“Oh, just make it up,” he said after a while. I imagine he was being half funny and half not. Just like with the nickname.

“Okay. But if I wanted to be factual?”

“If you wanted to be factual, the answer would be one,” he said.

I looked back at the other driver, who still had his face pressed to his hands as if he didn’t wish to see. When the body shop commented on the sorry state of his car, he’d say you should’ve seen the other guy.

“How did it happen?”

“You mean, how did the accident transpire?” the sheriff said.

“Yeah.”

“Quickly.”

“Right. But who hit who?”

“He was going south,” the sheriff said, motioning to the man covering his eyes. “He was going north,” nodding at the smoldering wreck. “Northbound car drifted into the southbound lane. At least, according to our sole witness.”

“Who’s that?”

“Our sole survivor.”

“Can I talk to him?”

“I don’t know. Can you?”

“It’d be nice.”

“Then have a nice time.”

I walked over to the crumpled Sable; the man had finally picked his head up out of his hands. He had that look-the one you see in the faces of people who’ve just juked death. Cursed with the awful knowledge of life’s ridiculous fragility. He was moving various pieces of his body in halting slow motion, as if they were made of fine, breakable china.

“Hello. Tom Valle of the Littleton Journal. Could I speak to you a minute?”

“Huh?”

“I’m from the newspaper. I just wanted to ask you a few questions.”

“Newspaper?”

I’d said nothing to dissipate that dazed look of his.

“That’s right.”

“I don’t really feel like talking. I’m… you know…”

Yes, I knew. But there were other tenets of my profession, which were maybe less than noble. The one, for instance, that says you have to get the story. Even when that story involved the kind of personal disasters that made up most of the news these days. You know what I’m talking about: murdered wives, missing babies, beheaded hostages-there were a lot of those going around.

It’s pretty simple. Even when someone doesn’t feel like talking, you have to feel like asking.

“I understand he drifted into your lane,” I said.

He nodded.

“And then, uh… what’s your name, sir… slowly, so I don’t misspell anything.”

“Crannell. Edward Crannell. Two Ls.”

I dutifully scribbled it down. I’d always forgone the tape recorder for the more tactile sensation of writing notes. Maybe I had an instinctual abhorrence of tape’s permanence-even at the beginning, long before I began taking liberties.

“Where are you from again, Mr. Crannell?” An old technique; ask a question as if they’ve already given you the answer.

“Cleveland,” he said.

“The one in Ohio?”

He nodded.

“Long way from home.”

“I’m in sales. Pharmaceuticals.”

“Rented car then, I guess?”

He grimaced as if that fact had just occurred to him; maybe he’d rolled the dice and forgone the accident insurance.

“So he came right at you, just drifted into your lane. That’s what happened?” This area of Highway 45 was devoid of a single curve-it had the unrelieved monotony of a ruler-drawn line.

Crannell nodded.

“I beeped the horn at the last second. He jammed on the brakes… I guess he couldn’t get out of the way.” He looked down in the general vicinity of his dust-covered shoes and slowly shook his head. “Jesus…”

“Have they checked you out, Mr. Crannell? Are you okay?”

He nodded. “I was wearing my seat belt. They said I was lucky.”

“Oh yeah.”

Swenson was poking around the wreck. Fine black cinders hovered in the air like gnats. The fire had mostly burnt itself out-it looked like the fire engine had sprayed it with anti-incendiary foam.

“Any idea why he did that? Why he drifted into the wrong lane? Did he fall asleep, maybe?”

Crannell seemed to ponder this for a moment, then shook his head no. “Don’t think so. I really can’t tell you.”

“Okay. Well, thank you.”

I walked a few feet away and snapped some pictures. Black car, purple sky, white-shirted sheriff, green cactus. If the Littleton Journal published in color, it really would’ve been something.

On the other hand, black-and-white was probably more appropriate. When I saw it on the front page of the Littleton Journal the next day, it seemed to capture the immutable contrast between life and death.

FOUR

I’d joined a bowling league.

It was kind of by accident. The town’s bowling alley, Muhammed Alley-it was owned by a failed middleweight named BJ who thought the name was hysterical-doubled as the town’s best bar.

I don’t mean it had a nice decor, had an interesting snack menu, or was frequented by hot-looking women.

I mean it was badly lit, sparsely filled, and in need of fumigation. It smelled like used bowling shoes.

When I first came to Littleton, I was in fugitive mode. I wasn’t seeking company; I was consciously avoiding it.

For a while, I managed to do a fairly good job of that at Muhammed Alley.

BJ doubled as the bartender, and unlike the general image of small-town barkeeps, he was blessed with no perceptible curiosity. Other than asking me what I wanted and quoting the bill-three margaritas, no salt, came to $14.95-it took several visits before he uttered an excess word.

That word-or two words, actually-was nice play, spoken only in my general direction, the result of center fielder Steve Finley making a tumbling circus catch in center field.

I was perfectly content with the lack of social interaction. I drank in the loneliness like I drank in the tequila-in small, bitter sips.

After a while, company found me.

One of the two insurance men in town-Sam Weitz, a transplanted New Englander with an obese wife suffering from type 2 diabetes-started drinking more or less the same time as I did. Generally late evening, when most everyone else was headed home to their families.

Not us.

Unlike BJ, Sam was imbued with curiosity. Maybe you get used to asking lots of personal questions in the insurance business. He struck up a conversation and stubbornly kept it going, even when confronted with my mostly monosyllabic answers.

One thing led to another.

Being that we were drinking in a bowling alley, one night he actually suggested bowling.

I was on my third margarita, already floating in that pleasant state I call purple haze, in honor of Hendrix, one of my musical idols. After all-doesn’t enough alcohol let you kiss the sky?

I must’ve mumbled okay.

I bowled a ridiculous 120 that night-making generous use of both gutters. Surprisingly, I kind of enjoyed hurling a heavy ball down a wooden alley, sending pins scattering in all directions-at least a few of them. I saw a kind of life metaphor in those flattened pins, how they reset just like that, virtually daring you to knock them down again. There was a lesson there about pluck and resilience, which I thought I might make use of.

Eventually, we were joined by Seth Bishop, self-confessed town hell-raiser-at least back in high school, where he was voted least likely to succeed, a prophecy that turned out to be pretty much on the money, since he nowadays subsisted on welfare and occasional Sheetrock jobs.

The local Exxon owner-Marv Riskin-rounded out our foursome.

After a while, we joined a league-Tuesday nights at 8.

One night Sheriff Swenson made an appearance, noticed I was keeping score, and told the league president to check the card for accuracy.

When Seth asked me what that was about, I told him I’d run into a little ethics problem in my last newspaper job.

“Boned your secretary?” he asked, kind of hopefully.