When I hit the bitumen and get that smooth grey rumble going under me everything's hell different. Like I'm in a fresh new world all slick and flat and easy. Even with the engine working up a howl and the wind flogging in the window the sounds are real soft and pillowy. Civilized I mean. Like you're still on the earth but you don't hardly notice it anymore. And that's hectic. You'd think I never got in a car before. But when you've hoofed it like a dirty goat all these weeks and months, when you've had the stony slow prickle-up hard country right in your face that long it's bloody sudden. Some crazy shit, I tell you. Brings on this angel feeling. Like you're just one arrow of light.