Ravi Mangla
Two exits short of Lake Erie, a black Buick slashes in front of my dad’s Cutlass. He tails the Buick for eight hours, through three states. I count the badges on my sash while he grinds his teeth down to gum. We take turns pissing in an empty two-liter bottle of Sierra Mist. When the Buick finally pulls off the highway and pulls into an Econo Lodge, my dad tears the driver from the car and kicks him until he promises never to cut off another car again, swears on his daughter’s life. We leave him in the parking lot, curled in a ball, and go order burgers from a fast food chain I’ve never heard of, eat them on the curb. My dad uses his shirt to wipe the ketchup from his hands. When the car starts clanking on the highway, he rigs up the muffler with my rod and line, hoping it will hold just long enough to get us home.
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Ravi Mangla once bowled a 196 but was never able to follow that up. He collects lists at Recommended Reading.