So it was disappointing to run out of gas around Schenectady.

Or was it Utica?  I don't remember and I don't think it matters.  It was dawn, and it was foggy, and the air was a little cool and clammy, and it was either Schenectady or Utica.  I only remember that when I looked on the map I couldn't believe how horrible it sounded, like the name of a town that someone in a joke might come from.  ("There was this guy from Schenectady, see...")

But there I was, stranded, gasless, on the shoulder of a long thin ribbon of highway that unrolled between mist-enshrouded hills, which undulated off into the distance until being swallowed up altogether by the fog, like a wavy sea that was frozen in place and covered with grass,  instead of being made out of water and being splashy and foamy like the sea actually is.

I cursed myself for a minute or two, because it wasn't like I'd run out of money yet: I had just figured I could make it one more gas station, and I'd been exactly wrong.   But it's not very satisfying to blame yourself for things like that, so I started blaming my cousin Kathy for having a car that would run out of gas without warning you beforehand.  Why didn't she own one of those cars that had the little light that came on when you were low on gas?  Why hadn't she told me?  Why hadn't she said, "By the way, this isn't one of those cars with the little light that comes on when you're low on gas, so keep an eye on the needle?"

My inner voice, bastard that it was, rose to her defense: "It's not her fault," it said.  "It's the goddam New York State Thruway Commission.   They put the goddam gas stations too far apart.  They do it on purpose, to try and make you have to get off the Thruway, pay the toll, get your gas, and get back on.   That way it costs you more in tolls than if you went the whole state without leaving the Thruway.  And it's probably not just that, they're probably in cahoots with the goddam Chamber of Commerce, and they want you to get off in one of these godforsaken towns with names like the names of towns people come from in jokes and go to their local gas station which is really some kind of secret recruiting place where they tell you how great their little town is and how the economy is great there and the schools are good and there's plenty of jobs and every son of a bitch and his brother has cable access to the internet or some damned thing..."

My inner voice was on a roll, and it was kind of entertaining.  I just let it vent itself while I began walking toward Utica, or Schenectady, or whatever the hell lay ahead of me, until I was distracted by the sight of a little Yellow Chevy Nova slowing down and pulling onto the shoulder about a hundred yards ahead of me. 

"It can't be!" I said to myself.  But myself wasn't paying attention--myself was still fuming about the goddam Thruway Commission and the goddam Chamber of Commerce and was even beginning to speculate about the involvement of the Trilateral Commission.

A woman got out of the driver's side and began walking toward me.  It was Ellen Succubus!  The woman I'd dated for a couple of years in the late eighties and would have married if only she hadn't run off with that accordion repair guy, the very same Ellen Succubus who'd pulled over just like this right after Elmo Wooster's truck had run me off the road way back in the very first chapter--hell, the introduction!  She'd fled in terror as soon as she'd recognized me, of course, but now here she was again, and she seemed to recognize me, and she didn't seem frightened in the least.

"Ellie!"  I called out.

"We meet again," she called back.

"Twice in one day!"  I shouted.  "Who'd of thunk it?"

"Certainly not the judge who issued the restraining order," she called back merrily, and we both laughed--her a little more nervously than me.  Her eyes wandered to my car, then returned to me.

"I'm driving to Ensenada to learn the Ten Insights from the brotherhood of Los Idiotos," I called out by way of explanation, although I don't know why my driving along I-90 required an explanation.  Lots of people drive all over insterstates without telling anybody why.

She stopped walking and let me bridge the remaining distance between us.

"How's the accordion repair guy?"  I shouted.

"You can stop shouting," she whispered, affectionately wriggling out of my embrace.  Then, sadly: "Fernando's dead."

"I'm sorry," I said.

She shrugged.  "He lived fast and he died young.  We both knew it was how it had to be.  It's how it always is for accordion repair guys.  They exhaust life with their passion.  No one lives for ever.  Not with a trust fund like that.  Not when ice-picks are so cheap."

Somehow it made me feel better to know he'd been rich.  I had always understood her attraction, of course--the glamor and seduction of the accordion repair lifestyle must have been very seductive--but now she seemed a little more mercenary in retrospect.   It hurt losing her to him; it hurt less losing her to his trust fund.   (Not that the italics made a difference.)  Also it meant maybe she'd take me back, and, looking at her now, at the tanned, taut figure that filled out her thin, orange sundress, that was something I wanted.  I wondered if there was a statute of limitiations on restraining orders.

"Well," I said,  "I guess every cloud has a silver lining."

Her green eyes blazed fiercely, the way they used to when I would playfully drop ice cubes down her shirt.  "What the hell is that supposed to mean?  When did you become so interested in meteorology?  What are you, some kind of weather man?   You want to talk weather with me?  I bet you'd like that, wouldn't you?   I bet you'd just love to tell me all about the different kinds of clouds, about the goddam Cirrus and Cumulus and Nimbus...  oh, you men are all alike.  I hope you burn in hell!"  She burst into tears, spun on her heels, raced to her car, jumped in, and with a long squeal of rubber on asphalt and the high-pitched whine of her Nova's four-hamster engine she was off.

But I knew I hadn't seen the last of Ellen Succubus.