"He raced the motor, urging the car to decide which way to turn onto the street. "Come on, man . . . be serious." Gearshift hot as a poker, and ears ringing . . . finally, palm to face to somehow press away the ringing--I seemed to feel a tendoned hand playfully squeezing my knee, and a bagpipe's whirling skirl wheezing in my throat--and discovers that he is weeping again; squeezing, wheezing and rattling the scene . . . and it is then--"Or if you can't be serious," I scolded, "at least be rational; who could possibly in this wasted world . . . ?"--that he remembers the postcard lying on the porch."