2003-10-07 9:21 p.m.

(i didn't write this. see above.) Once a week I make the drive two hours east to check the Austin post office box. I take the detour through our old neighborhood, see all the Chevy Impalas in their front yards up on blocks, and I park in an alley and I read through the postcards that you continue to send: where as indirectly as you can you ask what I remember. I like these torture devices from my old best friend. Well I'll tell you what I know like I swore I always would � I don't think it's gonna do you any good: I remember the train headed south out of Bangkok down toward the water.

I always get a late start, when the sun's going down and the traffic's thinning out and the glare is hard to take. I wish the West Texas highway was a M�bius strip � I could ride it out forever. When I feel my heart break, I almost swear I hear it happen, it's that clear and that hard. I come in off the highway and I park in my front yard. I fall out of the car like a hostage from a plane, think of you a while and start wishing it would rain. I remember the train headed south out of Bangkok down toward the water.

I come into the house, put on a pot of coffee, walk the floors a little while. I set the postcard on a table with all the others like it, start sorting through the pile. I check the pictures and the postmarks and the captions and the stamps for signs of any pattern at all. When I come up empty-handed, the feeling almost overwhelms me. I let a few of my defenses fall and I smile a bitter smile � it's not a pretty thing to see � I think about a railroad platform back in 1983 and I remember the train headed south out of Bangkok down toward toward the water.