DON’T DENY IT—you’ve driven by a bulldozer or front-end loader on the side of a highway, after hours, andwondered why the road crews leave the equipment out there where anyone, meaning me, could steal it. Myfirst truckjacking was years ago; I put a cement mixer out of gear on a slope and watched it roll into aconstruction company’s base trailer. Right now there’s a dump truck a mile away from my house; I’ve seen itsleeping like a baby elephant next to a pile of Jersey barriers on I-195. Not my first choice of wheels, butbeggars can’t be choosers; in the wake of my little run-in with the law, my father’s taken my car into custody,and is keeping it at the fire station.

Driving a dump truck turns out to be a hell of a lot different than driving my car. First, you fill up the wholefreaking road. Second, it handles like a tank, or at least like what I suppose a tank would handle like if youdidn’t have to join an army full of uptight, power-crazy assholes to drive one. Third—and least palatable—people see you coming. When I roll up to the underpass where Duracell Dan makes his cardboard home, hecowers behind his line of thirty-three-gallon drums. “Hey,” I say, swinging out of the cab of the truck. “It’sjust me.”

It still takes Dan a minute to peek between his hands, make sure I’m telling him the truth. “Like my rig?” Iask.

He gets up gingerly and touches the streaked side of the truck. Then he laughs. “Your Jeep been takingsteroids, boy.”

I load up the rear of the cab with the materials I need. How cool would it be if I just backed the truck up to awindow, dumped in several bottles of my Arsonist’s Special, and drove away with the place bursting intoflames? Dan stands by the driver’s-side door. Wash Me, he writes across the grit.

“Hey,” I say, and for no reason except the fact that I’ve never done it before, I ask him if he wants to come.

“For real?”

“Yeah. But there’s a rule. Whatever you see and whatever we do, you can’t tell anyone about it.”

He pretends to lock up his lips and toss the key. Five minutes later, we’re on our way to an old shed that usedto be a boathouse for one of the colleges. Dan fiddles with the controls, raising and lowering the truck bedwhile we’re tooling along. I tell myself that I’ve invited him along to add to the thrill—one more person whoknows only makes it more exciting. But it’s really because there are some nights when you just want to knowthere’s someone else besides you in this wide world.

When I was eleven years old I got a skateboard. I never asked for one; it was a guilt gift. Over the years I gotquite a few of these big ticket items, usually in conjunction with one of Kate’s episodes. My parents wouldshower her with all kinds of cool shit whenever she had to have something done to her; and since Anna wasusually involved, she got some amazing presents, too, and then a week later my parents would feel bad aboutthe inequality and would buy me some toy to make sure I didn’t feel left out.

Anyway, I cannot even begin to tell you how amazing that skateboard was. It had a skull on the bottom thatglowed in the dark, and from the teeth dripped green blood. The wheels were neon yellow and the grittysurface, when you stepped on it in your sneakers, made the sound of a rock star clearing his throat. Iskimmed it up and down the driveway, around the sidewalks, learning how to pop wheelies and kickflips andollies. There was only one rule: I wasn’t supposed to take it into the street, because cars could come around atany minute; kids could get hit in an instant.

Well, I don’t need to tell you that eleven-year-old budding derelicts and house rules are like oil and water. Bythe end of my first week with this board I thought I’d rather slide down a razor blade into alcohol than toolup and down the sidewalk yet one more time with all the toddlers on their Big Wheels.

I begged my father to take me to the Kmart parking lot, or the school basketball court, or anywhere, really,where I could play around a little. He promised me that on Friday, after Kate had a routine bone marrowaspiration, we could all go out to the school. I could bring my skateboard, Anna could bring her bike, and ifKate felt up to it, she could Rollerblade.

God, was I looking forward to that. I greased the wheels and polished up the bottom of the skateboard andpracticed a double helix on the driveway ramp I’d made of old scrap plywood and a fat log. The minute I sawthe car—my mom and Kate returning from the hematologist—I ran out to the porch so we wouldn’t wasteany time.

My mother, it turned out, was in a huge hurry, too. Because the door to the van slid open and there was Kate,covered with blood. “Get your father,” my mother ordered, holding a wad of tissues up to Kate’s face.