No airplanes, relief, loud buses, no diesel, sharp angles sheathing the crisp heat of the Missouri summer. Wood, brown, more wood framing his mind in this antiquity that sends chills through a chair with crappy arms. Quiet. No rummaging of voices, but nice rumbling of distant tires and revved engines. Saved from death.

One smile and then another smile. Pain in the ass but polite, so tolerable. High walls save others from disgust, allow slithering through soothing environment toward two refrigerators that preserve the essence of a day long ago when cigar smoke hovered over the deals of the gods.