'Hey, look a-here!' he called out. 'I don't believe this…'

Kevin Shea liked to tell himself that pretty soon he was going to get his act together and even finish his damn thesis and get his Ph.D. and maybe after that get a job teaching, or something else, just as long as it included time for drinking and didn't want too much of his soul. He wasn't giving up any more of his soul. That was settled.

But for the moment it was all just too much to sort out. Changes. The relationship thing. Where he was going, what he was doing. All the hassles. Forget it. It was easier to drink. Not take anything too seriously.

But he didn't like this.

Okay, he'd gotten rid of Neil Young, but these guys were really getting obnoxious now. Nigger this and nigger that. He hated the word – God knew he'd heard it often enough growing up. But it was frightening here. Guys yelling stuff he couldn't believe in modern-day San Francisco. And some jerk standing on the bar going nuts.

He'd had enough of this. Kevin Shea was leaving, out of here.

EEEEeeee! EEEEeeee! EEEEeeee!

The car alarm was blaring.

McKay jumped down off the bar and was through the crowd, men – his cousin, Mullen, all the others – falling in behind him. Even the bartender Jamie O'Toole coming over the bar, into it.

Then McKay was at the front door, yanking it open, out into the twilit street.

Arthur Wade, embarrassed, turned, his hands spread in a what-can-you-do gesture, trying to be heard above the sound of the screeching alarm.

McKay was at him before he could be heard, shoving at him, pushing him away from the car. 'What the hell you think you're doing?'