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Pitt must have detected something in my voice because he turned toward Gina and me with a confused look blanketing his face. "Okay, what'd I miss?" "Shut up, Pitt, just shut up," Gina said. "Yep. Definitely missed something." Pitt slumped into the backseat. Gina leaned in but stayed just on the fringe of what psychologists refer to as my personal space. "Let's just have a nice day. We've been looking forward to this for months. When we get back..." Gina didn't finish. Maybe it was the first time she was going to say it out loud or maybe she just didn't want Pitt to know how she was going to phrase it. Hell, I didn't want to know how she was going to phrase it. I looked back at Pitt. He seemed to be catching up to what was going on and I could tell he'd much rather his dance with the Sandman hadn't ended when it did. Pitt folded his arms across his chest, breathing deeply. He may have been preparing to say something but the look of growing horror hanging on my face as I looked past him out the window must have given him pause. "Christ," I said as Gina and Pitt both turned around to follow my gaze. Although I didn't see it happen Mr. El Camino had gotten out of his car. He just seemed to appear standing outside, his right foot tapping on the white paint dividing lanes. His hair was dark and disobedient in all directions, except where the blood had matted it to the scalp. His eyes were open to the point of absurdity. They were huge white spheres that would've been more at home on a cartoon character. When he started to take a step forward it was awkward and jerky, like the darting movements of the Keystone Cops in a Max Sennentt's silent comedy. I would have expected Buster Keaton, or the great Charley Chaplin to join him on screen if it hadn't been for the axe he gripped like some Spartan Warrior. The splashes of dried blood on the stainless steel blade and Mr. El Camino's now audible ranting, shattered any illusion that what I was watching was a classic from the golden age of silent film. I can't recall the rest of that afternoon in a continuous stream of events, complete with living characters moving from scene to scene in cinematic transition. It's more like still images in a slide show I'd much prefer not to watch. I have a mental picture of him leaning down and peering into the passenger window of the vehicle next to his El Camino. He screamed at the glass, leaving speckled dots of saliva on the window. The woman on the other side of the glass, amazingly enough, was trying to ignore Mr. El Camino. Sitting in the front passenger seat of an all terrain vehicle, she turned her head away and continued talking to the man in the driver's seat. The driver was also doing his best not to make eye contact with the screaming maniac - they both being residence of a place were the credo is if you don't look at crazy people they don't exist. I have to believe that the couple would have reacted differently had they been able to see the axe. Mr. El Camino held it slightly behind him and from the couple's point of view his presence was merely an annoyance. Like a homeless guy threatening to clean their windshield with a soiled newspaper. But we saw it and the twenty or so people looking on from various vehicles saw it. We all saw it. We saw it and did nothing. Paralyses with some sick fascination of impending violence we all peered outward like patrons at a drive-in waiting for the horror movie to move beyond the opening credits. It hadn't occurred to anyone to venture outside to offer assistance or at the very least yell a warning to the couple. For the moment we all harbored the same illusion - the illusion of safety one feels when tucked comfortably in a car with the windows rolled up. Like children hiding under the covers to ward off the mythical claws of the closet monster. The equation, wide-eyed maniac plus blood stained axe equals broken windshield seemed to elude everyone for the moment and I include myself in that mass ignorance; at least until the first windshield imploded and the axe planted deep inside the woman's face. "Holy Sh –- Did you see that?" Pitt said. "It's time to leave," I said, as dozens of people around us came to the same conclusion. I opened my door, stuck out my foot and immediately felt a severing pain just above my ankle. The door of the Chevy truck, in the next lane had been flung open with more vigor than mine. The collision of doors in the rising panic, sent mine swinging back, closing on my leg. A wave of people rushed by and riding the surf was Pitt. I caught a glimpse of him as he sailed by, having better navigated his escape through one of the rear doors. When there was a break in the stream of panic I pushed the door open again, stepping out on my injured leg. I immediately turned back, half expecting to see the business end of the axe, already to close to fend off. But what I saw instead was the man from the crimson SUV, who had gotten out of his vehicle, make his way around to confront Mr. El Camino. Or maybe he was going to try and render some kind of aid to his passenger, now hemorrhaging in long red streams from what was once a human face. When he got there – Wait. The next few moments are bathed in images I don't wish to amerce myself, so let’s just shuttle ahead past the next few and pick up the action as Mr. El Camino withdraws his axe from the man's lifeless chest. "My portfolio is diverse - cha-ching, cha-ching! You must diversify!" Mr. El Camino screamed. I am at best paraphrasing the dialogue of Pitt, Gina and I as years and drink have eroded the surplus details of that day. But no paraphrasing of Mr. El Camino's words will ever be necessary. Each one has a permanent almost reverent place in my recall, like a chiseled epitaph on a family gravestone - they are forever with me. "When you don't diversify, you get screwed - cha-ching!" Mr. El Camino continued as he brought the axe down hard on the windshield of his own car. Running southbound, I looked ahead and could see Pitt standing about twenty yards away on the left shoulder. He hadn't completely abandoned me, but he wasn't coming back for me either. I started scanning for Gina. She could run faster than both of us and I figured she was a quarter mile away by now. When I reached Pitt I kept searching. Didn't see her on the left shoulder. "Are
you okay?" Pitt said, sounding generally concerned.
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