Kids in back making too much noise now. Or maybe they have been for a while but he just hears it now. But too much with that man having looked at him before like that and their car getting so close, though now it’s a good two hundred feet in front of him. So maybe he shouldn’t say it, leave them alone, they’re being all right, but the noise is kind of irritating if just as noise and he says “Kids, come on — Margo, be quiet, enough.” She says “Why’s it always have to be me just because I’m older? She could be doing something wrong too.” “Then Julie, Margo, both of you — anyway, I’m a little nervous, maybe just tired from the drive, and your noise is disturbing me, so please tone it down.” “What, Daddy?” Julie says and he says “I said, and come on, you must have heard me, I said to tone it down, be a little less noisy — you both are, so you both.” “We’re not doing anything. We’re playing games together, not hurting each other, and having fun. You want us to have fun, don’t you, and not pester you when you’re driving like you’ve said we do?” “Please, don’t, you’re too young for that, to also start trading cleverness or something with me, using my words for that — what I said I said and so on — to get out of it. I’m trying to concentrate on my driving, which you’ve got to on a big highway and so many cars and trucks, and I need you two to be a lot less roughhouse than you are.” “Be less what?” Julie says. “We’re not,” Margo says. “We’re even being quiet, playing well for a change, so you should be happy.” “Okay, nothing, really, fine,” he says, “but just try to keep your voices at that level you just spoke, both of you, kind of low. In fact, don’t try, just do it; please?” The other car’s slowed down to where it’s even with his again but back in the middle of its lane and man’s staring at him when he turns to it but with this new look of niceness and no sinister smile. He smiles, one of those flash ones which means he’s smiling because something isn’t nice or funny, and looks front. Probably shouldn’t have done that. Just smiled naturally or not at all. But what’s with them? Don’t they know they’re distracting him, which could be dangerous for him driving the car and then for them if he’s distracted into them or too near them by losing a little driving control? Well, it won’t go that far, but the level of danger is raised a little he’d think by their looks, even if those were nice ones they just gave, for something ugly’s obviously underneath, and now coming back and such and what went on before and also raised by their driving fifty in the speed lane which seems to be just to stay even with him — what else could it be for? — and they should know all that. They should just leave him alone. He has kids in the car too, goddamnit, don’t the idiots see? Forget it, they’re just trying to needle him, for some reason. He’s their target or mark on the road for the moment, source of entertainment because they’re bored with driving or their own conversation, the music on the radio — they can’t locate any station or bring it in clear in this sort of open-land stretch — or they’ve run out of tape cassettes or have none to play and to each other nothing much ever to say — but having kids’ fun in their own big dumb men’s way, or they just don’t like his face, he reminds them or one of them — the passenger — of someone the guy really hates or maybe the passenger even thinks he’s that man. He could speed up but feels they’ll only keep up with him. Or go into the next middle lane or even to the slow one and drive slower in either but how slow can you go on this big Interstate without being a danger yourself with all the cars flying by and buses and trailer trucks? Certainly first cop car he spots he’ll honk for or pull over if it’s on the side of the road or the divider, but he better keep a sharp lookout, and first turnoff or rest stop that comes up, he’ll pull off. He rolls his window up all the way. That’s at least some protection if he needs it or a signal to them to leave off or just enough of a shield between them where they’ll now feel they can’t get through to him. Other front window’s down a little but that’s okay, nothing wrong on that side. Kids’ windows are only pushed out a little at the back and clasped. Glances around to them and then in the rearview. They’re all right, playing quietly by themselves, Julie, because of her yawn, probably starting to nod off, but no sign they’re aware of any uneasiness in him. Senses some arm action from the car and looks and man’s smiling nice-like again and saying something like “Your window, your window, roll your window down,” and points to his chest and then his mouth and then to him as if he has something to tell him and now with this slightly urgent face, and then to the highway on their side and all the time the driver’s nodding agreeingly. “What?” he mouths. “Can’t make it out. What? Sorry,” and looks front and drives into the next middle lane. He thinks “They’re trying to inveigle me into something, that’s all, I can see it a mile away.” They drive into the lane he just left and stay even with him. He glances over and both are looking at him now and smiling, then the driver laughing, the passenger then laughing, the driver then laughing hysterically it seems like. “Hey, what gives already?” he says through the window. “What the heck you want?” “What’s that, Daddy?” Julie says and he says “Nothing, sweetie, go back to your nap.” “I wasn’t sleeping.” “Really, nothing, I was only saying out loud before something I was thinking inside.” “You were talking to those men there,” Margo says and he says “Those men, in the car beside us? No, but don’t pay any attention to them, wave or anything, you hear? Are you both listening to me?” and Julie says “What men?” and Margo says “The car outside my side,” and Julie says “I didn’t see them, I wasn’t waving, maybe Margo,” and he says “No fights, both of you, just play or be quiet,” and he looks in the rearview a few seconds later, has to shift it around a little, and they’re back to what they were doing or something else. He turns to the men. They’re still laughing or only started laughing again when he turned to them but not as hysterically and the passenger shaking his head at him as if how could anyone be such a jerk? and he looks front. Why’d he even answer them? They didn’t hear, but just with his mouth moving. They’re crazy or just bastards. Best to ignore them. They could sideswipe his car or whatever’s the word. Sideswipe. That what they’re after? Bump or graze his car a little with theirs to give him a scare? Even to send him off the road or into another car for all he knows? They might know how to do it without losing control of theirs, but he could lose control. That could be what they want, for him to crash, but more realistically to just scare him and they might be so stupid as to think everyone can get back control of their car once they lose it for a second, at least any man his age, so they actually might not have any thoughts about making him crash, but he could. He’s a good driver but not great. Car spinning on a slick or ice, he never knows what to do. Brake, no brake, left when it goes right, right when it goes right, steering the car where? and it’s happened. Then out the side of his eye the passenger’s hand out the window, which is all the way down now he sees when he looks straight at him, and pointing it to the front of his car and down, the wheel or somewhere near. “Something is wrong with your car,” the man seems to be saying. “Something is wrong where I’m pointing, up front.” “Something’s wrong with some part of the front of my car?” he mouths, not wanting the kids to hear, and the man nods and the driver, looking back and forth at the road and him, nods vigorously, saying “Yeah, babe, yeah,” and the man says with his expression and hand “Roll down your window so I can tell you what it is.” Wait wait wait. Something’s been wrong with his car and their staying even with him and everything all this time was for that? And the laughing before, even the hysterics, was because they knew he was thinking they were doing something terrible or nuts or intending to when it was only his car and safety and stuff and even his kids they were concerned about? Good intentions all along? So maybe it’s that, it seems to be, which he’s relieved about but now worried about his car, though it’s probably only the air in his left front wheel’s low or hubcap there’s loose, it’s not a flat, he’d feel that, nor his door the man’s pointing at and he can see it’s shut tight, or maybe something’s stuck to his fender or somewhere — the grille — a dead animal, a bird, even, and he rolls his window down and says “What is it — the wheel?” and th