The man had left her, he had left the little home they had together, he was gone from her life and the vision of her eyes, but the baby still grew inside her body tho he had left her spirit and the armchair behind him. Some things were over with and he was one of those over things, but other things were just starting in her last life days. Like the pedestrian defense classes she just heard about a few weeks ago. She'd been going every time they were offered, once a week; she liked them and she was learning things, and was learning a great deal. She was growing more aware of her surroundings, and feeling safer in the landscape. The classes taught her this, thru maps and advice.

There was also a chance of a new job, just down the river from her house you'll find the factory. It wasn't exactly what she wanted to do with her life but it was getting closer. Like the sidewalk ahead of her, far enough away but close enough to get her places, and hidden from the traffic by the lilac bushes that hadn't been trimmed down for years.

She walked behind these bushes. Their shade painted her with shadow and dots of sun, and this pattern of light and dark helped to hide her in the lilacs too, kept her quiet and separate from the stark street just on the other side of the branches and leaves.

She still thought about the man, and she thought that maybe he even thought about her sometimes when he burned a cigarette and leaned into a doorway or relaxed heavily behind the wheel of his car. She thought about that look in his eyes, and how her eyes locked with his in a way, in a way like the cranky key turned the lock in the front door, but then their eyes unlocked over so many details of their days and nights. How his face had changed in her mind's eye over just three months, how it turned from something so soft she could nearly sleep on to a sculpture of rock that could keep her tumbling in bed all night in dread or fear or pain or something that wasn't just a tied up easy word or even a few.

There was the way he drove her around town in that car that seemed to be filled with his entire life, and how she never felt like she was sitting when she took her usual place in the passenger's seat to go with him to the store or to a movie. There was so much stuff in there, so many details of a life that meant so much to him but seemed so much like junk to her. There were so many papers, trinkets and plastic shouting tools of all kinds that pinned her down with just a small bit of space left for her and her body before the windshield and the world took over. This little bit of leftover space was all that she had to deal with, was all that she had for herself, and that small leftover space made her squirm or want to; she was halfway crouching, not sitting or standing but halfway there, as if her body couldn't keep that posture, wasn't meant to, but that's what his car and his life demanded of her.

How his eyes looked away, how it only really took a nod for them to both understand it, but how his words said something else and he put up a fuss by swearing and shouting and driving his fist into all the metal things around just to make the noise. How he did that so many times, at so many provocations, some which she still couldn't figure out looking even carefully thru the dust with a magnifying glass; how he hit the steel wall on Tuesday then on Wednesday and then on Thursday and so on.

There were these thoughts and there were others, and she was too deep in her thoughts of last week, or was it two weeks ago, that she didn't notice how far she had walked. She didn't notice that the lilacs had ended, and the shadows too, and that her walking had put her sidewalk directly adjacent to a street and a long flat parkinglot, and that there was nothing near her at all that could hide her from the cars and the drivers and their headlight eyes.

She heard its sound and then turned around to see the car. It was far behind her and going slow, maybe even going her speed, her walking speed, and there was nothing between her and it, nothing but the parking lot and the last of the low lilac bushes down by where the car was now. Maybe the car was patiently waiting for her, maybe it was there for some other reason, but it was matching her speed - it was moving as slow as a predator.

The lecture from the last pedestrian defense class came back to her head – it came in quick miniatures. She remembered the bit about the blind spot, and how to exploit it for her own safety, but in order to use the blind spot she needed to know the distance between the driver's eyes, the distance between them on the driver's face, and the car that stalked her was still too far behind. She could not get a good look, and she didn't want to look too long over her shoulder and behind her back, and the windshield might have been a little tinted too to make the driver's face nearly impossible to see and judge.

She had to take a quick glance backwards and then play her glance back slowly as she faced forward and walked away. She could see the distance between the headlights, and she knew a little about extrapolating the distance between the eyes of the driver from the distance between the headlights. She knew this from pedestrian defense class, how the faces of drivers come to resemble the faces of their cars over time, as their relationship grows in years and intimacy, and how the safety-first pedestrian can use this knowledge to her advantage.

She heard the car speed up behind her and she glanced back quickly to see it slow down again and resume its slow speed, but now much closer behind her than it was at last look. Then it pulsed forward a similar distance, and was now less than a city block behind her back, and still going slowly.

To her side, across the parkinglot, was a small strip of shops. She could run to them, she could aim for a glass door handle. She could hope for a car parked in between her and the shops and maybe she could hide behind that parked car in the lot somewhere but the closest one was still far off ahead of her. The closest obstacle that could save her was truly the low building of the shop strip itself. If she was going to make a run for anything, she needed to make a run for that.

Occasional disconnected words from the class came to her now: fear, blind spot, mind-hiding, gas cloud, but she hadn't practiced enough and didn't understand them to the point where she could really use them.

The car pulsed up once more behind her. She thought she could feel the wind of that pulse compress the air behind her, and brush her hair and vibrate her belly and the tiny life inside it. The next such pulse would take the car to her shoulder.

She opted to run for it. She sprinted to the right, making a slight arc toward the shops. She heard her body rev up for the run like an engine, or maybe that was the car behind her. She saw the shop that she aimed at, paper for parties and paper hats and invitations to baby showers and colorful lights and balloons and she saw how she could use them all in her apartment, where each balloon would go, each strand of bunting, how she would write out each invitation beforehand and thank you note when the event had ended.

The car's front bumper hit the crease of her legs and she was still running, but now she was running thru a no-moon midnight. Wolves were howling and someone was throwing beer bottles on the hard concrete to crack them dead. She ran and ran, but she never made it to the paper store. The garbage truck came later to peel her body off the parkinglot. Livius drove away, but he wasn't smiling.

Sun hides

In hubcap

The blank revolution

Walker may have noticed it before, but he notices it now as if for the very first time. The things closest to him move the fastest, and the things farthest off move the slowest. He notices it now and starts to notice it everywhere, all the time, and the closer things move fast and the farther things move slow and the world moves like that, like an ocean, like a symphony, and all he has to do is keep on walking.

20 cars

between stoplights

only one person in each

The war came in on his car radio: the press conference voices, the reporters with their scratchy questions and the military spokesman with his smooth baritone like a tank rolling over you. "Watch how this precision bomb falls on an enemy supply bunker. Note that adjoining structures are not severely impacted by the blast. Also, please look at the cloud rising above to show the world just how right we are and to make the enemy aware of our tremendous power."

The radio announcer describes a video clip playing at the military's briefing session for the press. The black and white image of the missile falling as if you might have carelessly dropped it yourself. The little trucks like toys jumping up from the blast as if they were dancing to a short tune. Livius sees it all so clearly in his mind for he's seen it all before on the big screen TV at the War Bar. He doesn't even need the radio reporter's verbal description. He well knows the picture of that silent cloud that grows to fill the air between the ground and the camera's view. He knows what it looks like so much that when he hears the description on his radio he looks out his windshield and sees it clearly on all the cars surrounding him on the freeway. He imagines what it must look like from above, the freeway like a long technical line drawn on the horizon, each car blooming into a grey ball silently rising to the surface of the sky. The big tanks jumping as if they were startled, until they too light up and dissolve in a cloud of their own debris. All the drivers inside tossed like mannequins stuffed with oily rags, their limbs as if boneless, as if snakes making a sky of S's.

He imagines this all so clearly that he's ready to pedal down, to accelerate in all the space cleared by the explosions, but as his foot moves to fall down harder his eyes bleed and tell him it was all his imagination. The cars are still all around him inching forward toward the orange construction signs.

The five lanes of freeway have already narrowed down to two. If his eyes are correct even his lane will need to merge with the lane to his right somewhere up ahead. The lane to the left of him is clear of cars tho the orange pylons have only slightly cut their angle down its space.

A car smoothes past his left. It takes the empty lane alone; it has crept up while all the other cars waited back in the long line for construction. This car is trying to get an unfair advantage, trying to pull ahead of him, ahead of he who has waited his share for so long, in front of all the others who have waited their share or far more than their share. Livius knows how long he's been waiting, and can't believe the jerk in that car is trying to do this. The passing car angles its nose at the spaceless space between Livius' car and the one in front of his. Livius pulls forward even closer to that car ahead of him, he can feel his bumper tap the car in front, and he lays on his horn to take the sound from the latest explosion described on the radio. The long warning beep is meant to be a message sent straight to the transgressor, to the car trying to squeeze its way into the lane in front of him.

The car in front of Livius moves forward, which does happen from time to time and the car trying to merge tries to squeeze its angle in the opened space but Livius presses down to move his carnose forward and occupy every millimeter once again. This little action repeats itself, and all three cars are touching at a point, like three states sharing borders but not exactly liking it.

The baritone voice describes a new bomb blast and the target takes the hit and makes a big ball of dust. Livius hears the words and sees the car trying to pry its way just in front of his, he sees it burst just like on the radio, burst into paper, into particles, into small twists or spirals that could be colorful fans to make you relax or a pretty bouquet of pure haunting colors.

As the dust clears on all sides, Livius notices that the car trying to jockey its way in front of his is pressing his car to the right despite his better efforts. It is as if the three vehicles were tectonic plates sliding slightly so that the continents can keep drifting. With the next lurch he spins his steeringwheel enough to the left to try to nudge the merging car away. The next bomb drops in the radio voice and it's so beautiful that he relaxes for a moment in that still bombardier landscape and before the cloud of smoke startles him the car in front has moved appreciably, and the merging car is now halfway in.

He falls on his horn and he's ready to barrel forward in the lost space and straight into the side of the merging blue that is now sideways in front of his when he sees who is inside it. Is that Penny Driver, the family friend? And he can see thru the glare of her windows that she's doing a double take and seeing him just like he's seeing her and he sees her reach for something, and it's a good thing he recognizes her or he might be lunging at his gun, but then he hears his phone ringing and it's Penny calling him.

Because they're such good old friends he lets her pull completely in front of him and they talk about the bombs and the traffic as they keep making forward progress. Their lane is finally ending for the construction and they have to push their merge selves into the lane on the right, and when Livius gets in he even holds a space for Penny and when they inch by inch in their one lane past the single construction truck fixing potholes they're both shouting like the war into their phone calls, but then the line ahead of them speeds up immediately and they have the whole highway like a speedway in front of their faces.

The bombs keep dropping, each whiter than white, and Livius and Penny are driving side by side in lanes and talking in their phones about how they must do dinner or meet at the bar and how is Tracia and how is Walker. Their talking and their eyes are on the road and their eyes are really no place but in the talking they do in their phones when a car speeds from behind them and rides too close to Livius's car. Even tho there is plenty of space on the wide and open post-construction site road, the speeding car slides along beside too close and with a scraping sound and when the car pulls ahead Livius sees the familiar color of his car clinging to that one in one long scraping stripe. He says "that bastard" into the phone so both Penny knows and he knows that the other car won't get away with it. They both speed up and chase after the car, not for a reason, not because they're going to do anything about it, but just to chase it, to see what happens, and they follow it up the slope of the exit ramp and onto the city streets and around this corner and past that strip mall and those three houses and there is the sidewalk where the lady is walking with her shopping cart and the car racing ahead of them smashes straight into her and sends her shopping cart flying into the air like a missile and straight down for re-entry with its metal into Penny's windshield. Penny and Livius pull to the curb and the third car with its stripe of paint from Livius speeds forward and away. They tug at the wire of the shopping cart to pull it out of Penny's windshield and Livius says, "I suppose I should call the garbage crews to come pick up the body," and he makes his call as his fingers feel the dent where the other car slid along beside him. He sees that car's green with his car's red and he thinks about Christmas because of the colors as the garbage man answers. The garbage man is listening to the descriptions of the bombing on his radio too. "We'll pick it up when we can," Livius hears the hauler say that with the radio in the background and the heaving garbage truck sounds. The tiny baritone voice behind the garbage collector, even smaller in the phone, says in radio echo, "That was a major target. You will see little remaining when the dust cloud clears." Livius sees the bomb dropping so clearly, as if it detached from his eye and fell with its cloud to his toes.

The street grows fur

No

Dead squirrel

Penny Driver was very young when she first had her dream of a feeling. Was she four or was she eight or was she twelve; she does not remember. But she first had the dream earlier, maybe earlier, far earlier than she can remember, and she has had it at somewhat even intervals since. She has never studied it like a scholar might with an essay or a test tube, but perhaps if she graphed out dates of the episodes of her dreams of the feeling over the times of her life the graph would spell out an illuminating picture, they would say something in particular about the life of Penny Driver. Perhaps they would point to, each in its own time buffer, a portent of a life change or gradual shift for her and her ways. But they can and they come, at intervals that she cannot predict, and they are her dreams of the feeling.

Her dreams are not feelings like you feel with your fingers; the dream is of a feeling you know with your whole body. It's like an emotion but not really, like an emotion felt by rubbing a soft piece of cloth on your cheek. Her dream is a feeling of softness and movement. It has no story, it has no characters, she's probably not even in it herself as a person, but it is a dream and it comes to her heavy head at night and then she is all in softness, and it is moving and if she was awake to smile she would be in ecstasy.

She likes her dream of that feeling; she likes it very much. She goes to bed each night hoping that her sleepy head will take her to the dream of the feeling. Maybe the dream heralds a violent change in her life in the day ahead - maybe it represents something as horrid as that – even if she knew that to be the case indeed she would still want that dream of the feeling because of the special feeling that it brings her. She would hope and pray each night that her specific dream of feeling would play sometimes in tonight's dream lineup, perhaps sandwiched between the comedy dream and the drama dream and right after the dreams of commercial interruption.

The dream of the feeling was only a dream, but the feeling of the dream was something to which she aspired so much, both in sleeping and in waking. How do you get to such a feeling when the sun is shining with its face in your face or your windshield face? How do you get such a feeling staring at the grey computer screen that you work in front of. She could daydream of the dream of feeling but if she had to force the dream it was always an approximation; the real dream of feeling had to come unbidden, it had to already be in progress before she could really know it and know that feeling, that emotion and movement. When she daydreamed, she did not daydream about the feeling. Rather, she daydreamed about the dream of feeling; she daydreamed that it would come to her in dreaming. She could not daydream of the feeling itself because it was completely unpredictable and could never be commanded.

When she first began her career she made pages of notes about her dream of feeling, of how she might express it to someone who would never dream her dreams, to someone with his own head, to someone with her own head full of dreams, but certainly not with her, not with Penny Driver's, dreams of the feeling. She made a list of things that could suggest the feelings of the dream to her, a list of things that could elicit feelings that would lead to her daydreaming about the dream of feeling. These things could not equal the feeling, they could not be and were not the feeling itself, but they were simply an approximation, in a way like the approximate name, Penny Driver, could stand for all that she was and would be.

On the list were trees and the slow sun and the ground of dirt and dust and a smooth kiss of fabric on your wide-open neck. On the list was the stroke of her hand on the coat of the cat that she loved, and her fingers on the tender skin of her own secret places on her body if she did not press too hard. On her list was the tiny wind that moved no kites but that the tiny invisible hairs of her arm well knew, but not enough to say so to her head. On the list was her own mother's smile, or her father's eyes at that certain moment when he saw her mother smile and still agreed.

On the list was the first page of a book that she wanted to read so badly, when it still had so much promise and hadn't fallen apart under the weight of its reaching words. On her list was the surprised heated atmosphere about a foot yet back from the tip of a flame. On the list was the scum on the window that the morning sun puts there.

But she had to cross out all those things, and all the other things she thought about, when she thought of one more. Everything was crossed out but the last thing that she wrote: the tires racing forward on the wide soft road of your imagination.

In the rain

It's still the same

The whole world stands for a parkinglot

The perfectly cut car played back the beautiful blue of the day. The front of it was serrated like you could cut cheese in a fancy pattern with it if you drove it right, if you could even drive it. The engine was exposed as if it were a model kit: "See the three dimensional transparent motor. Works, too," like a kit for science, only it wasn't science that exposed the engine so carefully today, it was carelessness of some kind.

The car was sitting perfectly in the middle of a perfect green front lawn. The grass was looking cut short as if it had been mowed just for the occasion. The owner of the house, a woman with white hair and a smock that depicted scenes from a pink garden, stood on her front step. A few people had pulled their cars up to the curb to see all the shocking details but the man describing the scene to the cops, the guy who must have witnessed it, was standing on the sidewalk and without a car. The cop, leaning out his copcar window, was taking notes in his little cop notebook.

A couple guys in a sporty roadster were tapping their shoulders back and forth. One pulled out his phone to call another buddy. "It's the racecar driver Walker. He's just a few feet over describing the accident to the cops." The man was a kid - big red round face like ice cream or a toy or candy or Santa that he saw, that he tried to see thru the windshield and the phone.

The tall man describing the accident scene to the cop could have been a movie star. He had one of those classic faces, like it could be on TV or on a coin, and he had a long tall body like a Gary Cooper or a Jimmy Stewart, or a totem pole with all those famous faces. On top of the pole was a crumpled hat, like you might wear for fishing, or you might wear for any reason, aside from vanity. When the man looked up he almost seemed to catch your eye in his. It was just an illusion, but it was a good one. He was the kind of guy who didn't need his racecar for you to recognize him. His name really was Walker, which meant that somewhere not too far off there must a Speedster 48 parked by the street. Everyone knew that it was his famous car of choice.

Front door boarded

Back door boarded

Garage door well oiled

At Chez Right Lane they've got a fine atmosphere. In the corner there's the man in the black suit playing the electric keyboard. He's in a wheelchair and his whole left side is paralyzed from a car wreck long ago but he can still play the standards with his right hand and the rhythm tracks that he can program into the keyboard plays the rest and makes it full. The group nods to him as they pass him by on the way to their table. They might feel a little sorry for him in a good telethon way.

Penny Driver, Walker, and Livius and Tracia Manghanger. They pull back their coats to settle in their seats and stretch out their napkins for the long night of eating and talk.

They all order the Roadside Special, everybody but Walker does. He orders the peas and popcorn instead, hot and steaming. Their dishes clatter with all the other dishes in the restaurant and as their cars sit outside and wait they enjoy such conversation.

Livius: Im getting an upgrade to my Speedster.

Penny: Oh, that must be good.

Tracia: Maybe I'll get a chance to drive it too, if he'll let me.

Livius: I'm not sure which color. It just shouldn't clash with the garage door.

Tracia: The garage door can always be painted a different color.

Livius: Hey, Walker, how is the racing?

Walker: Uh.

Penny: Didn't you hear? He had an accident.

Livius: Oh, I didn't, or did I? Was it in the newspaper or on my favorite TV news show, the one that I tune to weekly?

Penny: It was. It was in the news, in the papers, big headlines. You must have read about it, you must have watched it on your favorite news program.

Livius: Oh, yes, I heard about it on the news. But the accident wasn't in town, was it?

Penny: It was in Indianapolis. They don't regulate speedways there as well as they do here in Minneapolis. I'm glad he's back here in our great city, the number one fun spot in the west.

Livius: My belief is that the regulations are too severe in this state. Well, I heard about a man who was so regulated that he couldn't even park when he really needed to and where he really needed to, but we can talk about that later.

Tracia: In Minneapolis they regulate things so that tragedies don't happen, like what happened to Walker. They'd make sure to stop it before it got started. That's why we need the law.

Livius: Sometimes you just take the law in your own hands rather than write more laws. What do you think, Walker?

Walker: Well, I.

Penny: He lost the race because of the kid. Walker was in first place, and had been for most of the race, but the accident slowed him down, it slowed him down like the latest hit song is slower than the hit that came before it.

Tracia: He came in second?

Penny: Of course he did.

Livius: It must have been such a let down, like using up the last squeeze in your tube of Sparkles toothpaste.

Walker: Well...

Tracia: You just have to brush yourself off and bounce back from it. Just like Renew hair tonic will give your hair that shine that it used to have, before all the pollution made it brown.

Livius: There will always be more races.

Walker: I, uh.

Penny: He's stopped racing. He's still driving, of course, but not racecars. That's what he's said at least. He's probably just going to take a break and start up again later. Like take a break and have a Diggy Dog Candy Craving.

Livius: Stopped....

Penny: Race car driving. But it's really just a break.

Walker: Okay....

Tracia: It must be hard, it must be as hard as the new Toughie line of all-purpose trucks.

Walker: Still....

Penny: We came in our separate cars tonight.

Tracia: We did too, it's the only way. My car is such a mess. I have my whole life in there. If Livius only knew what was in there. I'm joking. But I know where everything is and my car is the only place I can easily find something that I really need. And something that I really need is another box of Lespirin tablets to keep my headaches comfortably far off.

Walker: I....

Penny: My car is my real room. I don't have a room in the house as good as my car. That's where I can get intimate, that's where it's just me and my things. I've got it so comfortable in there, but I don't like to share it with somebody else while I'm driving. Too distracting, as distracting as the competition's product that will never fill my needs.

Livius: I can't wait to get my new car. I'd never be ashamed of it. I'd never park it around the corner. My car is parked around the corner now because it needs to be cleaned. My new car would make the world better for me and for you. It will be so stylish, and so pleasant.

Tracia: Your new one will get all scratched up too, the way you drive.

Walker: Uh....

Penny: Walker's still working at the speedway. But he's joined the grease monkey crew.

Tracia: Grease Monkey?

Penny: That's what I said too, but he says the work is good, as good as Brightways soap can clean your faraway face.

Walker: Good.

Penny: And he gets to work around cars all day. You know those racecars rub off in their speed and handling, the speed and handling that you can get personally if you choose Johnson Motors.

Livius: I wish I could work in my new car.

Tracia: You mean the new car that you want. If you really want it, you'll get it, and if you really want to work in it, you'll find a way. There's always a way, and there's always Minute Man Insurance Group to show you the way.

Walker: I....

Livius: It must be nice at the speedway.

Penny: It's a brand new structure so you know they've got all the latest models there, all the newest technology, and all to serve you when you need it the most.

Walker: It....

Penny: I should write a commercial that we could shoot at the speedway. I can see the storyboard now: the flags will be flying and the cars will be racing and young lovers will be waiting for the victory.

Tracia: That's a good idea, as good an idea as Rumsfield Light Bulbs, the kind you can trust at night when it's darkest.

Livius: I'd watch that commercial any day. I'd turn the channel of my Plutonia television to see it, bigscreen and happy.

Walker: I'd....

The low background music tune nips at their earlobes. It's the old jingle of the classic Speedster Formula 12, and they just have to sing along because they know all the words. They all saw the old commercial too many times while they were growing up, the old man suddenly young again behind the wheel and then he shrinks down until he is a baby behind the steeringwheel from so much driving. Penny secretly hopes that someday she'll write a car jingle that will have them all singing, some night in a restaurant, long after they, years after they heard it on their car radios.

Ghost warriors

Tall as the sky

From the winter tailpipe

Part Two

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