Five minutes later we gunned it out of town under a cobalt blue sky. Cody's tires spitting dirt on the sun-warmed road, the radio blasting "Beer Drinkers and He3ll Raisers" by ZZ Top. "God, I love this song," Cody said, cranking the volume, his palms pounding on the steering wheel, his green eyes charged with a secret energy, as if he were anticipating a salvation known only to him. For as long as I'd known Cody, he'd avoided a static lifestyle. Downtime and boredom were his worst enemies. I imagined that in his quiet, solitary moments, perhaps when he was alone in his apartment at night, straight booze ight not be adequate to soothe the wounds of his past. His pain could only be extinguished by action, by confronting his demons, by violence. This was his defense mechanism, how he dealt with the grief of a father who abandoned him and an uncaring mother. Crazy as it sounds, living on the edge provided the balm for his unhealed scars. I'm sure p