I look around at Colchis, at the nail salon and the bridal shop and the liquor store, wondering what he is talking about. All I see is Colchis, looking a little shrunken and dried out at the end of the summer. About two thirds of the stores on Main Street are boarded up, and maybe if you’d never seen it before you might think it would be a good stage set for a zombie movie, but still, the sun is coming up and the day is fresh. I watch a line of school buses follow each other out of town.

“This is it,” I tell him.

“I can’t believe Harry’s kids really grew up in a place like this,” he says, as if he is talking to himself. “I should have been paying more attention. I’ll be in touch this year, though, you’ll see.”

I get out of the car and stretch. “I can’t believe I have to do the first day of school on no sleep.”

“Wow,” says Hugh again. “Here it is, the burned-over cinder of the American Dream.” He looks across the car. I look around at the town. I don’t really see what seems so dramatic to him. The town’s two traffic lights are green. First one turns red, then the other one does. It’s so quiet on Main Street, we can hear the clunk they make as they change colors.

“You didn’t fail history,” he tells me. “History failed you.”

“I suppose I could just go to school,” I tell him. “So you won’t have to drive all the way up to my house just so I can catch the school bus back down.”

“Right,” he says. “But coffee first, school later. Not that I’m expecting to find anything drinkable around here.”

We find some coffee, then we drive into the parking lot of Colchis High School just as the early bell is ringing on the first day of classes.

The new principal’s opening speech at the assembly in the auditorium is rousing. The cure for all society’s ills is in our hands. We have to start doing our homework, she scolds, and go to college. I look around, but I don’t see Grimshaw anywhere. Mrs. Pentz launches into the importance of making good decisions, about trusting your thinking instead of your feelings. “Even at the height of passion,” she says. “Your brain is still working. Use it.”