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“Well, let’s go.”

“Yes. Let us go.”

Across the street to the Marine Inn to use the pay phone. I tried to call my family. It took forever to get the operator. Terrible agonized electronic screeches coming through the whole time. There was no answer. No answer at the Barnstable place? It happened, but not often. I’ll try again tomorrow. I went to the bathroom while Simon made a call to his sister in Cambridge.

The fluorescent light in the bathroom was just about to die. It was stuttering like a strobe. I watched my arms and legs stutter through space. “Maybe the light is fine and it’s me.” My breath, my heart, my everything started stuttering.

Mirror, mirror on the wall. There was usually something slightly unexpected waiting for us in a mirror after two or three weeks at the farm, but what I saw this time was totally other. For starters I looked at least ten years older and twenty pounds lighter. There were lines in my face that I had never seen before. My beard seemed much longer and fuller than I remembered it. I was entranced. There was a depth of feeling I had never seen before. An authenticity, a wiseness, an utter lack of games. I was awed. It was somehow what I had always wanted to see in the mirror but I still had trouble believing it was really me. That face was real. It was not a face that cried wolf.

How long have I been here staring at myself? The strobe was freezing me. What if the door’s locked? What if I open it and there’s nothing there? What if they’re all dead? What if I’m dying? What if this is how it ends—in a plastic bathroom that could be anywhere? What if, what if, what if when I open that door I don’t know where I am? Where am I?

I threw some cold water on my face. One foot in front of the other, one moment in front of the other. It’ll all keep going. Somehow I got to the door. Somehow I opened it. Somehow Simon was waiting in the lobby. Somehow I was in Powell River, British Columbia, Canada. Somehow I shrugged it off.

“Goddamned light.”

Simon and I headed out to Car Car.

“Under no circumstances can I be locked up, Simon. I cannot go to jail.”

“Relax, Mark. No one’s going to lock you up.”

“I will be all right, Simon. I just need a little time. Getting locked up would ruin everything.”

As soon as I started driving I felt much better. Things were still very strange but driving felt good. I loved my car, it was running beautifully. Driving along deserted Highway 101 at night. Up the hills, down the hills, round the corners. Everything was fine. I could do it forever.

It was taking forever. “My life certainly has gotten very full lately. It seems there’s more happening in five minutes now than used to happen in years. Maybe I’ve just never really paid attention before.”

I turned on the radio. The only things I could get was some station from Detroit playing old rock songs. All my favorites. “Shop Around,” “Momma Said.” The DJ kept talking about memory lane. “My Girl,” “Dream,” “Take a Message to Mary.” He was playing exactly the songs I would have played had I been in charge of some “end of the world” radio program. It seemed strange to be able to pick up a Detroit station and nothing else, and that clear as a bell. One radio station left, wrapping it up. “Golly gee, fellas, that’s sweet. Just for me.”

Simon seemed to be nodding off. I looked over at him. What an angel, a big, bearded Pooh bear with a Jewish afro. I guess I had been hard to keep up with of late. I wasn’t the least bit tired. I could go forever. Driving the car, listening to old songs forever, I couldn’t imagine anything that would feel better. I had it down pat. Something else might not go as well.

I hadn’t slept for what was probably only days but seemed to stretch back forever. It was like a whole other existence. “Oh, yes, I remember back when I used to sleep.” I dreaded sleep. I was afraid that face would come back. Besides, I was having such a good time being awake.

There was some very