This day’s gone bad. True, at the tables it’s hard to tell day from night, but one thing’s for sure, this bad has gotten way, way worse, and my chest is real tight, my blood’s pumping fast, my head’s gonna burst, like them black clouds of rain hanging up there over the car, and I’m driving mad, running lights, swerving lanes, leaning hard on my horn, and there’s a clank in the engine that shouldn’t be there, but I can’t give the head space to figure what should have been fixed, ‘cause I’m thinking I got the Ray Liottas like from Goodfellas when he’s coked to the eyeballs, he’s truly fucked up, knowing shit’s gonna hit now he’s under the eyes of the feds, and the buzzing, buzzing in my ears is the hover ‘copter in the film, tracking my moves inch for inch, yard for yard, spotting me from above like when we were kids, holding a magnifier glass, lying flat on our bellies in the summer school yard, and now I’m sorry ‘cause I’m the ant burning up, getting ready to pop, and anyways Tyler always hung onto the glass and I guess he could be up there in that copter ‘cause he always was a mean, scary dude, the smooth who did the bad things without getting stung, who smiled his way out of trouble while kicking some sorry kid in the arse, and I figure he’s up there behind Ray-Ban reflectors, born and bred for the feds, seeing as those guys learn how to lay fists without leaving a mark, and how to plant dope, loot or guns on the loser they’ve picked to put down for that day, and that loser, yeah you guessed it, that loser is me, and I know I’m damned well gonna get caught, sure as hell I’m running the line, like the big fish (only smaller), the one my dad hooked that day from Gilbie’s fifty-grand launcher, the fish who played out for miles and needed hard winching in, and my dad’s hands, they were ripped to shreds, though he held on and held on being the big man he was, held on same as I’m holding this wheel, gripping it like the harder I hold, the harder it’ll be to let go, and my breathing is ragged though I suck on my tabs lighting one from the other hoping I’m inhaling answers and will find a way through, though I’m just one cell call away from my number being called in and my wife finding the papers, spilling the repos—shit­—all the unpaid bills, from the sharks or the bailiffs kicking in my front door and the clanking, kicking, buzzing is making my head explode though I’m not sure which sounds are for real ‘cause I don’t seem to be goin’ nowhere so could be I’ve reached the end, and I’m sitting here, all still, and wondering if you could reel in an ant or fry a fish with a magnifier glass and if so how it might taste?

Maybe pretty good.

Or maybe the skin would just blister.

Maybe inside it’d be bloody and raw.