PAUL:	Winter weather, driving to church around the bay, 
	visiting the relations:  the wet;  the chill;  the wind;  
	the forced isolation;  the churning of progress;  the slap 
	of snow chains on the fender of life as you skid from the 
	highway to the culvert.

	Dad in the driver's seat:  sharoosed;  the slow boil;  the 
	steam;  the fingers crushing the steering column; the disturbing 
	deep sighs starting through the nostrils, becoming dangerous as 
	they moved to searing breath through clenched teeth;  the mumbling 
	slowly turning to desperate imprecations;  the eventual abuse of 
	God and all the heavenly powers and their intercessionaries.

	Mom in the passenger seat:  purposefully gazing through her mantilla 
	the other way out the front window, then the side window;  gripping 
	her chin with a gloved hand; now-nowing;  tch-tching; unclasping 
	and clasping her purse;  making small unfortunate jokes and mewling 
	noises;  unfurling her rosary beads leading us through the mysteries;  
	the restraint, the restraint, the restraint;  then a gentle but firm 
	castigation on religious grounds and the invocation of the same 
	heavenly hosts Dad derides.

	Frank in the back seat:  the devil; chortling away;  barely disguising 
	his glee;  mirth, merriment and mayhem in his eyes;  pinching;  
	goading - "sure you don't like Auntie Florrie, Dad, you said so"; 
	red-faced after being crowned;  crying now, sobbing uncontrollably;  
	"it's not fair", he says.

	The guilt.  I did it.  I made it happen.  I made the car slip off the 
	road.  I got Dad mad.  I got Mom upset.  I got Frank crying.  It's all 
	my fault.  It's God's punishment.  I've been committing sins at a ..., 
	well, at an ungodly rate.  I'm thirteen, for cryin' out loud.  I'm going 
	through changes.  My body and my mind can't agree about an awful lot.  
	I know this.  I believe this.  But right now, in the backseat of Dad's 
	Hillman, in a ditch on the Topsail Highway all of us whitened by the 
	gently falling snow, I am mortified.