The Franchiser

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Past the orange roof and turquoise tower, past the immense sunburst of the green and yellowsign, past the golden arches, beyond the low buff building, beside the discrete hut, the dark top hat on the studio window shade, beneath the red and white longitudes of the enormous bucket, coming up to the thick shaft of the yellow arrow piercing the royal-blue field, he feels he is home. Is it Nashville? Elmira, New York? St. Louis County? A Florida key? The Illinois arrowhead? Indiana like a holster, Ohio like a badge? Is he North? St. Paul, Minn? Northeast? Boston, Mass.? The other side of America? Salt Lake? Los Angeles? At the bottom of the country? The Texas udder? Where? In Colorado’s frame? Wyoming like a postage stamp? Michigan like a mitten? The chipped, eroding bays of the Northwest? Seattle? Bellingham, Washington?

Somewhere in the packed masonry of states.

He guides the pale-blue Cadillac up the perfectly banked ramp, around one loop of the creamy cloverleaf, positioned, in the large, long automobile, centripetally as a slot car — lovely. And down, shooting the smooth rapids of traffic, into the wide cement of American delta. Like a water skier brought, still on his feet, to shore. He waits at the lights, in some darker medium now, a rich topsoil of city asphalt, waving to the man next to him, miming petition, throwing thanks like a blown kiss, and on green edges forward, to his left. Coming into the service station. (There is cash in his pocket. Credit cards. A checkbook. Licenses. His name and address a block braille on a dozen plastic cards.) And stops. Out of the way of the pumps.

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