Killing is Easy, Living is HardI did my best to kill Bobby Ackerman late one April night, when we were both seventeen . We were driving at full speed on a two-lane highway, a narrow street. a trail of asphalt that started from a ridge and descended in a long, quick right turn, then rushed past a white stucco house with a tile roof, a house that crowned the hill beyond a bridge picturesque canopy above a dry creek bed parallel to the road. We would go down to a little town called Crane and fly. “Damn, man,” Bobby said. I looked toward the passenger seat as the Plymouth moved into the arc of the curve. Bobby's eyes were wide. “Slow down, slow down.” Bobby grabbed the armrest with one hand and leaned his left leg against the hump in the floorboards. I could smell the beer on his breath as he struggled to stay in the seat. The old sedan was wallowing toward the right lane. It was my first time driving his car. But it wasn't really Bobby's car. It was his father's. His father was a railway engineer, he wore the traditional bib overalls and fabric cap. Bobby was my friend, trapped like me in his last year of high school. But he was different. I was secretive, sullen and sarcastic, but Bobby was outgoing, with an ever-present desire to please, sometimes amplified by a fragile manic energy. I loved beer, our generation's drug of choice, but Bobby loved beer too much. That night he needed someone to drive him home. Now I had the old car racing down the road and coming off the crest at close to 80 mph simply because that was the only speed I could get out of it. I had taken one turn, but there was one more before we entered the valley and the town which sat astride a stream. The next turn was a tight, banked left, lined with a dozen white poles linked together by steel cables, and oncoming traffic was obscured by a small hill. I saw a yellow sign ahead of me, one with a black arrow curving around the words 35 mph, but I didn't take my foot off the accelerator. My hands chased the steering wheel, persuading, begging the car to stay away from the limestone cliff to the right, and the old sedan was reluctant, never steady, demanding one correction after another..