The Buick in Kansas

What if we couldn't get the old Buick fixed. We could be stuck here in Kansas forever. We'll never get back to San Francisco, just live and die in Kansas.

It's so awful hot here. Hot and dry and flat and these hard-faced farmers never smile.

I'll never buy a Buick again. I think it's the timing chain this time. I'll have to take the whole engine apart to replace it. At least we can work in the shade. We'll push the Buick underneath the cottonwood tree and I can work on it there.

Then we don't have any money, so you'll have to look for some work while I fix the car. What if you stop by that bakery we saw on Main Street. You never know, they might need some help. Offer to clean up or something. Then we'll have a little money and they'll give us a lot of day old bread.

Maybe if we pretended we liked it here, then people will be nice to us. Okay, I'm going to look in the mirror and practice my "I love Kansas" smile. I'll tell them I'm just a cousin to Bob Dole, long lost, but back here in Wichita to claim kin.

All we gotta do is just think it could be worse. The Buick could have broken down in Oklahoma, but at least we made it across the state line. Kansas is heaven compared to Oklahoma, but we're never going to make it back to Sam Francisco.

I could just dig us a grave underneath this cottonwood tree, a big enough grave to bury us and the Buick too, except somebody might say, "Oh yeah, they went to Kansas, but we've never heard from them again."