barnett_bando werewolf driving home from high powered work, multiple layoffs no time to take pleasure in each single one. and the theme music if there were some, would be 50's lounge music, cool too cool, no words, no chorus, just a constant pulsing beat with no room for doubt, like stopping over at vegas on the way to nuclear war. he owned the road in his porsche, he didn't even have to try to merge, the new lane came to him. that's why he was so frustrated by this beat up jalopy (well it was a minivan but compared to his porsche) driving him to the edge of traffic, to the boundry of their range. they'd race back and forth in their little pen, but the minivan, having less to lose, would always push as close to the cars ahead of them as mister barnett bando was comfortable with. barnett thought for a second, that's what's wrong with the world. everyone's always just looking straight ahead, where they're going. and someone always needs to merge, into a lane, into working society if you're a vagrant or something - but people are all looking straight ahead. then again, he intoned in his head in the familiar totally and completely certain template of powerpoint gesture, if you stop for everyone, you'll never get anywhere. no he wasn't going to be that fool. he dropped gears and passed the minivan and the minilife inside of it. now near the streets of his home he drove slow, took winding paths back home. as everyone in his life knew, home was the least favorite part of his day. he liked to parade around the streets near it though like a conquering hero. and when people would see his house, that's all they would see, a beautiful large house, an impenetratable fortress from which none of the sadness within it ever could make itself apparent. on his way home he saw a teenage girl, her skin aged just right, her eyes two dials you could turn up and down, from happy to sad, the latest in high-tech boy toys. he felt assured of the control he'd possess in their imaginary love affair, sure his hands would be hypnotized by that body like the fountain of youth, but he'd still control the arms attached to them. she was standing with her arms crossed and a bored look on her face while her boyfriend barnett surmised and his friends were skating, doing ollies, grinds, whatever expressive tricks of their promise and youth, like little hunter gatherers left at home with nothing to do will. he gave her a knowing smile as he cruised by, and she smiled back. her boyfriend and friends must've ollied right over it (but it would've been nice if they had not, and had been volatile and unlike real people and had thrown something at mister barnett bando's prized car). barnett thought, tonight that girl's going to reach down under her covers and rub moans out until there's a wet spot under her thighs, and she's going to be thinking about me. on second thought, perhaps the smile he flashed her wasn' t so knowing. mrs. bando for her part, was sitting at home, fiending, itching at the shacklemarks of her too late to turn back now, might as well throw money after bad money life. she was actually considering asking sam, their son, if his new friend johnny had drug connections (which she knew the answer to was yes, but how to trick sam, sam was smart, was it really necessary, he pretty much has to know i'm like this, his father's his own way) . These were the rosary beads she voiced to herself pacing the hallways. Sam Bando was a sweet kid. With his father being a black hole hedonist (if love affairs were like meals at denny's he'd be the number one all time runner) and his mother being a beached on whatever drug she could find (she loved hallucinogens because they made the walls seem to melt away or turn to song), Sam turned out to be a bleating little lamb, admirably stoic, the way a cartoon character takes a gulp and then resolves to be brave in the dark woods while the trees with their eyes thick moon yellow brey and laugh him down. Sam was in some ways no different than other teenagers in this respect. Most kids at some point try to be the opposite before they become their parents, because no one wants to believe they're living the same life over again. And so people end up going on, but few succeed in that regard. As it was now though, Sam was Luke Skywalker. Naieve, sweet, the combined brilliance of his mother and father, and the combined hairtrigger. and Johnny Rook might be a deciding factor, and Kira Huntington might be the deciding factor. But Barnett Bando didn't care about any of this. He arrived home and the door swung open. His money would be spent if he had anything to say about it, before the doubts and distractions of other people ate it up. 040430 ... stork daddy sam first actually walked in on his dad cheating on his mom with some lady who was giving him a handjob. later barnett would tell his son, "oh come on, a handjob is practically a medical procedure. they do it to cows all the time" sam had been thirteen at the time. he still remembers his first thoughts: "they would do it to bulls, not cows" 040507 what's it to you? who go blather from