Some guys are driving through Texas. They’re groggy and dazed from all the hours, the awesome monotony. On all sides, they see nothing: scrub plain, as if the earth were flat. There is a smooth line drawn in the dust under the sky. It’s the horizon. They drive towards it. The engine drones. Sometimes, a small, single shape appears in the distance. They watch it as it grows, mysteriously. It reproduces. It enlarges, upwards, in creeping increments. Suddenly, it acquires detail: it becomes buildings: a city. For a few strange minutes, they’re in it. The fact of scale dazzles them. They crane their necks, watching through the rear window as first the details go. They watch the shapes begin to sink, by gradual increments, all the way into the distance — until there’s only the horizon, smooth, dusty, and they’re back in the center of a flat world.
This is Texas. Their eyes glaze. They look at each other. They stare blankly and rub their cheeks. They have nothing to say. They see miles of scrub desert in the windows. They stare off ahead, stupefied, waiting for the next speck to appear, to start to reproduce and rise.
Way down near Galveston, a scrawny, crewcut kid in Levis and pointed boots gets tired. The sun’s high. His hands are all torn up from turning the big crank handle. He decides to sneak off and go swimming. He pulls off his clothes and jumps into the Gulf. He floats on his back, spouting water. His blisters sting. He thinks: “To hell with those guys in the car!”