out, you know, not hanging on her to take off but pressed to her neck and chin and inside her skin. Today I’d have much more sympathy for her and, ironically, would ask—‘ironically’ meaning the reverse, or almost, to what I was saying; that it’s odd having that feeling now and you asking that question before, but — where was I? I’d ask the same question you did, Julie, and maybe even find out from a doctor why she couldn’t have it removed — I had two uncles who were ones — or what she could do if she could get it removed and then tell her while I was serving her, even. Or more likely — certainly more likely this — call her husband aside and tell him in private, for maybe they didn’t know. Maybe they thought ‘You have it, you live with it, you die with it, or if it happens to get smaller in time or disappear, even better,’ or were just not aware of what we can do in America with illnesses like that, deformities, et cetera. But if I was still a waiter today I’d still be a lot put off, even with my sympathy for her goiter, that they chose my four-table and that it’d be occupied by them for the next three hours. She was a nice lady, though, I’m not saying that. Nice smile, always okay to me. But sometimes the nicest customers, I found, were also the stingiest, and vice versa. Vice versa?” and Margo says “You mean the opposite, the other way around, vice for verse, verse for vice, I mean, versa,” and he says “That’s right, what it means, but that was more a question for me, that vice versa, for what I was about to say was that sometimes the worst customers — most demanding, gruffiest — were also the stingiest, which isn’t vice versa. And sometimes the worst and nicest were also the most generous — in fact in most cases the nicest gave the best tips — but anyway, enough of that,” and looks around and sees the car from before is beside him again, for a while it wasn’t or maybe it was for longer than he knew but he got so caught up in the conversation, talking, remembering — the goiter lady, where’d that memory come from after more than thirty years? — that he forgot about it or didn’t see it, and it stays even with his, drops back, then quickly comes even again and gets even a little closer, so close that he wonders if it’s crossing the lane line and he looks and it isn’t but he doesn’t feel comfortable with it so close and moves a couple of feet to the right. Guy with the same creepy look of before, smile, combo of both, staring at him, and he doesn’t like it and thinks when he’s looking at him “What’re you looking at, schmuck, you got a problem?” but gives the face of just the opposite, “Hey, how are you, nice day, see ya,” and looks front, and not to start anything with him, meaning give the idea he’s doing this out of some grievance or fear, he stays in the lane for about half a mile and then signals right, looks in the rearview and right side mirrors, giving more time to these than he usually does and just pushing up the directional signal the slow way he did, though no other cars are anywhere around his, and with what he thinks is a casual could-care-less look, so if the guy’s still looking at him he’ll think he’s in no great rush to get away from him, and then pulls into the next slower lane, depresses the directional manually before it clicks off by itself, and the guy’s car — the passenger; driver next to him looked a lot like him, almost like his older brother but his face doughier — goes into the lane he just left and stays alongside him. What the hell? he thinks, not looking at them. What’re they doing? They’re scaring him and scaring him can make his driving shaky and that guy’s creepy look can also scare his kids too. Doesn’t he know that and doesn’t the driver know it too if he’s encouraging the creep? Just driving that close to him and sort of stalking him so many miles, makes the driver just as bad. God, the stupid things guys can do when they got nothing better going, or what? Listen, he’s nervous at the wheel to begin with sometimes, especially when his kids are with him without his wife and they’re going at a fast clip on a long drive, so it’s never a good idea to act like this, it shouldn’t be done — scaring and grinning or just looking plain peculiar at other cars is something an overgrown kid does and not a smart one. Or maybe there’s something wrong with his car they’re trying to tell him about. If that was so the guy would’ve pointed right away or made some kind of signal and not given him the spooky look and ugly grin. But they’re beside him and the guy still grinning and staring and the driver with this hey-what-a-howl look, and when he slows, they slow, and when he picks up speed, they do, so nothing to do but find a cop if he can find one or signal to pull off at the next exit and if they do beside or behind him then to stick on this one for he doesn’t want to get on any smaller even more deserted road with them, or just slow down all the way on this road and stop, but if they stop on the shoulder with him he doesn’t want to have anything to do with them, it could be a robbery, that’s what he now thinks they might be after, maybe not just his wallet but his car too and even his oldest girl, so he’d just zip away and maybe the whole thing would start again, slow, fast, shifting lanes, same stupid smirks and grins, looking for the next exit or a cop or some other car or truck on the road to somehow signal to that these guys are menacing him, or maybe he should just face up to the guys straight off. Maybe that’s all he needs to stop it. A look that he’s not taking their shit or just that he’s hip to it, and then they’d fly off. The wrong thing to do? — maybe not. But no angry or put-down look, just one that says, well what should it say? With his voice and face, something like “Hey, what gives already, fella, what the hell gives?” So he looks at the guy but no casual could-care-less look, a look with his face serious and eyebrows raised saying “So, what’s up?” and with his index finger making a whole bunch of little quick circles to the guy, he doesn’t know why or what it means, probably just nerves, and the guy raises his eyebrows same way but grins and then with his lips mimics almost a stripteaser’s or showbiz kiss and with his hand closed makes several circles in the air for him to roll his window down. He shakes his head “Sorry, I don’t understand, what’s that you’re saying and what was all that with the kiss?” because he’s at a loss now what to do and feels he made a big mistake looking at the guy like that and doing whatever he did with his finger, for who knows what the guy took it as, and is suddenly afraid of them again, doesn’t want to rile the guy more than he thinks he has, make him think he’s a wiseass, he for sure doesn’t want to say what he really thinks and that’s that the guy’s acting, well, not “say” or also “say” but to gesture and look at the guy to give the impression, well, not “impression” either for that sounds too much like “suggestion” but to sink definitely into the guy that he’s acting like a complete asshole, driver too, that in fact their actions are wicked or something, no, wicked, when you consider the kids, wrong, totally wrong in every way and that they’re imbeciles, if they want to know, imbeciles and pigs and probably always have been for as long as anyone can remember, that he’s a punk, this guy, a tried and proven punk and no doubt the one responsible of the two for what’s going on, and the driver’s his stupid stooge but almost no less to blame, that’s how he sees it and what he’d like to get across and with his finger this time pointing right at him as if he’d like to stick it through his chest and then to wave for the guy to have the car pull over to the shoulder and if the guy says “What?” not to back off but to point and wave and say “Come on, come on, you know what I mean, pull over to the damn side,” and after they both stop there for him to get out and go over to their car and when the guy opens the door to grab him out and slap his head against the car and punch his face a couple of times and pick him up and throw or roll him over the hood and then grab the driver out and if he locked his door, to go through the passenger’s side and if he’s locked that too to just smash a window with a rock nearby and open the door and grab the driver and say “You want some of the same too? Then leave us alone. Leave everybody on the road alone. You got problems, go work them out for yourself some other way but terrorizing, or trying to, people on the road. It’s the stupidest thing to do and also one of the rottenest, don’t you know that? Couldn’t you see it in my face?” Haven’t you any idea how you made my kids feel? Don’t you have any concern for anyone but your goddamn selves?” and then to throw the driver back into his seat and go back to his car and get in and even if the kids are screaming for an explanation or just hysterical, even hysterical, to just start the car up and go.