He seems rattled and after half an hour we pull over beside a meadow and he reaches back and pulls out two beers and offers me one and he pulls out two folding chairs and sets them on the cab top. We sit in the sunlight, eyes closed but warm, smelling the grass and pollen and pine needles. Even through my socks the roof metal feels warm. A semi passes and the wind ruffles our clothes and vibrates the cab roof but it settles and remains quiet for some time. He senses that I do not like the taste of the beer and laughs, and lets me grab another root beer. It goes easily down my throat.

It reminds me of when Tomas and I were little and my father would bring us to the highway that runs along LAX to sit on his Corvette hood and watch the underbellies of landing planes. The metal glinting against the sky. The white sliver of beach to the west, before the ocean, and the thunderous crack of jets and waves. That was before Tomas had found any Mexican friends, and we had run down the highway looking for rocks to take to the beach and skip over the water.

Chapter Three

I

On the drive into Meridan, Oregon, Stone seems quieter, more pensive. We round a hilltop of drier, thinner pine trees and descend into the city valley. Though from above it looks like a small city, once we reach the flats the highway turns into a suburban street. We drive beneath traffic lights and alongside us strip malls quickly pass. There is no traffic on this Fourth of July weekend, the parking lots standing empty, and we progress rapidly towards the downtown without seeing an open service station.

The man does not say anything, though he must be wondering where I am going to leave my car. In Los Angeles you would find someplace open on any day of the year except maybe Christmas, but this is not LA and as we drive onto the downtown’s wide one-way street we no longer see even the closed service stations of the suburbs with their shuttered garage doors. I do not know what to do. He must be waiting for me to say something about where to leave the car so he can get back home. Now that we are inside the city limits it feels like every inch this man drives is an act of charity for me.

Don’t look so pale, he says.

Do I look pale?

Maybe.

He grins and taps at the steering wheel, clicking it. His fingernails are black with dirt crescents at the ends.

You could drop me off anywhere, I say.

You mean on one of these empty streets? he asks, as if I have said something ridiculous.

Sure.

Don’t be crazy.