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Chapter One
 I'm a rollin' stone all alone and lost, For a life of sin I have paid the cost,When I pass by all the people say, Just another guy on the lost highway.
Lost HighwayHank Williams, Sr.
Quoi-ow-ow-ow-duck-duck-it'scomingcan'tavoidit!
The sound of jets landing unmanned him. Physics bundled in a counterintuitive package crunching down. Gravity reasserting itself with rending conviction.
Yes
, he quailed.
That 
is
how I feel, isn't it? But how often do I come to theairport? And right now, at this moment--am I coming or going?
He gave a low, startled laugh, amused by his momentary forgetfulness. His wife,so rich in nutshells, would have called it a thumbnail fugue. His wife…his wife….
Goldie
. But that wasn't her real name. That was what he called her in private, but itwasn't her real….He snapped his fingers."Caroline!"He laughed again, then stopped abruptly. You did not laugh at airports anymore. Not when you were alone, the laughter unassignable to legitimate social interaction. Why
 
was that?
Oh…yes.
He decided he was arriving. Had he been departing, he would have been standing blankly before one of the flight schedule monitors inside the terminal building,wondering where the hell he was going, not outside, facing away from the runways."Fuzzy logic is the fault line between reason and calculated self-delusion." Thatwas what Professor What's-His-Name had told him one day. What day was that? Whatyear? And what the hell was What's-His-Name's name?"What's
my
name?" he added to himself.The local equivalent of a Skycap performed the local equivalent of customer service and scurried out of sight when he tried to catch his attention. He pursed his lips,glanced down at his briefcase, and saw H.W.C. stenciled on the small bare leather patchunder the hand grip.
 Henry? Hugh? Hee-haw?
Suddenly, it came to him.
 Hank Williams Cheatham
. He was the namesake of a defunct country crooner. Not much of an improvement over Hee-haw.A bit more concentration summoned his profession. "Professor of Americanhistory."A shot of horror blushed his cheeks. Had he said this out loud? He cleared histhroat and furtively checked his immediate vicinity. Unless he'd been shouting, there wasno one within earshot. But who was that running towards him? What else had heforgotten?The young man's body was overburdened and undernourished by fat-free fries,
 
Soya-laden hamburgers and uncounted Nutra-shakes. He had the desperate sheen of acollege graduate who suddenly found himself at the deep end of the job pool. Studentsdid not concern themselves with sinking or swimming.Hank had been standing a few yards beyond the cantilever roof that fringed theterminal building. Maybe a cab driver would see him better in full sun. Emerging fromthe shade, the young man snapped his fingers at Hank, then inflicted a half-nelson onhimself as he strained to snap at someone behind him. Only there was no one behindhim.While Hank Cheatham perpetuated the usual social patterns of a genericAmerican, certain situations triggered a kind of Continental snobbery. Even before heremembered that this was his attitude in the face of uncouth advances, the attitude kickedin. Otherwise a perfectly amiable man, he had a reputation among his students of beingstuck up, pompous and…and…oh yes, there was that other thing: probably a racist.Hank was convinced none of this applied to him, although he conceded a certainlegitimacy to outward appearances."Didn't mean to snap at you like that," the young man punned ingratiatingly. "Iget a little whacked out whenever I lose my cameraman. Wouldn't you?" Drenched in acloudburst of sweat, he patted his waist and discovered his notebook in the drooping rear  pocket of his trousers. "Bear with me a minute, Professor. I was going to interviewCoach Briggs. Have to readjust my mindset.""Briggs?" Hank vaguely recalled being at loggerheads with Briggs over athleticscholarships, though at the moment he could not paste a face to the name. Briggs was thehead coach of the university's football team, the frequency of whose losing streaks
of 00

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