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THE BEAUTY OF THE THING The harvest moon rises over wheat stubble that seems to undulate away forever mown all the same ground hard and dry and my father smells faintly of whiskey and cigarettes as he eases out into the field that scours the Ford's underside pulls the car to a stop kills the headlights leaves it running gets out and says slide over son it's time you got your first driving lesson so I get behind the wheel and he points out the controls which are not much the Ford is brand-new automatic and the back seat full of my younger brothers and sisters is quiet as I let the brake off and say where should I go he says just drive around and get the feel of it that's the beauty of the thing there's nothing out here to run into anyhow you could even shut your eyes then he leans back smiling as I begin with lazy esses and work into figure eights crisscrossing our faint tracks and as my courage mounts and the back seat starts to giggle through the dips and lurches roar flat out and double back slewing and rocketing through the hard corners hitting invisible wheel ruts that send us bouncing against the ceiling all over flying sky-high like clowns in an airplane by the gauges' green light under a moon so bright the planet awake is all one endless silver runway without directions or stopsigns only this cricket-drowning roar only this slight blind brush with disaster beneath us only this shaking and laughing rush through the cooling air
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