I was watching this tall, skinny guy on the sidewalk at the corner of the McDonald's, about twenty feet away, while the girl working the drive-thru was fishing her brain out of the fry grease long enough to remember my order. If she hadn't been such a babe, I'd a smoked her. You know, waited till she slid open the little window, then hammered the Firebird, leaving enough black rubber in her nose to gag a cow. But she was a babe all right. And if there's two things I like, it's tits.

My eye kept drifting over to this skinny guy at the corner. He was about the skinniest dude I've ever seen, and tall too. I mean his bones looked like a bird's, and his face was covered with sweat as shiny and thick as lacquer. And check this out: He held a bag of ice that was melting. The plastic bag was filled with yellow light. He was just standing there like a statue or something with this plastic bag with a golden ball of light floating around in it like those two-headed babies you've seen in jars. I didn't know why, but I couldn't take my eyes off him. Maybe because he was such a ugly sonofabitch.

He hadn't looked in my direction, even when I goosed the Firebird's engine to remind the retard counter girl with the knockout body I was still waiting. He didn't turn and look at me once, not once. But goddamn it, it was like the guy had a flounder's eye buried in the side of his goddamn head or something. I mean it felt like he was looking.

Somebody said, "Your order, sir."

I turned down the volume real deliberate-like on my favorite Poison tape, you know, not looking up. But it wasn't the girl with the big knockers. It was the manager, a flesh tub with a fresh razor shave above his ears that looked like a pink slug stapled over each one. He was so fat he couldn't catch his breath. When he handed over my change, his shirt opened up and his fat, hairy fat showed. His nametag said Mac. I thought, what is this, some fucking joke? Big Mac, no can do.

I pumped the gas a couple of times, thinking Miss Tits might get the message, but she just stood staring into bimbo land, inking her scalp with a Bic pen. My plan was, I'd ask her if she wanted to party when she got off. I had it worked out. I'd say, "What time do you get off?" And she'd probably say, "'Bout eleven-thirty." Then I'd say, "Can I watch?" Then she'd finally get it and laugh and I'd ask her out for real. Instead, what I get is a cross between Ronald McDonald and the Pillsbury Doughboy - and Mister Flounder eye with the mostly water bag hunkered like a goddamn refugee. I pressed in the clutch, shifted into first, and eased forward.

I hadn't got ten feet when I had to stop for a old Chrysler wagon full of daycare convicts to back its slow ass out and find the goddamn street. Then I saw that the tall, skinny guy was going to ask me for a ride.

"Which way you going?" he said.

"Which way you going?"

"Don't matter."

"No way," I said.

"Come on, Man."

"I don't trust your ass," I said.

"Cause I'm black, ain't it?"

"I don't trust nobody. How do you know I won't drive a few miles south, pull over, and splatter your brains out with a tire iron. Take your money."

"But I ain't got nothing but this," he looked down at the dripping plastic bag he was holding, "and it's melting."

"Yeah, but I'm going to a party. That ice would come in handy. I might X your ass for some party ice."