Smooth as scarlet glass, sparkling with beads of clean rinse water in the early August morning iridescence, my Prizm glides on silent wheels from the shadowed tunnel of the Alameda South Shore Car Wash. Many brown hands rush, whirring worn chamois to dry, to polish, to caress, ignoring the deep pox-dents in its metal skin: scars of another summer's hailstorm. We were so frightened that night, Scott and me, not quite home from Microsoft, caught by the icy stones that pummeled with vengeance, helpless as the droves of other drivers, swarming freeway exits crowding under anything overhead to escape the thundering terror, splitting black clouds, threatening to destroy the whole of north Texas. Then a stone missiled toward his face, cracking sharp crystal veins that spread across the pane that once had been our windshield. A white smile beckons me from the horror of memory with: "No. 52 is ready!" Forgetting what is past, I resume my rightful place in freshly vacuumed space. Starbucks cup is still warm in the holder, and mocha grande lingers in my throat. Wheel arches upward into my eager hands. Engine moans softly, willingly, to my touch. Air fragranced only with freoned coolness breathes hints of new leather and wet paint. And I drive all over again from the dealer's new car lot in east Fort Worth. --9/3/98