The Chronometer perched on the dash glowed in the night, the soft light of the digital numbers slowly incrementing. It had not yet been changed to reflect daylight savings time, and was actually an hour off. A rational man would have thought, "Do I get out of the car, even though I'm only wearing a pair of Sperry Topsiders, and soil my new white short shorts going back up the enbankment? Or do I throw the column shifter in L and try to dislodge it from the seemingly dense stand of cacti?" That is was the rational would do, use the power of space-saving front wheel drive to undo all that had been done.

Instead, his inner anger at himself taking control, Bob reached over and fumbled with the glove box door, forgetting that he had locked it while at park playing tennis with Tasha before the wedding. This simple act, this simple forgetful act, saved him from taking the ultimate step: using the small Beretta buried underneath a pile of old road maps, cinnamon Velamints and the mostly unread 1985 Chrysler Corporation 5/50 Protection Plan documents. If he could've, he would've, and probably this hurt Bob the most -- that it would come down to this.

Sobbing, he opened the door, got out of the car and stared up at the night sky. A million stars twinkled overhead, much like the idiot lights on the dashboard of the 600 upon initial startup. An strange unease settled over him. Wasn't this why he bought the car to begin with? To see the world as it really was? How could you do this any other way, but with the top down? Suddenly, the low top speed and severe cowl judder of the 600 didn't seem so annoying -- life really is better at 45mph. Could he recover from the whirlwind of the last few months? Yes.

A quick assessment showed the 600 missing three hubcaps. A rather significant amount of road rash would need to be fixed by a competent body shop, and Bob would have to track down the plastic headlight housing that was cracked from a cactus branch. Little did he know that that quest for this housing would take him across America, to MOPAR swap meets and flea markets, and that along the way there would be new loves, new friends who liked Bob -- and liked the 600.

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Vivacious it would never be, but dogged and relentless the 600 could manage. The engine clattered in its mounts as the front wheels scrabbled, then caught and dragged the battered chassis free. Beheaded saguaro squished out from beneath the beam axle at the rear.

Bob pulled the Dodge to a small clearing. The engine still worked, the brakes worked, the tranny worked. The top was already down, and at this point, he believed he might never raise it again.

Beretta be damned - gun or Chevy - a moment's epiphanous flight and what might become a lifetime of resultant lower back pain had shown him the truth: he was getting old, and screwing young women wasn't going to change that. He could, though, seize life the way many older men had.

Bob remembered Paul Newman.

He leaned out of the car to seize a convenient rock, and broke open the glovebox door. He removed the Beretta - the gun, not a Chevy - popped the clip and threw it as far as he could.

He examined the maps.

Shifting the Dodge back into Drive, he made his bumpy way across this rocky field, gained a road, and pointed his car toward Reno, toward headlight trim, toward turbochargers.

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