was terribly hot. Oh well, what are you going to do. I said hello, and somebody threw on a twist record. Ric and a boy and girl sat on the lawn away from the record player and talked, alone. The others twisted, and sweated. I sat down in thd ancient swing on the lawn and watched them. The hot half-sun was going down behind the tracks. It fell on my neck as I rocked. I got up and walked toward the sun to the fence. It was chicken wire. I put my fingers in the holes and ran my fingerprints around the sharp, rusted hexagons. A storm was moving in from the southeast, and the deepening twilight cast no gold on the edges of the clouds. The smell of warm oil came drifting from the switches nearby. Down the tracks to my left a signal lighted up. It seemed tired and rang with a dismal distaste. A bright headlight appeared and the slow train came clacking down the tracks, carrying along passengers in the five cars. They sat in the cold yellow windows alone, unspeaking, like passengers painted on a Lionel train window. The taste of sulphur filled the air. I turned my back on them and looked at the old house. It looked different in the twilight. 18 The train made long faint shadows from behind. Above the twisters hung a canopy with bright orange and green gargoyles painted on it. I knew Ric's people were not at home here. They knew fiestas, hat dances, tortillas, but not trains and Ben Casey. The long grass grew up around the fence posts and the house's foundation. These were people whose ties were not in the earth, but with relatives in the next county and in soiled, homemade envelopes sent from home. Across the road the tall columns bled purple in the dying light. A huge sign stared at Ric's house: ABSOLUTELY NO PARKING. 'Let's eat!' Ric yelled from around the front corner of the house. The twist music stopped noisily. We walked over old wood steps into the brilliant kitchen. Just inside the back door was a little room for fruit bottles. The shelves sat empty. A steaming wave of air hit us, and it carried only the smell of cinnamon. The old screen door banged shut. Ric introduced us to his father and mother. Twenty-five of us stood in a room no smaller than the bathroom at a neighborhood Chevron station. 19