He was starting to feel that everybody was noticing him in this car. He had stayed off the freeway, not trusting the lump in relentless traffic, taking in Little Mexico, turning down through parts of Koreatown, with its endless medical buildings, to get onto Olympic and continue west before making a right and getting up to Santa Monica Boulevard. He was approaching the more sophisticated parts of Santa Monica Boulevard; he could feel people looking at him, couldn’t he? Questioning why he was driving that car. Why was he in that car? Why was he? He was now, one part of him at least, demanding an explanation, from the other part, as to what he thought he was doing.

Rational thought scared this brain, a brain that was being exhausted by its focus on this obsessive journey; a commitment to this journey which required abandonment of sense, the health food for the brain. He couldn’t take this conversation, no – discussion, no – argument, no – it was a fight. He pressed the Thin White Duke into his ears for comfort. He’d got his car, he’d got his gun. He hummed a song, not the one he was listening to, so it riffed in counterpoint to what was pumping into his head.

The thought of the police came in and wouldn’t leave. He plucked out the buds and voiced a God Bless to Bowie. What would he say if he was stopped?

‘Yes, I have just bought this car.’

‘Documents? Name doesn’t match ID.’

A panic poured over him in liquid form.

He got wet. And cold. There was only one word for it and he knew it; he couldn’t face that word, because it was irreversible, you can never come back when you have crossed over, it was – madness.

Madness that is coupled with an action while in that state allows no control. He was in the middle of an episode; of indeterminate length; of obsessively committed insanity.

He needed desperately to be in the cool darkness and protection of Lomita’s garage.

His idea of a paradise was to sit there and hide: no one would ever be able to find him. He started to feel the strangeness of the steering wheel, uncomfortable in his hands, he was forced to stroke it to find the comfort area of the wheel. His hands were perspiring; the cheap plastic of the steering wheel, with the worn construct of finger indentation, mass-produced several million times, only made the attempt at smooth contact worse.

He wanted to rub the wheel to erase, until a flatness was there; until the finger bumps were gone, the plastic levelled. His hands were hurting as he fought to keep the car on the road.