done he’d borrow the adjustable wrench from the super’s toolbox.
He dropped to one knee, slipped the tip of the borrowed tool into the slot of the first
screw, and hesitated. He wondered if his friend had smoked one more rock before
turning the rest of them down the toilet, just one more rock for old times’ sake. He bet
the guy had. Being a little stoned had probably stilled the cravings, made the disposal
job a little easier. And if he had one more ride, then knelt here to take off the pedals
with the endorphins flowing, wouldn’t he feel a little less depressed about it? A little less likely to imagine Berkowitz, Freddy, and Whelan retiring to the nearest roadside
bar, where they would buy first one pitcher of Rolling Rock and then another, toasting
each other and Carlos’s memory, congratulating each other on how they had beaten
the bastard?
“You’re crazy,” he murmured to himself, and slipped the tip of the driver back into
the notch of the screw. “Do it and be done.”
He actually turned the screwdriver once (and it was easy; whoever had put this
together in the back room of The Fitness Boys obviously hadn’t had his heart in it),
but when he did, the oatmeal-raisin cookies shifted a little in his pocket and he
thought how good they always tasted when you were riding along. You just took your
right hand off the handlebar, dipped it into your pocket, had a couple of bites, then
chased it with a swallow of iced tea. It was the perfect combination. It just felt so
good to be speeding along, having a little picnic as you went, and those sons of
bitches wanted to take it away from him.
A dozen turns of the screw, maybe even less, and the pedal would drop off onto the
concrete floor—clunk. Then he could move on to the other one, and then he could
move on with his life.
This is not fair, he thought.
One more ride, just for old times’ sake, he thought.
And, swinging his leg over the fork and settling his ass (firmer and harder by far than
it had been on the day of the red cholesterol number) onto the seat, he thought: This is
the way stories like this always go, isn’t it? The way they always end, with the poor
schmuck saying this is the last time, I’ll never do this again.
Absolutely true, he thought, but I’ll bet in real life, people get away with it. I bet they
get away with it all the time.
Part of him was murmuring that real life had never been like this, what he was doing
(and what he was experiencing) bore absolutely no resemblance whatever to real life
as he understood it. He pushed the voice away, closed his ears to it.
It was a beautiful evening for a ride in the woods.
VI. Not Quite the Ending Everyone Expected
And still, he got one more chance.
That was the night he heard the revving engine behind him clearly for the first time,
and just before the alarm clock went off, the Raleigh he was riding suddenly grew an
elongated shadow on the road ahead of him—the sort of shadow that could only have
been created by headlights.
Then the alarm did go off, not a bray but a distant purring sound that was almost
melodic.
The truck was closing in. He didn’t need to turn his head to see it (nor does one ever
want to turn and see the frightful fiend that close behind him treads, Sifkitz supposed
later that night, lying awake in his bed and still wrapped in the cold-yet-hot sensation
of disaster avoided by mere inches or seconds). He could see the shadow, growing
longer and darker.
Hurry up, please, gentlemen, it’s time, he thought, and squeezed his eyes closed. He
could still hear the alarm, but it was still no more than that almost soothing purr, it
was certainly no louder; what was louder was the engine, the one inside Freddy’s
truck. It was almost on him, and suppose they didn’t want to waste so much as a New York minute in conversation? Suppose the one currently behind the wheel just