck in a black cave with a herd of cattle. He stumbled on broken asphalt and almost tripped Joan, who was holding on to his hand. He felt loaded and hadn't even had a drink. Then again, there had been enough dope smoke in the air to waste the security guards.

"What did you say?" Tony yelled at Joan.

"I didn't say anything!" Joan yelled back, sounding ten miles away but leaning close enough to make him wonder if the evening's fun wasn't only beginning. She was wearing tight white pants, a skimpy orange blouse, and her hair was all over the place, including in his face.

"It was I!" Kipp giggled, hanging on to Brenda, the two holding each other up. They had sure put away the beer on the long drive out to the auditorium. There were still several six-packs left. "Where the hell did I put my car?"

"There it is!" Brenda laughed, pointing so vaguely that she could have meant half the parking lot.

"I drive a Ford, not a Volkswagen!" Kipp shouted. "Hey, Neil, do you remember where my blue baby is?"

Neil did not have a date but they had brought him because he loved music and because he was such a great guy to have around when you're trying to find your car. He didn't drink and appeared impervious to marijuana smoke. He answered Kipp, but his voice was lost in the crowd and the ringing ears.

"You're going to have to speak up!" Kipp shouted.

Using hand signals, Neil managed to get across the message that they should follow him. Tony stumbled obediently on his heels, bumping into Joan whenever possible, with her hanging onto his pants pockets, giggling and cursing up a storm as they dodged people and slid between jammed cars. The maze seemed endless. Finally, however, Neil halted and by golly if they weren't standing next to Kipp's pride and joy---a super-charged '97 Ford. Kipp had parked at the far end of the lot where they could supposedly enjoy a quick getaway. Too bad the exits were all on the other end of the lot.

The wait in the traffic was tedious. The concert had strung them all up and now they had to move like snails. A half hour later and they were still captive of the carbon-monoxide-spouting train. To pass the time, Kipp ---who was driving, naturally ---and Brenda set to work on the remainder of the beer. Joan even had a couple of cans, though her dad always gave her a sobriety test when she got home from being out late, and Tony thought what the hell and put away a couple of beers himself. The alcohol seemed to dull the ringing in his head. Neil took a can, too, after prodding from Brenda, but nursed it carefully.

They were on the verge of a breakthrough to the street that led to the freeway when someone knocked on their window.

"Alison!" Brenda squealed when Kipp rolled down the window, letting in a fog of exhaust. "Wow! It's sooo amazing running into you here!"

"Brenda, I was with you when we bought tickets for this concert," Alison said, ducking her head partway into the car. Her curly black hair was held back with a pin and there were oil stains on her hands. She looked slightly exasperated, unusual for her---Alison always impressed Tony as being in control. He was sitting in the back seat and, for reasons known only to his sober mind, he immediately took his hand off Joan's knee. "Hi Neil! Hi Joan!" She smiled. "Like the concert, Tony?"

He grinned. "Wasn't loud enough."

"Having car trouble?" Neil asked from the dark corner of the backseat. The car in front was moving and if they didn't move too, the horns would start quick. Alison held up her oily hands.

"Yes. Fran and I are killing the battery. It just refuses to turn over. Could you please . . . "

"Call the auto club," Joan interrupted. "I've got to get back soon or my old man will be out on the porch with his shotgun." The car behind them honked. "Come on, Kipp. Move it."

"Pull over to the left," Tony said, though he knew Joan's dad disliked him and would only be too happy to have an excuse to castrate him with buckshot. Joan scowled but held her tongue.

"Sure," Kipp said. Alison stepped back and he swung out of line, their personal slot vanishing quickly. The glaring rows of headlights at thier back made it a sure b we t it would be a while before they got another shot at the freeway.

Fran's car was a Toyota Corolla, and Kipp promptly snorted his disgust for Japanese workmanship. While he tried jumping the battery, Tony checked for loose wires and Neil peered in the gas tank. All systems appeared go until Kipp put the jumper cables directly on the starter. It didn't so much as click, and they knew where they stood.

"Call the auto club," Joan repeated when they paused for a hasty conference on what to do next. "You're a member, aren't you, Fran?"

"I don't know. Am I?"

"I am," Alison said. "I guess i could call . . ."

"No," Tony said quickly. "It would take one of their men forever to get through this traffic. This is a run-down area. Neither of you would be safe waiting around. You're coming home with us."

"But my dad will have to drive all the way out here to fix it," Fran complained.

"He won't mind the inconvenience once he understands it is to ensure your saftey," Tony said smoothly, having absolutely no idea about Fran's father's position on such matters.

"There's no room in Kipp's car for seven people." Joan growled.

"No problem," Kipp belched, swaying. "You can sit on my hands." Brenda punched him. "My lap, I mean." Brenda hit him again.

"Joan," Tony said with a trace of irritation, "auto club employees do not install starters, especially in the middle of the night. It's settled; now let's get back in line. And Kipp, give me your keys, you're drunk."

"If I was drunk," Kipp mumbled indignantly, "would I have trouble seeing like I am now?"

He handed over the keys a minute later.

Two hours had gone by and they were lost. At least the traffic had disappeared. They hadn't even seen another car in twenty minutes. Tony was sure he had gotten on the freeway going west toward L.A. but he wasn't sure when or how he had switched freeways --- not all the signs were lit up in this crazy part of the country---and Alison's shortcut on the surface roads back to the correct freeway had definitely been a mistake. She was in the back this minute, poring over a tattered map with a flashlight, telling him to turn this way and that. The first gas station he saw, he was pulling over. In fact if he saw an ordinary house, he might stop. The surrounding fields seemed to stretch to infinity. They could have stumbled into the heart of the Australian desert.

Nevertheless, they were having fun. They had plenty of gas and fine conversation and the beer tasted good and he was no longer worried about the alcohol slowing his reflexes. He'd only had a few cans, anyways, and he was a big boy and had a hearty liver. He knew what he was doing and as soon as he knew where he was going he would be just fine. Joan's mood had lightened considerably---her old man was away fishing, she had remembered ---and she was laughing and the way her legs were rubbing against his was distracting but he wasn't complaining. Even Fran was full of holiday cheer ---she was unmistakably loaded --- and Kipp had taken to reminiscing, which was always a riot. No one could lie with a straighter face than Kipp.

"Should I tell them, Tony, about the time we snuck into Coach Sager's house to steal his kitchen sink and caught him seducing one of Grant High's teenyboppers?"

"Tell them the whole story." Tony nodded. Coach Sager was the football and track coach. They had never been within a mile of his house, wherever that was.

A road was approaching, narrower than the one they were on but running north and south. As the silhouette of the mountains was nowhere to be seen, Tony decided they must have come too far south. "Think I should make a right here, Ali?" he asked, slowing.

"Is there a sign?" She asked, apparently lost in a part of the map that was mostly gray. He could see her in the rearview mirror. She'd let her hair down and was looking all right.

"No sign."

"Might as well give it a try," she said. "We must be too far east."

"But this road runs north." Tony squinted. Either it was taking a long time for the brakes to take hold or else the road was approaching amazingly fast. He had to hit the pedal hard at the last instant to make the turn. There was a screech of rubber, and gravel sprayed the Ford's underbelly. He flipped on the high beams, rubbing his eyes. The night seemed to be getting darker.

"It was a Saturday night," Kipp began. " We thought the couch was gone for the evening, you see, and we wanted to unhook his kitchen sink and put it in the attick so when he called the cops he'd have to tell them that they took nothing but the kitchen sink!" Kipp laughed at the prospect and the rest of them laughed with him.

"Give me another beer, Fran," Brenda said.

"Have mine," Joan said. "I'm full."

They hit a bump and Tony's head hit the ceiling. The road was uneven but straight as an arrow and looked like it could stretch across the state. He decided to accelerate.

"At first he was out," Kipp continued, burping. "We practically had the last bolt unscrewed and hadn't even scratched the blasted sink. Then we heard the garage door opening and we knew we were in trouble. But we didn't panic, we were cool. We raced upstairs and hid under the bed in the master bedroom. We could have snuck out the back door--that's how we came in--but we knew we were on to hot stuff when we heard female squeals coming from the garage."

"Get off it," Joan muttered.

"It's true! It's true! Now here comes the good part. When we were lying under the bed, what do we hear but Coachy bringing the young lady upstairs. I tell you, my gut almost split holding back the laughter. Especially when I remembered I had my phone. When I pushed the record button, I knew I was capturing something for posterity."

"What did they do?" Fran gasped.

The white strip disappeared from the center of the road. Tony was bothered at first but then figured he now had the whole road to himself. It was nice not having to stop for lights and pedestrians. All he had to watch out for were the tumbleweeds. A wind must have kicked up outside; the big thorny brown balls kept bouncing across his path, forcing him into an occasional swerve. The dust was also a pain, the headlights straining through it as they would have through filthy fog. But neither the weeds nor sand was a major problem. Joan put a beer in his hand and he sipped it gratefully. They may not have been heading in exactly the right direction but they were making excellent time.

"Everything," Kipp said. "They did things I haven't even done with Brenda."

"Kipp!" Brenda said.

"Brenda!" Fran said.

"What a crock of B.S." Joan said.

"Tony," Kipp said, "have I or haven't I spoken the sacred truth?"

"To the finest detail." He yawned, checking his watch. It was two-fifteen and it felt like it. He could have closed his eyes in this second and gone to sleep. Maybe, he thought, he should let Alison drive.

"Where's your phone?" Joan asked.

"Huh?" Kipp said.

"If it's true, I want to hear it."

Kipp caught them all off guard. "All right," he said, pulling his phone from his pocket. "You'll have the rare and exciting privilege." After a quick search, he got the recording started. "This is confidential information, you understand."

There came a sound of sloppy footsteps, two pair, both anxious to get up the stairs, overlaid with fuzzy male and female voices. As the footsteps got louder, the voices grew clearer. To Tony's inestimable pleasure, the guy sounded like Coach Sager. The girl, also, seemed familiar.

"How old are you?" the coach was asking, his voice slurred as if he had been drinking, the lousy no good tyrant. They hit another bump and Tony vaguely wondered if it had been a rabbit.

"Eighteen," the girl crooned.

"I thought you said you were a junior?"

"So I flunked."

Wet kisses and lots of heavy breathing followed. Except for Fran's heavy breathing, the car was silent.

"Have you done this before?" Coach Sager muttered.

"Yeah, this afternoon."

"With who?"

"Some jerk on your team."

"All the boys on my team are jerks."

The realization hit Tony with a wallop and he almost went off the road. It was Kipp! He was a master at imitations. The others, except perhaps Brenda, didn't know that. Clothes rustled and stretched through the car's speakers. Zippers slowly pulled down. This was soo bitchin'!

"Let me do that." The girl sighed. "Oh, that's nice. Oh, I like that."

"Ain't I great?"

"I've heard you're the best." The girl groaned. "Ahhh."

"You heard right, baby," the coach whispered. "I love you, Joan."

The pandemonium was instantaneous, louder than any of the cords pounded out during the concert. The passionate couple continued the pleasure in relative private; who could hear them? Naturally, Kipp was laughing the hardest, but Joan's vehement denials -- the girl who had played her part could have been a twin sister-- pierced through the uproar.

"I never!" Joan swore. "I hate that bastard! Kipp!"

"I love you, Joan!" Kipp shouted with glee, knocking Brenda off his lap onto the floor where she sat giggling in a puddle of spilled beer. A tumbleweed somersaulted across the road, and Tony swerved neatly to avoid it. The traction on the tires, he observed, was superb.

"Wow, that's neat, do it again, Tony!" Fran cackled, her personality having done a one-eighty. "I knew it was you, Joan!"

"How was he?" Brenda yelled.

"Shut up!" Joan snapped. Kipp turned up the volume.

"We were meant to be lovers," Coach Sager said.

"Destiny." The girl moaned. "Ohhh."

"Turn that off, dammit!" Joan shouted. Four tumbleweeds squaredanced in front of the headlights, and Tony dodged them as he would obstacles on the arcade game, Pole Position. Joan fought for the switch on the tape player.

"You should never wear clothes, Joany," Coach Sager whispered loudly.

"Some jerk on your team!" Kipp jeered.

"Turn it off!" Joan swore, so furious she was unable to do it herself.

"Turn off the lights!" Fran cheered.

"Ahhh."

"Stop this, Tony!" Joan yelled. "Stop it this second!"

"I can't! I'm driving!" Tony yelled back, trying to stop laughing but failing miserably.

"You're like me, Joan," Coach Sager mumbled. "You're the best."

"Ahhh . . . Ohhh . . ."

"I said stop!!!" Joan screamed. Then she did a very strange thing. She reached over across the steering wheel and punched out the lights.

Had the circumstances been at normal, Tony would have flicked the lights back on, found his way to the freeway, taken everyone home and lived happily ever after. Unfortunately, he had three strikes against him. First, at the instant Joan did what she did, he was in the midst of avoiding still another scraggly tumbleweed and consequently was not driving perfectly straight. Second, no matter how many touchdowns he had thrown last fall, he was not such a tough did that the forty plus ounces of beer in his bloodstream had not dulled important centers I n his brain. Finally, had there been a speed limit in this godforesaken place, he would certainly have been in violation of it. Nevertheless, despite these handicaps, the night might have ended well if he'd had even a microsecond more time. His left hand had actually closed on the light switch and was pulling it out when the front right tire caught on the right edge of the road.

Tony did not know if he screamed, but if he didn't he was alone. The sounds of terror erupting from the throats of his friend signaled the beginning of the countdown of the twilight seconds. Time went into a slow-motion warp. When the tearing of the rubber against the asphalt started, he seemed to have all the time he needed to turn a bit to the right to take the car slightly further off the road, where it would be free of the sharp shoulder. But the edge must have had more drop than he realized, for it prevented the front wheel from turning as it should have. He succeeded only in trapping the back wheel. It was like riding a surfboard at midnight through a closing-out 20 foot wave. He had both hands fastened to the steering wheel and there was no possibility of making another grab at the lights. At the first jolt, Alison's flashlight had smacked the dashboard and had gone out. Inside and outside, all was deathly black.

His friends began to scream his name. But so quickly, and so slowly, was everything happening that they were only pronouncing the T and had not yet moved on to the rest when he developed an alternative strategy. It was the exact opposite of the first one. He jerked the steering wheel to the left, intending to jump the irritating the right edge of the road. And it worked-- too well in fact. They tore off the shoulder and plunged right off the other side of the road.

"Ahhh."

That was psuedo-Joan in the arms of Coach Kipp, her sighs of ecstacy miraculously making it through the howls of the others, at least for Tony's ears. His mind went right on assessing the situation and it was becoming more and more obvious it was time for plan X. When the roller coaster had started, he had immediately removed his foot from the gas, and the subsequent haggling with the shoulder of the road and the current cremation of the shrubs under the front fender had killed a fair percentage of the speed. A spin out now, so he figured, probably wouldn't tip them over. He slammed his foot on the brake.

The roar was deafening, made up of many ugly parts: burning rubber, shattering branches, blasting sand, screams and more screams. Tony closed his eyes---they were of no use anyway --- and hung on for dear life.

Twice of the car began to spin, but either because of his mastery of the steering wheel or because of blind luck they did not go completely out of control. They were grinding to a halt, heaving precariously in both directions, nevertheless looking as though they would live to tell the tale, when they hit it.

Soft, Tony thought, too soft.

The blow was nothing like impacting rock or tumbleweed or cactus. It felt bigger and heavier and, at the same time, more delicate. The shock wave it sent through the frame of the Maverick was one Tony would never forget.

The car stopped and stalled.

I hate driving.

Fran and Brenda were whimpering like small scared children, the rest of them gasping like big scared teenagers. The air stunk with sweat and the buzz had returned to Tony's head, only now it sounded more of a roar than a ring. He felt limp, the way he did after games against teams with 300-pound defensive linemen, when every muscle in his body would cry not to be disturbed. The group's collective sigh of relief hung in suspension; It had been too close.

"Oh, Joan," Coach Sager whispered, "you were born to be naked."

Calmly