The sky gets dark, and lightning bleaches all the green out of the dense vegetation. The world goes X-ray white, and then colour bleeds back even brighter, more saturated. Thunder slaps the bus, vibrates in my solar plexus.

Rain makes the world look jellied. It starts to drip in steady threads through the roof onto the empty plush seat beside me, and the bus fills with a dense, fishy stink. The asphalt ahead has turned red. A plush red carpet.

Crabs, I call back to Steve and Theo. This is astonishment. The unexpected smell. And now the smell of crabmeat is welded forever to the taste of peanut butter and the Bay of Pigs, still to come. The notion of dying young for something you believe in. For ten minutes, thousands and thousands of crabs cross the road.

Later, when we rent a car, I ask the
agent if he has read the Guevara essays.

Those essays, the agent says. I read those when I was young. He rubs his big stomach. Those essays, he says, I have had my fill.

While I sign the papers, Steve blows smoke rings with his cigar. One, two, three. Theo pokes his fingers through them, and they tatter and dissolve. The agent has a cigar, too.

Can you do that, Theo asks him.

No, only your dad can do that, the agent says.

You could learn, Theo says. The agent tilts his own cigar and contemplates it. He sighs.

I am too old to perfect this talent, he says.