Chase
The sun drives the seasons and the days between Legion ball and football practice. These were the best of times—running with Richie and his brother Larry, living on unemployment and sponging off the old man—more interested in getting laid than getting paid. Traffic tickets, pecker tracks in the back seat, a police escort home after midnight. Mom wringing her hands like Lady Macbeth, crying out loud, “Where did I go wrong?” On one of those dog day Friday afternoons, I turned my Harley onto Diagonal Boulevard. A mile from home, the bubble machine lit up on a cop car parked at a side street. I grabbed a handful of throttle—my risk insurance had expired—no license! The Harley roar and the siren alerted mom as I swung past the house, wind in my face, the fuzz on my ass. I looped on 74th Street and flew past Marlys Pederson's, my fantasy until I saw Phoebe Crouch on the first day of seventh grade. At Portland, a busy thoroughfare, I said a prayer, goosed it and blew across without lookin