“And the whole gay business made me upset,” says Billy.

“I thought it was very overdone and unconvincing,” Pru states, her profile almost haggard in the strokes of oncoming headlights, as the tangled traffic burns above asphalt hard to see, the arrows and lines obscure.

“Boy,” Billy rattles on, “they sure gave you enough blood on the wall when he got shot.”

Annabelle chimes in, “I loved the routine the cheerleaders did with the bowler hats.”

“Pure Fosse,” says Billy. “I was afraid somebody’s house was going to get burned down, either the hero’s or the military man’s next to it.”

“It was a picture, really, when you think about it,” Pru persists, “of cheap shots at everybody. Advertising, the military, blah blah. Oh come on.”

“That was so nice,” Annabelle continues on her track, “when she is willing but he doesn’t sleep with her and makes her a hamburger instead.” Nelson has never heard her voice like this, free-associating and childishly trusting. Maybe this evening isn’t such a failure as it felt. He has the persistent sensation that there is one more person in the car than the four of them.

“Hey Nelson,” Billy’s voice whines from the back seat. “Aren’t you on this road the wrong way?”

He had been wondering why the traffic was so thin. They have become the only car on the highway, speeding between dark slopes of farmland and distant Christmas lights.

“You’re heading toward Maiden Springs!” Billy tells him. “Brewer is behind us!”

“Son of a fucking bitch,” Nelson says. “I asked for directions coming out of the parking lot and nobody helped.”

“Nelson, you’ve lived here all your life,” Pru points out.

“Yeah, but not around the fairgrounds. I hate this area. The fair always depressed me, the way the school made us go every September.”

“Me, too,” Billy says. “I was terrified of the freaks. And those rides used to do a job on my stomach. I remember once with Betty Majka in one of those that roll you around opposite each other being afraid I was going to throw up in her face.”

“Take the next exit,” Pru says, in a low, sharply aimed wife’s voice. “Go left at the overpass and then right to get you back on the highway going the other way.”

“I know how to reverse direction,” Nelson snaps at her.

“And the animals in cages,” Billy goes on. “I have a nightmare about being in a cage that gets smaller and smaller, like an egg slicer.”

“You poor dear worried thing,” Annabelle says silkily.

Pru says to Annabelle, as Nelson angrily whips the car up and around the exit ramp, “I think that was unrealistic, too. Most men would have just screwed her anyway. I mean, he’d been dreaming about almost nothing else.”