once said from behind his sunglasses as the girls looked on. But that minute is always moving away. Transient, baby, ephemeral, know what I'm sayin'? Know who I'm layin'? The women nodded in agreement as if he'd spoken some unbearable truth, never knowing that Shake's definition of himself pretty much changed depending on his mood. Chase really only had the one. It had come at him in a roar of tearing metal, among the stink of gin, listening to a child's mewling. He could still feel the devastating agony shooting up his arms and through his knees whenever he got behind the wheel. His shoulders would begin to hurt, the muscles of his neck suddenly inflamed. Those and other phantom pains would crawl through him even before he turned the key, like old friends coming back for a visit. He parked in front of Shake's favorite diner over on Broadway and Fifty-fifth. The wait staff sang 50s tunes in between serving the customers. Chase hoped they'd dance across the tables and perform the big numbers, swinging around and doing cartwheels and backflips, like in West Side Story. But the girls just sang some of the slower love tunes and all the guys tried to play like Frankie Vallie, yanking up the high notes from their nuts. It was ten a.m.
