The Empty Head

The Madness of Dean

...had reached a fever pitch. People who knew him expected some huge explosion like a flesh bomb—that would be the end of it. But this never happened. His final goal was to smash all the loves of history. He drank like a madman and drove an old red Bonneville like a tank, scaring everyone to death with screeching tires and insane jerks of the wheel. People leaped from sidewalks; he imagined them growing black claws and scrambling up telephone poles to escape. He laughed with a strange joy. He was a happy fiend.

In his innocence he tried to cram all of life into his pocket. "What now?" he would cry out at 4 o'clock in the morning when everyone was dead tired and ready to quit. They would all slink away. The girl who was left would yell "nothing!" and "I want to sleep!" but he would bully her back into the car and zoom off to some secret spot to build a bonfire and tell a new story full of lies and jazz to her flickering yellow face. An inexhaustible supply of cheap wine was stashed in his trunk for these occasions.

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