7
I drove out of Bel Air, out of the zone of hedges and gatehouses. I felt my heart rate slow as the road sloped downhill and then flattened and widened, and the world assumed its normal character again, with commerce indifferently displayed and people indifferently housed. I passed dry cleaners and Mexican groceries and car washes and the occasional Woolworth’s. In the spaces between, networks of tract houses bloomed like algae over the dry flats. At a stoplight, a man in the next car stared admiringly at the Avanti, and I wished there had been something less noticeable to drive.
In time the tract houses dwindled and the road passed through a series of small towns, bright stucco and wood-frame houses that clung together at the foot of bare hills. When I had been driving for an hour, the
