Coming into New York City from the north, off the New EnglandThruway, Oliver driving as usual. Tireless, relaxed, his window halfopen, long blond hair whipping in the chilly breeze. Timothyslouched beside him, asleep. The second day of our Eastervacation; the trees still bare, ugly driblets of blackened snowbanked in dirty heaps by the roadside. In Arizona there wouldn’tbe any dead snow around. Ned sat next to me in the back seat,scribbling notes, filling up page after page of his ragged spiral-bound book with his left-handed scrawl. Demonic glitter in hisdark little eyes. Our penny-ante pansy Dostoevsky. A truck roaredup behind us in the left-hand lane, passed us, abruptly cut acrossinto our lane. Hardly any clearance at all. We nearly got rackedup. Oliver hit the brakes, cursing, really made them screech; wejolted forward in our seats. A moment later he swung us into theempty right-hand lane to avoid getting smashed by a car to ourrear. Timothy woke up. “What the crap,” he said. “Can’t you let aguy get some sleep?”“We almost got killed just then,” Ned told him fiercely, leaningforward, spitting the words into Timothy’s big pink ear. “Howwould that be for irony, eh? Four sterling young men heading westto win eternal life, wiped out by a truck driver on the New EnglandThruway. Our lithe young limbs scattered all over theembankment.”“Eternal life,” Timothy said. Belching. Oliver laughed.“It’s a fifty-fifty chance,” I observed, not for the first time. “Anexistential gamble. Two to live forever, two to die.”“Existential shit,” Timothy said. “Man, you amaze me, Eli. Howyou do that existential number with a straight face. You reallybelieve, don’t you?”“Don’t you?”