"Is there a problem? Who is buying gas, here?" asks Nathan. The others in line turn sideways, press their bodies against the window, creating a passageway toward the counter. It is an automatic movement, as if choreographed by some famous dancer, rehearsed. They do it with blank looks on their faces, continuing with their reveries, as if they could stay in their own worlds as mostly nice people and let other, aggressive people just flow around them.

Nathan, home from the city, wears expensive suits and demands attention. His light brown loafers of a polished high gloss almost match the color of his hair. He is thirty-five years of age, drives a BMW 528i, blowing the San Francisco time out his nostrils and trying to breathe in country air. His hair is all one length from crown to ears, the color of good sable mink. He has smooth, clean-shaven skin which glows with the light of a computer screen.

Nathan Preston doesn't want to stand in this line for five minutes. He figures the daydreaming Indian in front of him isn't in any hurry. The blonde woman is only there for cigarettes, so he shoves his way to the front and throws a twenty dollar bill down on the counter. The counter is crowded with dolls that make real sucking sounds and model cars from the forties, breath sprays, lighters and air freshener in bottles just like the kind they used in the sixties when cruising the main drag of rural America.

"Pump one!" he shouts. He wants his gas and he wants it now. He is not going to wait for some simple-minded clerk to count change. He has to get back on the road again. Feel the asphalt heat below his feet.

Paradise is living in Northern California where spring occurs suddenly, overnight. You walked this way yesterday, but did the trees hold such wide, round blossoms the size of pies? Was the grass this particular shade of green yesterday? Everything seems to have exploded into color. There are little flowers blooming along the edge of the sidewalk. How did they get there? The trees have these giant platters of red spaghetti poised among their branches. The green grass is an unnaturally bright lime.

Yesterday - actually for a week now - Nathan has been struggling with his umbrella flapping in the wind on his way from the parking lot. And now - wham - quiet descends and he finds himself in heaven. Colorful heaven and he actually did walk right up to a rose and stick his nose in it and suck in perfume, feeling floaty afterwards all day.

But he pays for his little bit of heaven. What does he have to do to stay in paradise, Jackie wonders, as she watches him walk out the door, still clutching his phone to his ear. Work sixty hour weeks, always in a hurry, looking for service in a convenience store.

Outside Nathan sees a half-naked man picking up scraps of paper, receipts from credit card customers and clear cellophane wrappers from cigarette packages. He carefully presses these into his palm and carries them to the trash barrel with stenciled letters on it: PITCH IN! Across the street is a Pizza Take and Bake. On the other corner, a Chinese restaurant.