Typical American by Gish Jen Page A

like a moongate leading to a fiery garden. Ralph put his visor down. "I can't see," he said. "Can you see?" Grover did not answer. How fast were they going? Ralph squinted, straining to see the speedometer. It seemed to say a hundred miles an hour. Surely not, he thought; though he could barely move, jacketed as he was to his seat by the wind. "We better go home," he tried to say again. "Where are we going?" And, "I'm cold." But he could not force his words into the air — shuo bu chu lai, literally. He was captive. What could he do but watch Grover drive? Ahead, the moongate stretched wide, just as a

    cloud cover lowered itself out of nowhere. Lower, lower. It hovered above them like an attic ceiling. The town ahead, squashed, became all broad, bright horizon; and when the clouds went gold, it seemed to Ralph that the buildings kindled violently. Such live reds and oranges! And now, as though on cue, it all turned — in an instant — to writhing cinder. Ralph felt smoldery himself. Yet Grover drove through the whole grand catastrophe undistracted, as though the torching of a place simply did not matter to him, or as though it were no more than some histrionics he'd ordered up. Background, say, for some larger drama.

Ralph watched him closely. Before this, he'd known only two kinds of drivers — the kind who hunched up, both arms bent, pulling on the wheel as though to keep it from retracting into the dashboard; and the kind who sat so far back that in order to drape one casual wrist over the top of the wheel, they had to stiffen their elbows and curve their spines. Grover was neither. He was, rather, a natural driver, for whom the wheel seemed a logical extension of his hands. Anyone would have thought he'd invented the automobile. For how else could it be that he never had to slow down or speed up? He did not move and consider, move and consider, like other drivers, but only moved. As the cinder town began to deepen, cooling to mere scarlet, Ralph began to discern the familiar road again — to reassure himself that they were indeed on an ordinary highway with other cars. It had seemed that they were hurtling down a straight line; actually, though, they were snaking their way through traffic. He began to see that Grover was directing the slither — not by craning his neck and putting on his blinker and swearing, but simply by glancing, passing, glancing, passing.
    Then night, the quick pour of roofing tar that changed everything. Still they drove. Ralph marvelled as the stars came out; the car moved so fast, yet they stayed so still. And how many of them there were! He'd never seen so many, he'd never seen such an enormous sky. "What do you say? Don't see stars like

    that in the city, now do you." Grover was speaking. Ralph was surprised how easy it was to hear him. "If you don't get out for a spin every now and then, you forget all about them. And will you look at those trees." They were driving through forest. "Look like leaves and branches, right? But every one of them is an opportunity. You just have to see it." He nodded to himself.
    Ralph nodded too. And one truth, he found, led to another: "I'm hungry." He had hardly eaten anything at Old Chao's.
    "Me too!" Grover boomed his agreement, a buddy and friend. "Ravenous!"
    They pulled so smoothly into the diner parking lot that Ralph took a moment to realize they'd stopped. The lot was empty except for one other car.
    In the diner they slid into a green vinyl booth. There were no other customers. "Have what you want," Grover said. "Whatever strikes your fancy."
    "Anything?"
    "You like to eat," he said sagely. "I can tell."
    A freshly painted sign over the counter put closing time at nine-thirty; the clock next to it read nine-twenty-five. Still, the waitress took their order as though she'd be more than glad to stay as long as they liked. Would they like breakfast, lunch, or dinner?
    They had dinner, then lunch, then breakfast.
    "My treat," Grover kept saying.