Tom was hungry and he couldn't see and the old station wagon wouldn't go any faster. Not only that, but he was broke. His stomach kept signaling that he was hungry. He felt light-headed, and wasn't sure if it was fumes leaking around the manifold through the rusty floor into the cab, or if it was hunger. How long since he'd eaten? That would be the cellophane-wrapped cupcakes yesterday, cheap off-brand.

Near Albuquerque, late in the afternoon, he pulled over to count his change. With the engine off, he felt almost restful. The sun shone through the dirty windshield and laid its glow like a yellow drug in the back seat over Tom's neatly folded clothes and boxed belongings. He didn't have many places to look--the ashtray (he didn't smoke), the cigar box on the rear floor among the paperbacks, the pockets of his other jeans, the breast pocket on his flannel windbreaker. Two bucks. He'd parked the car on a hill in case it wouldn't start. Then he could roll it down and jump-start it in second gear. Provided nobody pulled in front of him. Everything was difficult. Why was life this way? Gravity kept you from flying off into space, he supposed, but it made things fall down. It helped you start your car, but if someone pulled in front of you as you rolled downhill, you had to jam on your brakes and then you were stuck with no place to roll, no way to build new momentum. Two bucks and thirty two cents. That was every penny.

He sat back and drew a deep breath. Being hungry made you tired. He'd just outrun a terrific storm that had swept down from the Rockies, moving east toward the Mississippi Delta like a mountain range of smoky gray air. Like a burning building, but wet instead. Cold. Dismal. Hard to drive in. No wonder he was tired. You had to sit hunched, squinting, blinded by gusts of rain breaking on your windshield. The wipers, on max, could only provide glimpses. If you were broke, or hard-pressed, or just plain loved the feel of roads passing under your car, you kept moving. It was a great country, an immense country. You kept driving, possessed by a burning urgency, with the black rainsqualls at your back and the water hammering in your face. It was like being a mile underwater. It weighed down on your spirit like a mile of ocean water. It sure made you tired. Made your legs tense, your back sore, your shoulder ache. No wonder he felt this way.

He couldn't remember if he'd ever been in Albuquerque. He had maps in the car and he'd study them tomorrow. Yawning, he walked to the corner and surveyed his world. At least he was warm, for now. It was good to stretch his legs. Cold, though. He shivered. And he smelled snow in the air. The sky looked like gray paste. A couple of little grammar school girls waited at the light on the other side. For a moment, it was like, is this it? Is this the whole world? The universe? Life? At one time I was a child and waited at a corner for the light to change. The red hand winked away, replaced by the little white man. Now I am on the other side of the street, crossing the other way. The girls were in no hurry, chattering, shifting their heavy school bags from one shoulder to the other. What did they see in him? A thin, unshaven man, in his 30's, but he probably looked older, in need of a bath.

In the corner store he bought a carton of milk and a plastic-wrapped loaf of sandwich bread, day old and on sale. He had a few coins left and, on a whim, bought a packet of licorice gum. For old times' sake.

It was night when he climbed in the car--it did smell faintly of himself in there; could use airing out, but the temp was dropping and now was not the time. He drove to a church parking lot, pulled in next to some other cars by the rectory door, and climbed into the back. He pulled the little torn curtains over the station wagon's rear windows, not that anyone would peek, and then got into his long johns. He put on the rest of his clothes and crawled into his sleeping bag--good expensive mummy bag he'd bought from a former mountaineer. Former, because the man had fallen from a cliff and was paraplegic. Actually the wife had sold it to Tom behind her husband's back, hating it and everything connected with, oh well. Tom rolled to one side and then the other, pulling his spare blankets under the sleeping bag, and around it like a volcano. Anything to conserve heat. He opened the milk and drank half; greedily; he had to stop himself from downing it all. Then he opened the plastic bag and breathed deeply the smell of the bakery. He always did that because it reminded him of his mother's kitchen. That was long ago and never to return. He reached in and tore hunks of the insides of the loaf, so that the brown crust hung in bracelets on his wrist. He mashed the bread in his palm and bit off chewy mouthfuls, groaning with relief as his hunger abated. The bread would swell gently during the night, soaking up his stomach acids, sending long telegraphs of wellness and fullness to his brain. It would build strong bodies twelve ways while he slept.

Sated, he stared at the last lingering fans of violet and orange light in the western sky. As the night settled in, Tom's eyes closed and he fell into a deep sleep. If he had dreams, he could not remember them when he awoke, not even to say whether they were peaceful or tortured. He thought he heard someone screaming: "A.J.! A.J.!" Several times during the night, he opened one eye as the car was buffeted; he thought it was teenagers and wished they would go away because he was so tired.

He awoke with a start. It was still night. The glow on the dash read 4:30. Was that Central or Mountain time? He couldn't remember if he'd changed the dial. It was cold in the car; of course. He pushed the curtain aside and wiped copious fog off the window. He was amazed to see that the windows on the outside were rimed in frost. Thick snowflakes glued themselves in tiny incremental bits to the growing sediment all around the car. Oh Jesus. He pushed the sleeping bag away, shivering. It was so-o-o cold. Needed to g-g-get the car rolling, the heater on.

Easier said than done. Hopping up and down to keep the chill in the seat springs from numbing his rear end, he kept trying the ignition. Plenty of spark. The car whined and whined. There was a bang and black smoke fanned away from the sides, where the exhaust pipe should have been. At last, she started up. Skidding slightly on an inch of snow blanketing the flat and sacred ground of the parking lot, he backed the car out. The heater would cut in soon, he hoped; he'd replaced the core twice and couldn't afford to do so again. But soon he'd scratch together a little money again. He found a paper cup filled with peanut shells on the seat beside him, under the newspapers and tissue box. He rolled down the window, tossed the shells out, and scooped up fresh snow from the car roof. He found the bread bag, glad to see there were plenty of round crusts to eat. That would keep him going a while longer.

The ride into California was even wilder than his passage across the plains. Visibility was nearly zero. If the sun had appeared, it wasn't making much of itself. Big rigs jackknifed on frozen asphalt, sliding into each other like pins at a bowling alley while snow devils whirled across the road surface. It was hard work, and tiring, to drive like this. He was afraid sometimes to ask himself why he did it, because he was afraid the answer might be to live to ask the same question the next day. Cars went off the road right and left as Tom drove through the high mountain passes. Here and there, he saw twirling red lights. He spotted Zonie highway patrolmen standing in clusters, probably debating about when and where to start closing the freeways. The radio, too, was saying you could get snowed in for weeks at a time.

But the road started downhill and the snow turned into fierce rain, with wind gusts that shook the big freeway signs as if they were made of paper. Gradually, the black clouds tangling tightly wedged between mountain shoulders gave way to lighter and lighter colors, thinner rain, streaks of sunshine. For a long time, Tom drove through the light drizzle. The land lay lower, alternating in stretches of forest and desert. The road wound ever downward, and pretty soon Tom had the car window open. He drove through one small town after another. Here and there, a palm tree reared out of the mist, slanting into a wall of drizzle. A rainbow shimmered in the sky.