He signed at 4:40 on a Saturday, eighty-four months at 11.2 percent, and for the length of one drive home he was the happiest man in the county. Windows down in November. He took the long way past the shop where he'd worked at nineteen. Twelve miles on the odometer and the interior still smelled like the future.

It ended in the driveway. Somebody's kid had left a bike leaning against the fence and he thought about the paint, and then he thought about the paint every day after that. Nine months later a rock took a chip out of the hood and he felt nothing at all. The payment came out on the third, and the third arrived constantly.