THE ONRAMP wound a fast circle, and gravity pulled him to one side and then the other, and he felt like a racecar driver, or a cavalry horse; the heads of new grass nodded on both shoulders when he passed.

The road was chipped in places, yellow and white lined, and on both sides there were the trees, the neon billboards, and the houses, and the frayed tire scrap left on the shoulder, and three pairs of tennis shoes, yellow ones, just stepped from.