The airman shook his head, and Aldo hurried on.

  The sun was four fingers above the slow lane now, and the jam was awakening, roused by its brightening light. Small and soiled children emerged from doors, windows, and even sunroofs, shooed like so many sparrows by mothers determined to dust and tidy while the good weather lasted. Small dogs who had crept under their owners’ cars to take refuge from the heat emerged to yawn, stretch, and attend to various strategically located tires in a way markedly different from the airman’s, and to bark at Aldo. Sleepy men turned out with the children frowned, fingering knives ground from the leaf springs, and reached back into their cars for tire irons they thrust into their belts or slapped against their palms.

  “I don’t want your women,” Aldo sang, “I don’t want your chow. For I am but a stranger, passin’ your car now. Smile at a stranger, let him walk past you. Then there’ll be no danger when you go walkin’, too.”

  A few of the men actually did smile.

  “I be from the center—Aldo is my name.

  Never walked for hatin’, never walked for shame.

  Walkin’ now for learnin’, walkin’ for a song,

  Playin’ to the people, as I walk along.”

  It was not a new song, but it was a new verse; Aldo was seized by a premonition that he would find his new song in the Spaghetti Bowl. A splendid new song, and perhaps something else, something still more splendid, too. What was it the slatternly woman had said about the yellow-and-blue chopper? That it was looking for somebody? It sounded like it might be the one Mar’ had gone looking for; and although she had gone the other way and he would be double danged if he’d go looking for her, she might turn around and come back if she heard that the chopper was in back of her.

  “I don’t want your women, I don’t want your chow.

  For I am but a stranger, passin’ your car now.

  Smile at a stranger, let him go past you,

  Then there’ll be no danger when you go walkin’, too.

  “Once I seen a stranger, let him pass on through.

  Once I seen a stranger. Maybe that was you?

  Once I seen a stranger, give him my best smile,

  Son, he says, I’m weary. I’ve walked many a mile.

  “I don’t want your women, I don’t want your chow…”

  Aldo stopped playing to shade his eyes against the sun, wondering if he could see the high orange truck from the ground here. A man said, “Chowchopper ain’t stopped for us in two days.” It was a conventional lie.

  “Comin’ now,” Aldo told him, and pointed. Looking for the distant truck, he had caught sight of the Chowchopper, a minute speck of white and red, gleaming in the level sunshine.

  “Got to see where it goes.” The man clutched Aldo’s arm. “Don’t see why they don’t always go to the same place.” He shaded his eyes too. “Then we’d know, be all ready.”

  “They used to, Ma’am said, only there was some that killed for the cars close to there.”

  The man was gone, dashing down the lane. Another, running too, pushed Aldo aside.

  Aldo shook his head. When the chowchoppers had always come at the same time to the same place, Ma’am had explained, everyone gathered there in advance. There had been frantic fights, not between a few men but between hundreds; and in the end the strong had eaten twice, and the weak had not eaten at all.

  Aldo had been too young to remember. Now, as he strolled along, keeping well to one side to give the runners room, he wondered whether it had really been worse than this. Wouldn’t it be better to have chowmen with carts of chow walk down the lanes as the airmen and the gasmen did? They could leave, say, three chows at each car.

  The runners were mostly women and children now, boys and young gals sprinting faster than most men, and women carrying babies and clutching the hands of toddlers, too wise to run.

  “Down by that bus with the dog on it,” a woman told him.

  Aldo nodded, smiling. “That where it come last time?”

  “Three times ago. Bus’s due again.” She picked up her child and hurried on.

  The chowmen with carts would be mobbed and robbed, Aldo decided. Perhaps that had been tried already; if it had been, a day or two had probably been enough to show it didn’t work. This way was the best after all.

  He stood on the high fender of a tow truck to look ahead. Most of the runners were converging on two identical dark green delivery trucks in the slow lane. That was where the chopper had come last, most likely. Women and children, with a few gals and elderly men, were assembling at the bus with the dog picture.

  As he watched, the chowchopper flew past the green trucks, the men who had waited there running behind and waving. Soon it had passed the dog bus too, so low it seemed like it had to stop any minute. Chopper wind whipped his long hair like a gale as the chopper appeared to settle—not quite landing, because there wasn’t room for that—between a red Horizon and a LeBaron convertible with the top gone.

  Aldo stood back, watching the chows handed out, each in its own crispy crackerbox. His mouth watered.

  “Ain’t you goin’ to get in line?” a gal nearly as pretty as Mar’ inquired.

  “I’m not from ’round here,” he explained. “I’ll go the last.”

  She winked at him, then ran up the line to a tall young man with bumper-wide shoulders; there was a rumble of protest as the tall young man made room for her, a rumble he silenced with a glance.

  Aldo got in line too, standing at the end behind a girl child who did not quite come up to his waist. “We won’t get nothin’ back here,” the girl child informed him. “Hardly ever do.”

  He grinned at her. “I’m not real hungry. You get one, maybe you could give me your box?”

  “No,” she said firmly; and then, “Prob’ly I won’t neither. I hardly ever. Ma gives me some of hers, sometimes.”

  “That’s good.”

  A policeman came down the line, his chow tucked under his arm and a water bottle in his hand. He wore slopchopper clothes like everyone else’s, but the badge on his shirt and the gun at his waist marked him.

  He stopped beside Aldo. “Not from ’round here, are you?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Passin’ through?”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll be gone ’fore the next one comes.”

  When the policeman seemed not quite satisfied, Aldo added, “I went past your car real early. I figured it’d be better not to waken you.”

  “Next time you wake me up,” the policeman said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “An’ don’t you give no trouble here.”

  “No, sir.”

  “You be gone next time I see you.”

  The girl child tittered, but Aldo said politely, “Yes, sir. I sure will be.”

  When the policeman himself was gone, the girl child said, “He don’t have no more bullets.”

  “I figured.” Aldo called to mind what Ma’am had always said. “He tries, though.” For a few seconds he debated the best way to explain that order was better, and that those who tried to keep order deserved respect and cooperation even if they had no bullets, or had never had any.

  He crouched and held out his chevycap so the girl child could see it, then ran his hand across the strings. “That’s music. Hear?”

  “It’s pretty,” she said.

  “See here?” He displayed his callused fingers. “These right here tells each string what to play. If they was to get cut off, the strings’d still be there,” he sounded one with his thumb, “an’ they could talk, but they couldn’t play no music.”

  “You could with that one.” Interested, she touched his thumb.

  “It’d be a long time till it learned the work. See now—”

  There was a disturbance in the line ahead of them, angry yells and an unmistakable sound.

  “I got to go,” Aldo said, and stood up; he was running before the final word. Not once but twice he had clumsily, foolishly, dropped his chevycap. The sound it had made when it struck the concrete was engraved in his memory, and through the tumult coming from the front of the line he had heard that sound.

  The new player was down. Aldo threw himself on top of him, sheltering him with his own body. A kick struck his ribs, another his right cheekbone, but the shouting men were crowded too closely to swing their feet effectively. A gal’s voice called, “Don’t get him. He didn’t do nothin’.”

  Aldo clutched his chevycap to his chest as a kick landed on his shoulder.

  A man’s voice shouted, “That’s enough! Hold on!” And abruptly it was over. Strong hands grasped Aldo and lifted him to his feet. “This a friend of yours?”

  Aldo managed to nod. “He sure is.” He was looking around for the new player’s chevycap; it was so strangely shaped that he nearly missed it, almost like Ma’am’s plug-in.

  “How come you was back at the end, an’ not him?”

  “I guess he didn’t know,” Aldo said. “I ought to of told him.”

  “You.” The wide-shouldered young man nudged the new player with his foot. “Get up.”

  The new player rose, his face streaked with sweat and dirt. Aldo handed him his strangely shaped chevycap.

  “You get back there to the end,” the wide-shouldered young man said. “You eat after us. All of us.”

  “Come on.” Aldo led the new player away. “You made it out of a muffler, didn’t you? I never seen one like that.”

  The new player nodded, slinging his chevycap behind his back on a thin strap. “A replacement muffler, from one of the muffler shops, and about a foot of tailpipe. Good replacement mufflers are better than the original-equipment kind.” He was older than Aldo, who found it hard to guess just how old.

  “You cut those fancy holes with a li’l file? There’s a man by us had a file. He let me to use it one time.”

  The new player nodded. “You’ve got to hollow them out, extract the parts used to muffle the sound of the engine. The S-shaped holes are helpful then, and afterward they let the sound come in and go out.”

  “It get busted? I’d like to hear it.” They had reached the end of the line.

  “I’d be happy to play it for you,” the new player said, “I owe you a great deal more than that.” He offered his hand. “I’m Tim Benson.”

  Aldo shook it. “Aldo Berry.” He hesitated, then grinned. “We both of us play, an’ we both got names with a B.”

  The stranger smiled, unslung his chevycap, and said, “You get in front, Aldo. You were here before, and you’re hungrier than I am, I’m sure.”

  The girl child looked back at them pessimistically. “You won’t neither one get nothin’. Me neither.”

  “What’s your name?” Tim asked. “You know ours, if you were listening. I’m Tim and he’s Aldo. Who are you?”

  “B’neice.”

  Tim stooped to bring their eyes to a level. “How old are you, B’neice?”

  The girl child stamped. “Ber-nice!”

  Tim straightened up. “Older than you should be at your age, I imagine. Well, Bernice, you may not get any food, but I can give you a song.”

  His fingers stroked the strings of his strangely shaped chevycap, educing tears of gold that left Aldo breathless.

  “The minstrel boy to the war is gone,

  In the ranks of death you’ll find him;

  His father’s sword he has girded on,

  And his wild harp slung behind him.

  Land of Song! said the warrior bard,

  Though all the world betrays thee,

  One sword at least thy rights shall guard,

  One faithful harp shall praise thee…”

  As the final notes died, it seemed to Aldo that somehow all the people had been snatched away, leaving him alone with a new song more beautiful than he had ever believed a song could be. The steady whick-whick-whick of the chopper blades sounded like the beating of a giant’s heart.

  At last he managed to say, “You got to learn me.”

  “No, you have to teach me, Aldo. You have to teach me to be as brave as you are. You play and sing yourself, don’t you? You implied a moment ago that you did.”

  Men eating from crackerboxes were crowding around. One handed Aldo a strip of cold bacon, and he stuffed it into his mouth, nodding.

  “May I try your instrument? You may try mine, of course, if you like.”

  Mutely, still chewing, Aldo handed over his chevycap and received Tim’s strangely shaped one.

  Tim touched Aldo’s strings, a sound like the laughter of the moon. “One’s a trifle off, I think.” A glance was enough for him to understand the way in which Aldo’s strings were held and adjusted, and he tightened one. The broad-shouldered young man who had rescued them gave him a pecan Danish, which he gave to Bernice.

  Again Aldo’s strings sounded, yearning tones telling of unsullied valleys down which rivers rushed shouting to the sea.

  “Oh Shenando’ I long to hear you,

  Away, you rolling river.

  Oh Shenando’ I long to hear you.

  Away, I’m bound away,

  Across the wide Missouri.

  Oh Shenando’ I love your daughter,

  Roll away, you rolling river.

  Oh Shenando’ I’m bound to leave her,

  Away, I’m bound away,

  Across the wide Missouri!”

  There was a short silence after the last muted chord, then wild cheering.

  “That’s just like me!” Aldo felt overwhelmed by a rush of ideas. “Me walkin’ on. I’m goin’ to the Spaghetti Bowl, but I’ll stay right here with you, Tim, or go back even, if you’ll try to learn me.”

  Tim shook his head and stepped away, smiling and accepting the praise of those he pushed to one side. “If you’re going to the Spaghetti Bowl, Aldo, then I’m going to the Spaghetti Bowl, too; and I’ll try to teach you, if you’ll teach me.”

  When they had passed the green delivery trucks and were practically alone, Aldo said, “You didn’t get nothin’. I saw somebody gifted you with a roll, but you give it to that li’l Bernice girl.”

  “I wasn’t really hungry,” Tim explained, “and she was.” He was studying Aldo’s chevycap.

  “If you wasn’t hungry, why’d you get in the line an’ get beat up like that?”

  For a dozen strides, Tim was silent. At last he said, “I didn’t know—didn’t know they would beat me as they did, when they realized I was a stranger. I want to be one of you for as long as I can, to eat and sleep and work like you, while I play and sing. I saw men forming a line, so I joined it. I have a great deal to learn here, I know, and I hope that you’ll teach me.”

  “I got a crackerbox.” Aldo held it up. “Somebody gifted me with it when we were leavin’. It’s empty, but the cracker’s good. You want to try some?”

  “A small piece, perhaps. Thank you, Aldo.”

  From the lid, Aldo snapped a fragment half the size of his hand, then broke off another for himself, which he munched as he watched Tim nibble at his. “Don’t bite down hard, ’less you got good teeth.”

  “I understand. It’s best to let one’s saliva soften it first, I suppose.”

  “Or water, if you got a bottle.” Aldo took a deep breath. “There’s the offroad way an’ then the free way, Tim. We’re the freewayers, but you’re a offroader, ain’t you? I won’t tell.”

  “An outsider? Yes, I am. It’s obvious, I suppose.”

  Aldo chewed and swallowed. “You got clothes like us, though.”

  “I suppose I do.” Tim glanced down at his dirty white shirt and ragged trousers. “Where do you get them, by the way? I’ve been wondering about that, as well as hundreds of other things.”

  “The slopchopper brings them. It don’t come down an’ pass out like the chowchopper does, though. Just goes low an’ slow, while the chopper men throw out.”

  “Warm clothing for winter, I imagine, and cooler clothes—like these—in summer.”

  Aldo nodded. “Shoes’re hardest, shoes an’ boots. There’s never enough for everybody.”

  “Yet you’re wearing out yours by walking to this Spaghetti Bowl, whatever it is.”

  “It’s where the jam goes up in the air, bendin’ ’round over itself. That’s what I heard. I never been there. Well, I guess I was, once, only I was real little.”

  “Before all these cars and trucks stopped.”

  “That’s it, back ’fore the jam. An’ my shoes…” Aldo fell silent, and to cover his embarrassment took another bite of crackerbox.

  “What about them, Aldo?”

  “You know, I guess.”

  Tim shook his head. “I know very little, believe me. I didn’t even know that the jam, as you call it, existed, until I found myself in it.”

  “They’re offroad shoes, used to be. They was about like this when I got them, not much better.”

  “Someone gave them to you?”

  “The slopchopper, like I said. You ever see one like that before?” Aldo pointed at a hot-pink car with a dragon pictured on its side, with huge rear wheels and small front ones far out in front of its engine.

  “Yes, as a matter of fact, I have.” Tim nibbled again at his crackerbox. “The clothing is not new when you receive it. That’s what you’re trying to tell me, isn’t it, Aldo?”

  “It’s your clothes,” Aldo confided miserably, “offroader clothes. You turn them in, Ma’am said, to churches an’ things, an’ they pick them up an’ put them in the slopchopper, an’ then throw them down for us.”

  When Tim did not speak, Aldo added, “Ma’am was my ma.”

  “I see.”

  “Can I tell you ’bout her? You might make a song ’bout her, an’ it’d make her proud if she knew.”

  “I don’t believe I can make songs,” Tim said.

  Stunned, Aldo could only stare.

  “Do you do that? Compose your own songs?”

  Aldo nodded. “That’s why I’m goin’ to the Spaghetti Bowl. I’ll get a new one there, but I can’t say how I know it. I just do. The songs you sang back there where the chowchopper was? Didn’t you make them up?”

  “They are old songs, both of them. Very old. I—all my life I have listened to folk songs, mostly on tapes and compact discs. There were years, decades actually, in which it was my sole pleasure. I have tried, once or twice, to make such songs myself, but every attempt has been a ludicrous failure.” He handed Aldo’s chevycap to him. “Sing me one of your songs, please, Aldo. A song you made yourself.”