--

a long crashing skidding sound wakes him but not kathy; she's drunk-asleep, dead to the whole world until her body decides its had enough, but he'd tempered himself at the bar that night for some reason, unknown even to him; might have been something about a half glance johnny gave him from across the table, a burning gaze so barely glimpsed he might have imagined it, he didn't know but something in him said to be a little more cautious that night, have one less shot, or else he might do something even stupider than anything else he'd ever done, and that was a long list.

he slides out of bed and goes to the window, moving the curtain aside a bit to see the street below. sounds far away, faint faraway things that might be screams of pain or joy or excitement or grief. he can't tell, will never know. heat lightning in the distance, vague rumbles rolling down the street, muted enough to be thunder or engines. he reaches for the cigarettes he'd laid on the desk earlier and lights one, cracking the window to let the smoke out. kathy hates waking up to cigarette smoke, even though she smokes just as much as he does, maybe more, depending on the day. depending on how annoyed she is with him.

just looking out at the street is pulling at him, whispering to him. summer nights are his favorite. something about an empty road, dark except where their bikes light everything up like fireflies in formation, buildings and bridges and cornfields streaking by like the club is standing still and everything else is what's moving, whooshing past with a blast of warm air turned cool with its movement. riding at night in the summer is like jumping into a calm pool of water - there's some indefinable joy in disturbing something so still, revving life and action and movement into the dead stale air. kathy at his back with her arms wrapped happily around him, smiling into his colors; johnny in front of him at the tip of the spear, upright and undeniable.

"what are you doin?" grumpy voiced kathy mumbles from the bed, her face half smushed into the pillow still. something woke her, a dream or a sound or a feeling. he hopes it wasn't the smoke.

"nothin," he says, taking another drag.

she mphs and turns her head toward him. she was annoyed with him tonight, he could tell at the bar and when they came home and made love; him or something else, or both him and something else. he is fine with that. he can weather it easy. she'll tell him or she won't; she'll get over it or she won't. he looks long at her lovely figure, straight hair fanned over the sheets, a battered old shirt of his stretched over her pretty shoulders, rucked up to her ribs on one side. there's a bird tattoo hiding on her ribcage, the edge of a wing in flight peeking out. he's fairly certain he's the only other person in the whole world who knows it's there. he's never asked when or why or what it means, but he's wondered at it, run his fingers over it, kissed it.