At about three in the afternoon I stopped at an isolated gas station. We were tired, and the children had begun a peevish wrangling in the back seat. I thought a gas and Coke stop would freshen us up. Heat shimmered in the desert, and far stone hills looked cooler than they were. The gas station was a cluttered place, with frayed and faded pennants, a souvenir stall bright with cheap dusty pottery, a fat owner who served us with condescending joviality. Cars thrust by at high speed, whipping up dust circles. I drank half my Coke and looked around for the children. They were sixty feet away, examining something in a cage. I walked toward them, the sound of my approach lost in an oncoming roar of truck. I saw Janet cautiously extending her fingers toward the cage bars. An old fear came strongly into my mind, vivid and sickening. I pulled her back roughly and without warning. It hurt her a little and startled her a great deal. She began to cry. And so, of course, did Janice, her twin. Buddy, their younger brother, moved back with feigned indifference when I ordered them too harshly not to touch the cage.
