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Show 331 townships, drive-in theaters, shopping malls, white barns in rich loamy fields, clusters of mailboxes at junctions where dirt roads branched off from the rutted frontage road below them, and clouds piled in the sky larger than mountains, Sorenson didn't try to make conversation. They stopped for lunch in a coffee shop that was part of a red-brick tourist information center in a bosky dell beside a river just off the Interstate, heavily shadowed by giant elms. Lorin ordered coffee with his fish sandwich, and Sorenson avoided glancing at the cup as long as it was on the table. When they resumed the drive Lorin was suffering from heartburn, and Sorenson knew better than to try to make conversation while that was going on, even in normal times. Accordingly they allowed the cornfields and tract homes to pass unremarked, though ordinarily they had always had something smart to say to each other about middle America on trips like this. The silence, which made Sorenson fidgety, was actually a still water through which Lorin's thoughts ran like busy fish. Sitting there in the front seat of the car next to his worried companion, the wind slipping through the slightly-opened window and sending a cold line of air down the length of his face, Lorin was thinking about elevators. He had always dreaded being caught in an elevator between floors, especially in a building late at night when there was no one to hear if you pushed the alarm button. He reflected that you could probably escape by climbing through the roof of the car. He wasn't sure what you did then, standing on top of the car in a dark shaft surrounded by cables and pulleys, but at least it was possible to get out of the car between floors, he was pretty sure of that. That made him feel better. Then he thought about different places you could hide if you were hitchhiking in the desert and wanted to play a prank on someone who picked you up. You could point to a clear horizon and say there was a dust storm |