“Is that advocating shoe abuse? Or did you just choke on your tongue?” Lyosha set down his book and peered out the window, lowering his sunglasses to see the sign for himself. “Oh, my God, we’re in Hell.”
There were little children running around on the street in front of them. It was a highway. They were chasing a cat through an intersection, throwing rocks at it. There were about eight boys, all of them roughly seven years old. Cars stopped for them, people waving out the window, nearly hitting them and then smiling and laughing, shouting greetings. August stopped the car and the cat ran over to a small house behind the gas station, an old bungalow house which must have been its home because the kids stopped chasing it and instead started throwing rocks at the cars.
August’s car was fi
