“When are all of my papers going to be ready?” I ask as soon as he answers.

“Good job. It’s nice to hear from you, too,” he says.

“Sorry about that, it has been a long day.”

“I need a few more days,” Big Dipper says.

“A few more days? I thought I could fly out tomorrow.”

“No can do. The guy’s wife is having a baby.”

“What?” I ask, half laughing. I was expecting any sort of excuse but not that one.

“Yep, it’s the world we live in. She’s having a baby and he’s there for her, doesn’t matter what shit is going down.”

I chuckle, shaking my head.

“Besides, maybe it’s a good thing. Airport security is tight. You’re going to have to be invisible if you want to get out by air.”

“Even with the new ID?” I ask.

“Go online and Google yourself, you’ll see. You better just go somewhere quiet and lay low. And by low, I mean real low. No friends. No acquaintances. No girls. Oh, man, your life is going to suuuuuuuck!”

After I hang up, I drive to a cell phone store and buy myself a proper smartphone.

I pay cash and register it using the passport that I used to cross the border.

Back in the parking lot, I look myself up online.

Big Dipper wasn’t lying.

The number of programs and articles that feature my name have more than doubled since I was in Belize.

It would be a death wish to try to fly out of LAX or any other airport with all of their facial recognition software.

The only reason I even got back into the US is that no government agency thought I’d be so stupid as to come back here.

“Fuck me,” I say. “What the fuck am I going to do now?”

I start the engine and drive. Turning onto the Pacific Coast Highway, I drive along with the wide ocean to one side. The moon is huge and bright yellow today, casting shadows over the quiet waves out by the horizon.

It has been a very long day and I should probably get a hotel room somewhere but I can’t stop driving.

I put on some classic rock and lose myself in Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones.

My grip on the steering wheel is relaxed and I sit back comfortably in the weathered leather seat.

There are about a hundred and twenty-thousand miles on this car. I wonder where has it been in its whole life? Did it travel across the country and if so, how many times? Or did it only drive over the same twenty miles from home to work over and over again?

In my heart, I hope it has seen some adventure. Cars, after all, are meant to go places.