cc  >> We are pleased to welcome two  writers who are not only  Wisconsin literary treasures,  although they are that, but  they're writers of national  stature who have gained  affection and admiration from  readers all over the country,  Jane Hamilton and David Rhodes.  We're going to spend some time  with each of them tonight.  First Jane and then David.  Afterwards there will be a  question and answer with both of  them so don't be shy.  Do wait, I've been told that we  should wait.  If you have a question for the  person with the microphone,  raise your hand, raise the  microphone there, to get to you  and you may be on television.  (laughter)  After that both Jane and David  will be signing books  up here so you can line up right  coming out from the tables here.  Both their current books and  their earlier books are on sale  in the lobby.  In the book selling world, which  is my day job, we have a saying  that nothing, nothing makes a  better gift than a signed book.  (laughter)  Of course, we are biased  but that's what we say. 

 We're going to start with Jane.  Jane Hamilton needs little  introduction to a Madison  audience truly.  She has lived in Wisconsin for  many years, appeared both at the  book festival and at stores in  Madison.  Her novels which include "The  Book of the Ruth," "A Map of the  World," "Disobedience," "When  Madeline was Young," have gained  her a huge following among  discerning readers everywhere.  She's also pretty funny.  (laughter)  And you know that if  you've heard her speak before or  if you've read her new book  "Laura Rider's Masterpiece."  And in her new book she lets  that out more than she has  previously.  There are characters in "Laura  Rider's Masterpiece" who are  based on real Madisonians.  Some of them may be in this room  tonight.  (laughter)  Maybe Jane will point them out  during the Q&A.  I will say no more about that. 

 As the writer Meg Wolitzer  wrote, Jane Hamilton has written  a sex comedy and the world is a  better place for it.  (laughter)  And speaking for the  friends of the library I would  say that if we had known it was  a sex comedy we would have given  another 20 copies to the library  for students to read.  (laughter)  Please welcome Jane Hamilton.  (applause)  >> Jane Hamilton: Thank you.  Jennifer -- is not a certain  person that you might think of  with the same initials but  rather Jim Fleming.  (laughter)  Thank you, so much,  for being here.  Thank you for everybody who is  supporting this event.  Thank you for being Madison.  It's a pure joy to be here among  you.  And also it's a thrill to be  here with David, and it's a  thrill... 

 (applause)  To be in this very room  where earlier today Linda  Barry gave her panel, and it's  just a thrill to be breathing  the same air that she breathed.  (laughter)  So thank you.  And thank you for that great  introduction.  I just have to say I was at the  Madison farmers market this  morning early and until the end  of it and except when I slipped  out to see Linda Barry and I'm  still thawing and I'm a little  bleary, and I did walk into the  men's room just a few minutes  ago so those of you I intruded  upon, I thought why are people  standing up, how odd.  Forgive me.  (laughter)  So I'm going to read  a bit from a new novel I'm  working on, but first I'm going  to talk a little bit about Laura  Rider and what inspired it  because, in fact, the well  spring of both Laura Rider and  this new thing I'm working on  are really from the same place  with very different results.  So the first, the second real  inspiration for Laura Rider was  the fact that I was teaching  writing on a cruise ship, and  I'm not going to go into it  because I've talked about it  before in Madison but one thing  I didn't tell you before when I  was in Madison was that I'd  never been on a cruise before  and I understood, my vision of  being on the Carnival line  included the karaoke bar and the  casino and so I thought that I  should have a dress of the sort  that I had never worn before or  would never wear any other place  but listing back and forth on  the Caribbean Sea.  And so I'm going to put it on  for you because it was, wearing  this dress made me feel like an  entirely different person which  was important to the writing of  Laura Rider.  And it's sort of like a hair  shirt and it really hurts.  (laughter)  And also it doesn't really  fit me anymore because  I've gained a few pounds so I'll  see if I can get it on. 

 Let's see, how does it go?  (laughter)  I know, I know.  Oh, God.  (laughter)  So here it is.  (applause)  So I really, when I was,  oh, I'm sorry.  (laughter)  (applause)  So anyway I thought a lot about,  when I was on the cruise,  about impersonating other people  and being someone you weren't.  Which was important to Laura  Rider because she ends up  writing emails to her neighbor  in the voice of her husband.  The first inspiration really  occurred long before I found  this dress and it, my son was a  freshman in high school many  years ago and I don't know if  they still do this, if they sort  of pass through the spasm, but  in those days there was the  whole writing across the  curriculum mandate so students  had to write papers in gym  class.  (laughter)  And I'm just going to  read a bit of his assignment  that he wrote for gym class  which I didn't discover, what a  little ####, for a couple of  years after.  But the assignment was to write  about your future career as it  relates to a healthy lifestyle.  (laughter)  My career of choice  is a party event clown. 

 (laughter)  Party event clowns  should not be confused with  circus clowns, the two different  fields of work are quite  different from each other.  The main job of a party event  clown is to perform at parties  for a select group of  individuals.  This is quite different from  performing for a large audience  at a circus.  A party event clown can do many  things, but his overall goal is  to make people laugh.  This can be accomplished through  a variety of means.  A good party clown should have  skills in both balloon tying and  making.  (laughter)  It is necessary for a  party event clown to have some  sort of routine that he can  follow.  Whether it consists of jokes or  physical actions, a plan always  helps to make the job go better.  The party event clown's main job  is to make people laugh and have  a good time overall.  This can be difficult to  accomplish, but with sufficient  training it is possible. 

 (laughter)  I interviewed a real  party clown by mail.  First I asked Christy the clown  if she considered the profession  of a party event clown to be  healthy.  Her response was yes, I think it  is healthy, there are countless  opportunities for exercise and  most of the time you're standing  up.  (laughter)  It goes on.  My final question to Christy was  a simple inquiry about the  miniscule bikes that some clowns  ride.  (laughter)  I asked her how  difficult it was to ride one.  Christy responded by telling me  that it takes weeks of practice  to fully master the art of  riding on the little bikes, but  once you can do it it's just  like riding a regular bike, you  never forget how.  (laughter)  It goes on.  It concludes in this way.  Overall, the party event clown  gets about as much exercise as a  construction worker does in a  day. 

   This makes the job of a party  event clown good for the heart  and the body overall.  Party event clowns also do not  work all hours of the night.  Their hours are flexible and  therefore there's a low level of  stress in the job itself.  Christy was kind enough to tell  me that party event clowns  generally can get 10 to 14 hours  of sleep a night.  (laughter)  That is very healthy.  (laughter)  With all the healthy  aspects of the typical party  event clown, it is definitely  the job for me.  (laughter)  He received an A minus  with no comment.  What do you think the minus was  for?  (laughter)  Anyway, once I got my  hands on this I feel like  everything I know about satire I  learned from this little piece  because it so beautifully  subverts the assignment but it  holds to the letter of the law  at the same time.  (laughter)  I wanted to render it  in counted cross stitch and have  it with me at all times.  So I'm very grateful to him, and  I thought what fun he had  inventing the person who would  write this. 

 So I think writing in another  person's voice is a gateway  drug, and I wanted to give Laura  Rider, my character, that  pleasure.  And I also, it sort of inspired  the thing that I'm going to read  to you now which is called,  what is it called?  "The Devotion of Lilly Firth  to Men."  This is just from the start, and  although this character lives on  an apple orchard it does not in  any way relate to the apple  orchard on which I live.  And the thing is, I was thinking  I can't put her on an apple  orchard, I'll put her on a peach  orchard, but that means then she  has to live in Michigan because  we can't really grow peaches  here.  And then that means you've got  the whole Detroit thing and the  upper peninsula and it's a  foreign country over there in  Michigan, and I just do not know  that language.  (laughter)  So what the hell,  it's Wisconsin.  It's fiction.  (laughter)  I got out of the car  that April afternoon I was  suspended and I realized that  Arthur might be looking down  upon me from the upstairs  kitchen window, his habit to  stand there keeping a lookout.  A runty kitten, a little pearl  gray dove of a barn cat appeared  at my feet and I picked her up,  all air and ribs those  starvelings.  I said into her surprisingly  clean ear, don't tell him.  But then the sobering fact came  to me that I couldn't keep my  transgression from him, that  he'd find out within the hour. 

 It wasn't that he'd withhold  love, a very funny thought, or  even that he'd think less of me,  which he would, but that somehow  it had become my charge to be  the poison in the well.  And so I dropped Dovey, went  into the house and straight up  the maid stairs to get it done.  To bring the world and the  varieties of shame to  Uncle Arthur.  We all lived together, my  parents downstairs and suppose  technically I lived there too  although I'd taken it upon  myself to sleep in one of the  many upstairs bedrooms in my  Uncle Sherwood and Arthur's  domain.  We raised apples and sheep and  several sidelines, spinach,  honey, pumpkins, potatoes and  sometimes Sherwood went on a  chicken kick and grew fryers.  Arthur was sitting at the  kitchen table reading a book  about the mechanical systems of  New York City, the chapter which  described the air cargo  facilities at JFK, Arthur, a man  who'd never been on a plane, I  got suspended, I told him,  pulling a chair out and sitting.  That's why I'm home early.  Oh, he said.  The usual astonishment.  "And the thing is I'm not really  suspended for the right reason. 

 I grant you I should be  suspended, I grant you that."  He was looking at his book, the  thing upright in his hands,  propped in front of his chest as  if he were still reading.  There was an apple pie on the  table, there were magazines,  file folders, several pairs of  reading glasses, phone books,  napkins, a tangle of cords,  newspapers, pens, pencils, jelly  jars, a box of rubber bands, an  empty milk jug, placemats from  shart, library books, scotch  tape dispensers, the whole  kitchen, the whole house was  like that.  Layered and heaped, geological,  a monument to those who save.  A structure which would someday  have to be burned to the ground.  (laughter)  "So I've had this  business for a while, not huge  but actually pretty financially  successful," I said.  Be proud, stand tall, be brave  our gym teacher chatted every  morning.  "I think of it as a service  industry."  Arthur was a small man, 58 years  old, twiggy collar bones, a belt  a necessity around his narrow  waist.  Maybe beautiful by a real  standard, the thin face, the  ample mouth, brown eyes with  stubby lashes and boyish fine  hair that was faded rather than  gray.  Still he could not be called  adorable or dear.  He always walked with his head  down as if he thought that way  he wouldn't be seen. 

 "I do assignments," I said.  "English and history papers  mainly."  In case clarification was  necessary I added, "for other  people."  "What do you do that for?"  He was finally looking at me.  "Well," I stalled,  "the thing of it is  there's a lot of writing  assignments now with this  writing across the curriculum  mandate you have to write papers  in gym class, if you can believe  it.  I've done essays about how to  live a healthy lifestyle in your  chosen profession, that's a  standard physical education  topic.  It's funny you might not  remember it but after Chucky  Muhlenbach gave me that laptop  for Christmas last year you said  I should start a business."  "A business?"  "I'm not saying  you advised me to  do something that violates the  academic code of conduct at  Sheldon Union High, but you did  suggest that I use Chucky's  present in an enterprising kind  of way."  Chucky Muhlenbach was my birth  father and also my mother's  nephew.  Dolly and Harris, my parents,  were married in the 1970s.  They had two children and then  years later Chucky, a high  school junior, knocked up his  homecoming date, Dinela  Wrotnowski.  None of the Muhlenbachs  grandparents, none of the other  numerous aunts, cousins, sisters  or brothers wanted me and yet it  seemed important to the  Muhlenbachs to keep the baby in  the family.  Dolly, and by extension Harris,  felt obliged to take the  embarrassment off the  delinquent's hands.  I sometimes wonder if Dolly  deliberated for days, if she  struggled with the decision or  if she thought of Christ's  words, I was hungry and you took  me in. 

 "It was a service, Arthur," I  reiterated.  "Some people just can't write  papers or they're busy, they do  sports, their parents make them  run for student council or they  have jobs and they need the  grades for scholarships.  There's a lot of pressure in  school."  He raised his wiry eyebrows, the  single part of him, as far as I  could tell, that wasn't  contained, a slight leakage of  control, Arthur's eyebrows.  "That's dishonest," he said.  "That's lying."  I considered the accusation.  Everyone lied about all kinds of  things all the time.  That's what people did.  It seemed harsh to single me  out, to disparage me for an  ordinary habit of being when  everywhere around us starting  with the highest officials in  the land, men and women were  willfully, even gleefully,  sliding down the slippery  slopes.  And it was sad, too, to think of  my monumental efforts, my  exhaustive labor, as the work of  a liar.  I had written an essay for my  half-sister, Amanda Beaumont, a  freshman girl a year younger  than me, a naturally glamorous  person who had begged me in  short order to crank out a  personal essay for her English  class. 

 I wrote it using a study hall  and my lunch period.  I became more Amanda Beaumont  than she could have dreamed,  writing a lyrically tender piece  about how difficult it was to be  herself.  How difficult to be gorgeous in  a world of ugly people...  (laughter)  Including especially  her mother, my birth  mother, and her appalling  younger sister and how valuable  it had been finally to have a  connection to her half-sister,  me, Lilly Firth.  Lilly Firth had been an example  to her of merit, decorum,  courage and also she lived a  miracle, Lilly Firth had.  She, that is I, wrote about how  she, Amanda, had tried to kill  herself the summer before by  attempting to leap from her own  steeply pitched roof at her  eighth grade graduation party  and what a lot of trouble that  had caused everyone, how that  selfish spectacle had basically  been the cause of the deaths of  her great grandmother and great  uncle.  The whole essay was an apology  to me.  There was the mention of her  mother's high school pregnancy  and how no one in the Wrotnowski  clan wanted the baby, whereas  the birth family's mother found  the home for the unloved infant.  The assignment was also perhaps  a celebration of Amanda and in  addition a send up of our  strange and unsatisfactory and  occasional alliance.  In one draft I had covered my  whole life, laughter, tears,  etc. 

 and set the record straight.  I was proud of it.  For eight months I had gone  undetected in the business.  The work gratifying and even  entertaining a solid commodity,  $40 a pop.  And sometimes I'd written more  than one essay a night.  "What do you do that for?"  Arthur had asked.  Arthur, who must see life in  black and white, no use for the  blurry nuanced grays.  I might have countered, why not  charge money for something you  find you're good at.  After a quick study of my  client's writing samples I felt  I could approximate his voice  and also aim pretty directly,  often to the plus or the minus,  for the target grade.  In truth it wasn't arduous,  skimming the assigned books, and  from all the practice I'd  learned to organize an essay, a  task I could do while dozing. 

 I'd been able to shape-shift  too, becoming Skylar Bacar,  Jerry Helenger and Amanda  Beaumont in the same day.  Ka-ching.  (laughter)  The afternoon I'd  been suspended had been  hair-raising much of the way  through, and had ended with one  of my clients inciting an  instant message anti-Lilly Firth  orgy.  Pure malice.  It was ironic that the essay  which seemed not to have been  read by anyone, not the teacher  and not the putative writer, had  nonetheless prompted a  firestorm.  The unfairness of the IM smear  was hard to bear when no one but  I had been suspended.  The administration seemed to  think that everyone in need of  my services had been at my mercy  and was therefore blameless.  I tried to explain the IM  community to Arthur.  Tried to tell him that even  though I didn't care what anyone  said about me online, didn't  care about being virtually  eviscerated, I would have  preferred to go to school with  AIDS, with a disease which  suggested I had physical contact  with another human being.  When I said that he blushed a  faint pinkness down his neck. 

 It was my job, I knew, to blow  his circuits a little, to bring  the harrowing news to his  sanctuary, to deliver the cheer  of other people's misfortunes.  I was in French class several  weeks after the essays had been  returned when Madame Ambruster's  phone rang.  "Mademoiselle Firth,"  the teacher said frowning,  "to the office?"  The girl who was high on the  list to be inducted into the  national honor society as a  sophomore?  I stumbled out of my seat,  dropped the French book and my  pencil case, the pens, erasers,  compass, protractor, fanning out  on the floor.  I couldn't think, couldn't think  whether to leave the mess or  take the time to clean it up.  This is what it was to be a  blind person, pat-patting the  floor, seeing nothing.  So maybe I hadn't thought the  whole scenario through.  I had envisioned only muckraking  abstractions, revelation,  scandal, Amanda Beaumont brought  to her knees, the triumph, in a  backward way, of Lilly Firth.  I hadn't anticipated that my  throat would fill with a thick  mucusy plug or that in the space  of a phone call my legs would  turn to flimflam.  On the way to the office I  wondered if possibly my  infraction was to have been  sitting next to Danny Bergen a  few weeks before when he mooned  the TV screen in the distance  learning center.  His large, pale ass beamed to  European history classes  throughout the state of  Wisconsin. 

 (laughter)  Really a hugely funny  moment which I hadn't quite had  the nerve to tell Arthur about.  Recently I had finished my adult  Christian right of initiation  and become a Catholic which had  disrupted my mother's entire  life as my idea of her daughter,  as if I had joined the Latin  Kings or become a scientologist.  As if I had somehow left her.  And so on the way to the office  I recited the Apostle's Creed.  "Come in, come in," Mrs. Shooter  said without looking up from her  computer when I was announced.  "Sit down."  I had never been so close to the  principal, to the bony,  gray-haired, gray-eyed women who  had somehow inspired the  colorful name Mrs. Twat Waffle.  (laughter)  "Closed up that's all good,"  Mrs. Shooter said before  she turned her attention to me.  "Now then," she drummed her flat  hands on her blotter as if she'd  spent far too much time with  high school boys.  "You are in this office."  My heart beat sharply, gone the  lazy glub-glub.  "For a reason."  "A reason?" I said. 

 "Is there anything, young lady,  that you need to tell me?"  I couldn't seem to clear my  throat.  I couldn't see how I was going  to speak.  "You can make the job easy, you  can make it difficult."  Those hands went a drumming  again.  "Let me ask you once more, Laura  Beth, do you have anything to  tell me."  The wrong name made me relax  slightly.  Was it possible I had been  mistaken for someone else?  Was there a girl in our school  named Laura Beth?  Maybe I was in the office for an  offense altogether different  from the real crime.  Oh, Jesus help me to see.  "Do you have anything  to tell me?"  "Not really," I said.  Thank you.  (applause)  >> Thank you.  If you have your cameras at the  ready I don't believe anyone  else will be putting on a dress  in public tonight. 

 (laughter)  The Wisconsin Book  Festival often pairs writers  together, and it's fair to ask  what do these writers have in  common.  With Jane and our next guest  David Rhodes there is much  beyond the fact that they both  live in Wisconsin.  One of their great gifts as  writers is creating indelible  characters in their works.  Jane has done this repeatedly in  her books, as you've just heard.  David Rhodes, as you know if  you've read "Driftless," is a  master at this.  July Montgomery, the lead  character in "Driftless" and his  earlier book "Rock Island Line,"  is a memorable character as are  the supporting characters around  him.  David Rhodes has a remarkable  personal story, but it's the  quality of this superb book that  has moved readers since its  publication last year.  I've been privileged as a book  seller to see readers' reactions  to "Driftless" and they've  really been gotten to.  As long ago as the early '80s,  as long ago as the early 80s  that's... 	00:24:35:08	(laughter)  The novelist John Gardener  complimented David  Rhodes on his perfectly focused  eye for detail and his book on  becoming a writer. 

 David Rhodes had published three  wonderfully well reviewed novels  in the 1970s, including Rock  Island Line and The Easter  House, both of which have been  reissued.  His writing career took a hiatus  though after a motorcycle  accident in 1977.  For many years after that  accident he continued to write  but didn't publish.  Several years ago he was  contacted by an editor in  Milkweed Press which is a  wonderful publishing house based  in Minneapolis.  Driftless, the book of David's  that Milkweed published last  year, led to national  recognition of the reemergence  of a major American writer.  There were articles in the New  York Times and the Wall Street  Journal, on NPR, Allen Shoes and  the Chicago Trib called  Driftless, quote, the best work  of fiction to come out of the  Midwest in many years.  I should mention one fact that  struck me which is that although  David is not a stranger to  Madison, he spent two years in  the hospital here after his  accident, tonight is the first  reading that he has given in  Madison for any of his books.  Please welcome David Rhodes.  (applause)  >> David Rhodes: And I haven't  even put my dress on yet.  (laughter)  It's an overwhelming  honor to have you here and to be  here with Jane. 

 I've been a fan of hers for  many, many years, and I just  truly love, I've read every one  of her books except this last  one and I've learned however  that I have to approach Jane's  book with a certain amount of  caution.  Her characters indeed are  extremely vivid and I found that  I usually about a fourth of the  way through the book one of  those prominent females will  leap right out of it, land with  both feet on my floor and demand  that I make them breakfast.  (laughter)  And then clean the kitchen.  (laughter)  So I'm going to approach  this latest one  when I have the courage.  (laughter)  And speaking of courage  I'm going to try to read  something tonight which is an  abbreviated piece that appears  in Driftless, and I'm doing it  in honor of my daughter who's  here tonight, and she's a nurse  in Wisconsin, and I'm enormously  proud of her.  And she has more courage than  anyone I've ever known, and  certainly more than me, but it  gives me the courage to try  something that I wouldn't  normally do.  And to preface this I have to  first explain that it appears a  little ways into the book and so  for those of you, and I'm sure  there's a lot of them that don't  know anything about the book,  but I have to first set the  scene that there's a woman that  has been cared for her entire 38  years by her family, she has  Multiple Sclerosis or has been  diagnosed with this and is in a  wheelchair.  And she is taken care of by her  sister Violet.  Her name is Olivia, and she  seldom leaves home except to go  to church.  But on this particular occasion,  and for reasons that I won't  explain here, she mortgages her  and her sister's house and takes  the money to a casino and loses  it all. 

 And that then you need to know  that.  (laughter)  So we'll find her  later but this begins with, can  you hear me all right?  Okay.  This begins with another  character then and the name of  this particular section is  "Don't Go That Way."  But it goes kind of like this.  Wade Armbuster kept a custom  automobile in his father's  machine shed under a gray car  cover.  His most treasured possession,  he had provided it with multiple  layers of peerless green  lacquer, into which he could  stare as though into a still  pool of water.  And an interior of rich, oiled  leather.  Sometimes in the middle of the  night he would slip out of his  trailer beside his parent's  house to the darkened shed and  unwrap it.  Pulling the cover from the  fenders like clothing from  rounded hips, heels and  shoulders.  Then in the illumination of a  single bare bulb in the rafters,  he stood back and gazed,  sometimes for hours.  The interlaced shadows, curves,  lines and colors seemed in some  primitive language to reveal  more about himself, about  passion, about life than he  could fully explore. 

 But on this cold winter night he  noticed something he didn't like  and drew his tattooed hand over  his closely cropped hair.  He spit on the concrete floor,  rubbed his neck and stepped  several feet to the right,  hoping to correct the  impression.  There it was again.  An angle of the car that did not  look good.  Plain, homely.  He closed his eyes and tried to  rid himself of the impression  through a condemnation of it, as  though some momentary spirit of  ugliness had entered the  building making his beloved the  branch upon which the black  witches jabbered.  But when he opened his eyes, the  evil twins were still there.  Banality and vulgarity.  Wade climbed inside and sat  behind the wheel where a row of  darkened gauges looked up at  him, mute, shiny and spotless.  He stepped on the accelerator  twice and turned the key. 

 The massive engine came  hollowing to life, the sound  reverberating from the  building's steel sides.  He drove through the open door.  Outside the three inch extra  pipes did not seem quite so  loud, and Wade attempted to  creep through the farm yard  without waking his parents.  But due to the pitch of the cam  shaft and the stale converter,  slow speeds were difficult.  The staggered lurching, surging  and gasping that so delighted  those attending car shows now  proved a liability.  The engine died three times  before he reached the road, and  his parent's bedroom light on  the second floor lit up like a  warning light in the sky.  Once over the little hill to the  north of the farm he shifted  into second gear, cracked the  throttle and felt a joyous  thrust of acceleration pressing  him back into the seat.  Settling down to an even hundred  miles an hour he felt better.  The steering was tight,  everything was in the proper  place, the gauges were hovering  in the right place and this was  the right car.  He turned the radio up loud. 

 As he approached town a few cars  began to appear.  Old guys in pick ups and station  wagons going home after the bars  closed.  He saw some younger people, two  small guys in a rusted Honda.  A long haired heavy-set fellow  pumping gas into a SUV.  More cars appeared on the side  street, old guys.  Ahead on the left the casino  parking lot was only a quarter  filled.  He could see a woman in a  wheelchair pushing herself in  front of parked cars.  Several rows away, three young  men climbed out an old Camaro.  Two were about his age.  The driver, the biggest, was  older, maybe 35. 

 They left the doors of the  Camaro open.  And from the way they walked  Wade knew something was going to  happen.  They met the woman and one of  them grabbed the handbag around  her neck and attempted to run  away.  In the struggle she was pulled  from the chair on to the parking  lot.  But she did not let go.  Wade turned into the lot coming  to a stop 15 feet away from the  little woman still holding on to  her handbag.  Wade came from his car and  looked at the older man.  "I'd leave that woman alone  if I were you."  "Would you," said the bigger man  walking toward Wade.  "I would," said wade.  "Maybe you should mind your own  business, #####."  "Maybe not, #####."  Wade had been in a number of  fights during his 28 years, the  last resulted in a six month  parole. 

 In all his other fights, until  the actually fighting started,  he had been fearful.  The possibility of being a  coward had terrified him.  But now he was not afraid.  The bigger man prepared to  swing, but Wade hit him first  knocking him off balance.  It was a good punch and he knew  he could win if given the  opportunity to continue.  Two things then happened at  once.  A brick hit the side of his head  and the handbag was ripped from  the woman's hands.  The three ran back to the  Camaro, jumped inside and sped  through the lot.  Wade ran to the small woman,  lifted her from the pavement,  ignored the overturned  wheelchair and hurried with him  to his car.  He opened the passenger door and  set her on the custom leather  seat. 

 He then joined her inside.  "Don't worry ma'am,  we'll get it."  The two of them sped after the  tiny red headlights a half a  mile down highway 87.  Olivia's head hurt from her  doomed struggle to retain  possession of her purse.  She didn't understand what was  happening.  The countryside came and went  with such unconscionable  rapidity that it was better not  to look out the window.  She turned toward the  stubble-headed young man who had  grabbed her and shoved her into  his car.  He had jewelry in his nose and  stared madly into the windshield  in front of him, while she  braced herself against the door  and dashboard and was absolutely  certain she would die.  The sound of the motor and radio  alone were enough to kill a  person.  (laughter)  Now what did had  lunatic said before he abducted  her?  Something about not worrying,  don't worry ma'am.  (laughter)  She assumed this was  a bit of black humor. 

 (laughter)  Perhaps something  tattooed kidnappers with blood  and jewelry all over their faces  often said to their hapless  victims.  (laughter)  Before they smashed  their cars into steel girders  going 170 miles an hour in the  middle of the night.  Since she had so recently lost  all of her and her sister's  money in a casino and joined the  world of the damned, she had not  expected it to be inhabited.  (laughter)  But apparently it was.  (laughter)  "Better put on your  seatbelt, ma'am."  (laughter)  More black humor she  assumed and gripped even tighter  to the door as the car skidded  around the corner and reassumed  it's bellowing acceleration.  The idea of strapping yourself  inside seemed like closing the  lid on your own coffin.  At these speeds when the end  came there'd be nothing left of  the car or anything inside it  except several wagons of rust  dust.  She considered praying,  screaming and pleading all at  once, but instead felt a more  instinctive expression taking  place as urine flowed out of her  as freely as freedom itself  through her dress and on to the  soft clammy seats.  Everything inside the car seemed  appropriately designed to  resemble hell.  Black, red and chrome with some  kind of idolatry in the shape of  a skull hanging from the  rearview mirror. 

 A little demon with a red beard  and over-sized revolvers was  mounted on the gear shift.  The car ahead turned again this  time down an unplowed road  leaving a cloud of snow dust  behind it.  But this did not make the  slightest impression on her  crazed kidnapper.  Who, of course, drove into it  without thinking about the  inevitable consequences of  driving as fast as mechanically  possible without the benefit of  sight.  (laughter)  They continued like  this for what seemed like a mile  or more and faint red lights  could be seen through the  billowing snow as a car ahead  turned into another highway with  her suicidal driver right behind  it.  Soon they were so close to the  car in front that Olivia was  sure they were going to hit it,  and then to her utter and  complete astonishment they did.  (laughter)  The imbecile sitting  next to her rammed right into  the car ahead denting the trunk  and busting out one of the tail  lights.  A little further down the road  there was a loud crack and a  ragged hole appeared in the  middle of the windshield.  "Those bastards shot my car."  (laughter)  Shouted her driver.  Rolling down his window with a  manual crank. 

 This statement provided vital  information to Olivia.  Provided with the fact that her  kidnapper had just rammed his  car into the one they had been  following, she felt pretty sure  he was chasing them and not  simply trying to keep up.  Perhaps, despite dressing and  looking and talking alike, they  were not all in this thieving  business together.  Then while driving with one hand  and sometimes only a single  finger, the stubble-haired youth  beside her reached under the  seat, withdrew a short, fat,  thick gun with two enormous  barrels, held it out the window  and fired twice.  It made the sound of the engine  and the radio seem like the  purring of kittens.  (laughter)  It more resembled a solid blow  to the head than a sound.  Ahead, the car's remaining tail  light had been extinguished and  there was a trunk-sized hole in  the back window.  Through the ragged opening she  could see the back of three  heads.  One of them turned toward them  and threw something outside that  slid over the hood and landed in  road.  Her driver promptly ran over it  and stomped on his breaks. 

 Olivia was thrown to the floor.  There, lying on a black rubber  mat that smelled of something  resembling furniture polish, she  conducted a quick assessment of  her new circumstance and felt  surprisingly safe.  The dashboard created a little  roof over her head, and the  partially sequestered ambiance  seemed almost reassuring.  (laughter)  The madman next to her  opened his door and ran into  the night.  When he returned he had her  handbag.  "I got it ma'am," he said  proudly lifting her back into  the seat next to the fat gun.  Olivia could not hear what he  said because her head was still  ringing from the shotgun blast,  but she recognized her handbag  as well as a triumphant smile  beaming from the driver's  bejeweled face.  And while looking through the  hole in the windshield at a  single star in the sky, she came  to a clearer understanding of  what had happened.  Down the road over the horizon  came two police cars with lights  and sirens.  "Oh, ####," her driver said. 

 (laughter)  Olivia could feel his  fear like a wind blowing.  He buckled her into her seat,  closed his door, turned around  in the road with a shriek of  tires and roared off in the  opposite direction.  When they reached the snow  covered road, he turned down it.  At least this time we can see  thought Olivia as they followed  their earlier tracks.  It then occurred to her that the  young man had perhaps taken this  road in order to raise enough  snow to prevent his license  plate from being read.  It seemed unusually thoughtful  for someone completely insane.  (laughter)  And her estimation of  him ends slightly upward in the  animal kingdom.  At the stop sign they turned  right and she noticed his hands  shaking.  Again she could feel his fear.  After another mile he braked  hard and prepared to turn left. 

 Olivia's hearing was returning,  and she noticed she no longer  felt as though she would  immediately die.  Well, that wasn't quite true.  (laughter)  She still felt  certain of perishing at any  moment, but for some reason she  was becoming accustomed to the  feeling.  Sensing the fear of her driver  had a mitigating affect on her  own as though only so much  terror was allowed in any given  enclosure.  "Wait," she shouted,  don't go that way.  I have a scanner at home.  They always catch people going  that way."  (laughter)  "Go straight ahead and  then take a right and then take  the left."  Her voice sounded unusually  authoritative for someone her  size.  And Wade obeyed it.  "Now turn here,"  commanded Olivia.  There are plenty of curves and  side roads over here and at the  intersection Olivia rolled down  the window and hurled the  shotgun into the snow filled  ditch. 

 "Damn, what did you  do that for?"  "You can get it later if you  really need it."  They continued for several miles    around corners and over hills  following the illumination of  their one unbroken headlight.  "Turn there," shouted Olivia,  "at the mailbox.  Hurry, the Rasmussens are on  vacation, park behind the  garage, behind the house."  (laughter)  In the snow filled  yard he turned off the engine,  lights and radio.  Suddenly they were sealed  together in near total darkness,  surrounded in every direction by  a silence as overwhelming as the  earlier din of the engine and  thundering music.  Olivia could hear him breathing.  The sirens grew louder and  louder and then flew past them  toward the ridge roads.  "You can't walk?" he asked.  "Not a step."  "I guess you pretty much need  that wheelchair."  "Pretty much," said Olivia.  [LAUGHTER]  "These people on vacation?"  "Yes, until next month.  They went to the holy land."  Outside they could hear more  sirens. 

 Later two more passed, one from  each direction moving slowly  with search lights stretching  into the countryside like  probing yellow tentacles.  Both continued without stopping.  "They catch me I'll go  to prison," said wade.  "No you won't," said Olivia,  "you can you tell them  what happened."  "Wouldn't matter  what the #### I said  I've been in trouble before,  I'm on parole."  "I see," said Olivia.  "Well, as long as we're making  confessions here I'm afraid I   peed on your car seat."  (laughter)  Wade laughed.  A sound that in some ways  troubled Olivia more than  anything else so far.  "Hell, it doesn't matter," he  said.  "We better get you in some dry  clothes.  My mother had trouble like that  like you can't ##### believe.  I took care of her for three  years."  Wade reached for the ignition  key to start the car. 

 "Wait," yelled Olivia,  "you can't leave now.  They'll still be out there."  "If I don't show up at 7:00 at  the cheese plant they'll call my  God damned patrol officer.  We've got to get you into some  dry clothes, folks are probably  looking for you."  "That doesn't matter,"  said Olivia.  "We can't just sit the ####  here."  Then a light came on inside the  house and a silhouette stood in  the window.  A telephone pressed to one side  of its head.  They hurriedly left.  "I thought you said no one was  home," said Wade accelerating an  open throttle down the blacktop.  "It looked like Florence Fitch.  It would be just like her to  stay in someone's house when  they were gone, snooping around  under the pretense of looking  after the place."  "Oh ####, there's no way out of  here," he cried  at the end of the dead end road  as a dead end road loomed ahead.  "Quick," said Olivia,  "stop swearing and turn here."  "Where?"  "In the driveway."  "Who lives here?"  "Who cares. 

 It goes back into the woods.  Hurry the police lights on the  ridge."  Wade turned into the lane  running between the trees.  At the end of a very long,  curved driveway he pulled up  next to an odd shaped log house.  Still in panic, he looked out  and saw someone standing on the  back porch holding a machine  gun.  "Get down," he yelled.  Wade threw his body like a sack  of potatoes over Olivia.  She laid there for an  unthinkably long time, half on  and half off the seat, his  weight pressing on her in a warm  heavy and completely unfamiliar  way.  Finally she decided there could  be no reasonable explanation for    why they were doing this and she  said, "Get off me you big lug."  (laughter)  When Wade sat up  again the man had left the  machine gun on the porch floor  and was now standing next to the  car.  "What are you doing here?"  he asked, looking inside.  "Oh, hello, Olivia."  (laughter)  "I'm not Olivia," said Olivia. 

 (laughter)  Trying to look like  someone other than herself by  smiling and frowning at the same  time.  "Of course you are," said Jacob.  "Is this the motor from July  Montgomery's tool shed last  summer?" asked Jacob  listening to the idling engine.  "Yep," said Wade proudly.  "Aspirated engines have a  distinct sound," said Jacob.  Sirens were descending from the  ridge.  Jacob noticed Wade's face, his  right eye swollen almost shut,  and the blood on Olivia's  blouse.  "What's going on here?"  he asked.  "Pay attention," said Olivia to  Jacob, "we need you to  understand a whole lot of things  in a whole little time.  First, we're completely  innocent. 

 (laughter)  Second, those police  cars don't know we're innocent.  Third, this will likely be one  of the places they suspect that  people who they think aren't  innocent but are, in fact,  innocent might be hiding.  (laughter)  We need your help."  Jacob ran into the garage beside  the log house, backed his Jeep  out and drove down the drive.  Halfway to the road in the  narrowest part of the lane, he  turned the motor off, climbed  out and lifted the hood.  Several minutes later a patrol  car turned off the road and  followed the drive as far as the  Jeep.  A policeman climbed out, his  search light fastened on Jacob.  "This your place?"  "Yes."  "What's your name?"  "Jacob Helm."  "Having trouble?"  "Battery keeps shorting out."  "Kind of late to be working  on it?"  "I need to get to work in a  couple of hours."  "We're looking for a fancy car  green or light blue, loud motor,  you seen anyone come by here?"  "Sorry, no," said Jacob.  "Say can you use your government  radio to call somebody for me?  I mean the one in your car, I'd  sure appreciate it."  "Call who?"  "My cousin in Grange, I've got  the number here."  "Is this an emergency?"  "I need to get this Jeep  running, here's the number.  If an old woman answers, don't  talk to her just ask to speak to  Frank.  If a man answers, it will  probably be Frank, and then if  it is Frank, ask him for Lenny. 

 (laughter)  When Lenny comes to  the phone tell him Jacob, that's  me, wants a battery, the one  next to the tarp.  He'll know which one.  Tell him to..."  "Sir, I haven't got time for  this.  You can walk back to your house  an use your own phone.  You do have one, don't you?"  "Of course, I do."  The patrol car backed out along  the drive to a place wide enough  to turn around, and then  returned to the road.  Wade parked, I'm sorry, I got  that wrong.  Jacob parked his car next to the  log house and offered to help  carry Olivia.  "I got her," said Wade and  placed her on the front seat  of Jacob's Jeep.  "I'll bring it back before  daylight," he said.  After Wade and Olivia were back  on the highway they met a squad  car then another. 

 "Should we picked up the sawed  off?" asked Wade.  "Not on your life."  (laughter)  In the casino parking  lot Wade put Olivia's wheelchair  in the back of the Jeep.  They drove through town.  Wade asked if she'd like  something to drink.  "I've had quite enough fluids  passing through me, thank you."  (laughter)  "How about something to eat?"  "I don't have any money, I lost  everything at the casino."  "I have money," said Wade,  "what would you like?"  "I don't know," said Olivia.  No one outside her family had  ever asked her what she wanted  to eat.  And the astonishing novelty of  this seemingly ordinary question  had a strange attraction.  "How about a sandwich?"  "Damn good choice," said Wade.  He pulled into a convenience  store and rushed inside.  When he returned he had two  refrigerated turkey sandwiches  with lettuce and tomato and  shrink wrap and potato chips. 

 They ate in the parking lot and  continued eating as they drove  towards Olivia's house.  Several miles passed.  "Excuse me, ma'am, but I really  want to thank you.  I mean you're real smart, and,  well, this might sound kind of  stupid and it probably is but  this has really been a good  night for me."  (laughter)  "Very good."  "You remember to take care of  this car," said Olivia.  "Nothing better happen to it,  you understand?  Nothing.  Not a scratch or a dent or a  blemish of any kind."  "I understand but it's pretty  beat up already."  "There's my house,  the one with the lights on."  "You know," said Wade,  pulling over and stopping,  "I'd like to, oh,  well, damn ma'am, I mean I'd  like to see you again if you'd  consider it.  You're really cute.  Would it be all right for us to  go out together."  At first Olivia wondered how the  eye closest to her could see  anything at all.  Then she tried to think while  the undiluted meeting of what  had just been said began  dissolving all of her rational  thoughts.  "What did you actually have in  mind?"  "I don't know, what would you  like to do?"  "I don't do much of anything  I'm afraid," said Olivia. 

 "My life is one of almost  complete inertia."  "Then maybe you could come with  me to a dog fight.  (laughter)  I went to a couple  and they're just very damn cool.  They train these dogs, they're  special fighting dogs.  The owners meet in barns and  places, never in the same place.  I mean it teaches you something  about human nature."  "You mean it teaches you  something about what human  nature could be."  "Yeah, yeah something like that.  But I'd really like it if you'd  go with me.  I never have anyone to go places  with."  "That settles it, said Olivia,  we'll go together."  He parked in front of her house.  Fourteen people and three cats  came out on the porch.  (laughter)  And watched as Olivia  and the youth in the Jeep  finished eating the potato chips  in the bag.  Then Wade took the wheelchair  out of the back, set Olivia in  it and pushed her up the ramp. 

 "This is my new friend,  Tell them your name."  "Wade Armbuster, glad to meet  you."  The crowd parted like the Red  Sea, and Wade pushed her inside.  Then he came back outside and  climbed into a Jeep that looked  just like the one belonging to  the owner of the repair shop and  drove away.  After Violet had sent all the  neighbors and relatives away and  called the police to tell them  that her missing sister had been  found, she confronted Olivia.  "What's going on here?"  she demanded.  "We've been worried sick about  you, just sick we've been  worried."  "It's a long story and not an  entirely pleasant one.  You should prepare yourself  Violet, I'm afraid we're  homeless."  (applause)