the headlights of his prosperous impala sedan cut the night with smooth ease , and my rage wanted to reach out and strangle everything that he was set in among -- the kind of music i knew he would listen to as he lay back in his la-z-boy recliner with the evening paper in his hot-water-bottle hands , the rinse his wife would use in her hair , the underalls i knew she would wear , the kids always sent off to the movies or off to school or off to camp -- as long as they were off somewhere -- his snobbish friends and the drunken parties they would attend with them .