"Hey, lonely listener. This here is Chester in the night. Comin' to you out of San Antone." Chester's honey bass is purely Texas, flip side of LuAnn's high-pitched whine and drawl. I'd never think to turn him on at home. His voice is lower-register, a Hammond organ, connecting me, to my surprise, with some deep chord inside, some chord that tells me heartbreak, what I've lost. "I got a fix on y'all my friend. You're sittin' in your slippers, I can see, it's after two AM, you're sippin' hot perked, kitchen light the only light for miles. Offerin' a prayer up the Feds don't make some Tom-fool move to hurt ol' Dave Koresh and his good folks." How serendipitous! It's awesome, eerie. Maybe it's a sign.

I've been on the road since midnight in my pick-up, headlights slicing through the empty land. Bishop. Passing by the cloverleaf to Corpus Christi now. Starting out I had no thought to crash the compound even though the TV showed you people doing that. I had no thought for school or letting someone know they'd need a substitute. I'd taken off.

"Or maybe, friend, the April moon and all, too early of a Monday to go back to work, you're drivin' lonely on the highway, lookin' to the stars, pooch, paws on the dash." He has that right as well except the dog. LuAnn took Buttons Thursday, TJ too. I'd turned her off again. I think it's permanent this time.

Chester's disembodied voice seems close, and him so many miles, me hunching at my wheel, traveling 77 North, Waco far ahead. Won't be there till six or so unless I drive straight through.

"I've got a good one here. I hauled it from my memory bag for you, this song from long before the most of us were born, when we lived in a world more innocent than this, that still had Christian principles. Take heart from Chester in the night. I'm with you, friend. I'm with you all the way. Here's Bing with 'What'll I Do?' We'll dedicate it to the ones with Dave, tryin' hard to live their life."

What would I do? When I arrived? It isn't that I had some crystal-clear idea when I walked out the kitchen door, wrapped up soundless in the night, guided quietly but sure. No one there with TJ, LuAnn gone. When it seized me at the midnight hour, plunked me in the car at 12:01, it felt like Close Encounters where Richard Dreyfuss sleepwalks out the house and drives off to the mountain to bear witness. What I heard was noises of the empty spaces racketing inside of me, the ones that LuAnn couldn't fill. I didn't want to join the Branch Davidians. I wanted to bear witness. Validate. Behold.

You don't have to be a Fundamentalist to want to fight for peace, even peace that passeth understanding. People will believe what they believe. It doesn't matter if like me they don't go every week to church. Religion is a glue, the only one that's left to us that doesn't cost, the world expensive any more. One minute I was watching cable, sipping at my Diet Coke, the next they're showing angle shots, the fortress they have made.

It hit me like a two-ton truck. We have a right to find a place where we can feel good hunkered down with people same as us, trying to map out some corner of the world where we can stand secure. I want that for myself. They had a right to their community. I wish I could find mine. Koresh recruited them from Israel, Australia, persuaded them to sever all their ties and pledge themselves to him. Like-minded only part of it. Thirsty, what it was, like he was soil could take their roots.

It isn't that I'm bringing water, meal, or even have a thought to join some action with them side by side. I'm going there in order to be part of it. Bear witness, have some weight.

LuAnn. I've tried to be a part of her or make her part of me. I've failed. Emptied out to hear her tell it. Knew me well. Yet how could I be empty, full of my own self? "Make me stay, Jeff, make me stay." LuAnn. "Do something, Jeff." TJ kicked a soccer ball behind the hickory, the sun just going down. I couldn't move a muscle, me a body-building school instructor at Brownsville Community College, just lost in thinking what to do to make her stay. Couldn't lift a finger, brush the tears away from her green eyes, kiss the top of her pretty brown-haired head. "Jeff, for God's sake, Jeff, is there nothing you can say to me? I'm gonna leave you, Jeff, y'hear?" That was Thursday when she split. Shreveport, if I had it right, her mother lived there, dad up North. TJ, shoes unlaced, ball underneath his arm, not really knowing what was happening, awkward kiss goodbye, a brush of lips, some pressure on my back with his left hand, LuAnn, in tears, throwing clothing in the duffel bags.

A phrase of Chester's disc came through:
"To tell
My troubles
To."

Troubles. Damn. Hard enough to tell the facts. "LuAnn, the Dean of Studies gave me three more classes. Thursday nights from 8 to 10. Sorry, Lu. He's in a jam. I had no choice, economy in shambles as it is."

The tears! "That makes it every night, Jeff. Every night! It's Thursday afternoon! You wait to tell me now!? We don't go anywhere. We don't make love but once a week. I do believe I'd like it better you were sneakin' off to shack up with some country girl. Shoot! Now what am I supposed to do, Jeff, what? In effing Brownsville at the end of Texas with its ass in Metamoros, the broken-down butt-end of everywhere? I'm thirty-one years old and getting older fast. Did you tell your Dean of Studies you will lose your wife? Why didn't you?"

Fast as that I was alone, going off to teach my classes math. Math, ironically, when one plus one is still mysterious to me. One human being is the sum of all his parts. It gets complicated when there's more than one. On whim I assigned a number to myself for a feeling of reality. Not 666 -- I'm not that bad. A random choice. I'm 780 to the tenth power. Identity. Better as a surd, irrational. Or zero -- well-defined. We're out there in our numbers, that's for sure, us desperate ones, as numerous as 780 to the tenth.

"Don't you believe it friend, you're all alone, 'cause you got me, ol' Chester in the night, to ease your pain and get you through the dark. And now a special request, called in from Ronnie D, who wants a voice you haven't heard in Lord knows when. Russ Columbo. 'Are You Lonesome Tonight?'"

The road flows smoothly north. By God, the space. The blackest night, my mission beckoning me on. It wraps me tightly, it's an idea I can touch, the lonely people searching for community with Dave Koresh, or maybe disco dance lines in the Tip Top flinging up their hands in tempo, maybe joining a parade of yellow ribbons, kicking butt. Moon married up two thousand couples at a time in Yankee Stadium. Did they escape their loneliness like that? My wife and boy are gone, yet I feel nothing, hollowed out. Wanting something. Hard to tell you what.

I speed on by a Texaco, prairie on both sides of me, the moon above. What will I witness when I get to Waco? Buildings? Troops? That isn't it. Community. There goes McCloy. A hundred people and some steers. San Antone ahead. It's where I met LuAnn twelve years ago.

My headlights pick a movement out. Is that a girl? Hitching at this time of night? Risk rape and mayhem, both. I've got a thousand yards or less to stop. To stop!? I hesitate, my foot poised just above the brake. C'mon, I chide myself. I'm not beholden to this girl. I'm traveling to Waco to bear witness to community. And then my big foot presses on the brake like there's some reflex taken hold of me. I can't just pass her by at 3 a.m., a girl alone. She might be going only twenty miles. That wouldn't throw equations out of whack. I wouldn't want to take her all the way.

I make her out now in my brights. Perky cowboy hat and boots, bundled in a parka 'cause the night is cold. She's blonde, what I can see, which isn't much. She'd be tall boots off, I'll bet. I must tune out old Chester in the night if I'm going to hear her and be heard.

"Heading north?" I call to her out in the dark. I can barely see the top of her hat from where I'm perched.

"I'm headed for Oklahoma City, mister," she calls back. "If you go that far." That's a good four hundred miles or more.

A decision must be made, to take her with me, leave her be. I've come to that decision, haven't I? This isn't any twenty miles she's asking for. I really want to be alone, my mission calling me. I shake my head. I can't cold-shoulder her and hand her over to the road. "I'll get you halfway there," I offer, hoping she'll say no.

"Thank you. That'll be just fine. It sure is cold." Low alto voice. LuAnn's is high.

I get down to help her in. Her parka's orange. She's got an overnight, as light as cardboard. I stash it in the back and hold her elbow, heft her up. She's slim and almost tall as I am. Eyes seem blue but it's too dark to tell. I take the wheel.

"Out there long?" I ask. Hell, Richard Dreyfuss had adventures on the way. Bore witness just the same. And then got taken off to their community by Them. "Scary out there all alone, so late?"

"I'm never all alone. His only Son is by me night and day. It sure is cold, I will say that. I don't believe it's been that long. The highway purely quits at night." She settles back. "Three cars slowed down to pick me up but I waved them on. You know the way it is -- you trust some far-down feeling that you have -- he looks OK, he don't. That's not to say you can't be wrong and make mistakes. But still you got to go on something. I mean, what else have you got except the Lord, Him guiding you? All of it is in the Plan. As writ. I thank you kindly for picking me up. My name is Erica. They call me Rick for short. Well, friends say Ricky. You can if you like."

"I'm Jeff." We shake on that, her stretching out her hand, her fingers cold as a can of Coke on a summer day. "You're right. It's good to trust your gut. But still. It's risky business in the night. Do I pass your test -- your 'looks OK?'"

"You do. Just one peek at your moustache. I can tell." She smiles at me, her blueblack eyes not focused very well. I wonder if she's high.

She turns this way and that, avoids some books and worksheets on the floor. She puts her boots up on the dash. Her leather skirt falls back to show her knees. Long legs. Her great big purse, more like a sack is in her lap. "I pack a Lady's Special just in case." She opens up the purse and I can see a gun, nestled in on Kleenex, ugly-looking thing. It takes me by surprise. She has no call to show it, none at all. It isn't that I've made a move on her. This tall girl, pretty as a picture, secure in Jesus and a gun. No one walks a straight line, that's for sure. All unpredictable, a calculus I've never found out how to calculate. I wonder do I run a risk.

I don't believe in guns, may be the only one in Texas doesn't own a piece. It's criminal you have to have an arsenal like Dave Koresh to hold them off. "A woman must protect herself," I say. "But you look young to use a gun."

"I've never used it but I could. I'm really good at target practice, Jeff. I knock down cans." She closes up her purse. "The Plan don't say you're not supposed to help yourself. God helps those, you know. I run three miles a day. Do you run, Jeff? You look like you work out."

"I do. With weights."

She settles, throws her shoulders back. "My mother now, well she's a freak for guns, that's where I'm headed, north of Oklahoma City. She has five in drawers around the house. The one in the kitchen's in the sugar bin. And that's besides the seven rifles in the rec room case. She says she needs that many 'cause she lives alone. My daddy split two years ago. He took up with a girl same age as me, I"m nineteen now. They live in Omaha. He took the time to telephone me on my birthday. I will say that for him. On January 17th. He's still with her. The girl. She calls herself Amelia. A Methodist besides. My mother now. Well, she's the one. I wonder how she'll take it when I walk in. Her darling daughter. I've been gone three months."

The sign says Austin, 30 miles. The dashboard clock shows getting on toward half-past three. I still should make it there by seven, maybe eight. I'm glad I stopped. The Christian thing to do. The miles rush past. I think of TJ and LuAnn in Shreveport with her mom. "Don't mean it to be nosy, Ricky -- but. You going back to momma? That the size of it?" Wonder is she carrying. Three months too soon to tell if she is pregnant or she's not.

She is smiling when I look across at her, blonde head tilted back, cowboy hat sloped down her nose. "I guess I am, Jeff. Going home." She giggles and suddenly she looks so young, she's still a child. "I wonder what Ol' Billy's gonna do when he comes in the door and see's I've flown the coop. Oh my."

"Who's he? Your husband?"

"Husband!? Shoot! He isn't gonna marry anyone. He's much too busy sowing his wild oats. Momma told me to get shut of him. I thought that I could save him, you know how us Baptists are. We say that all of us are sinners. None so bad that Jesus don't redeem them if they pray. Now Billy, he's the one. He had left home when he was fifteen, maybe less. He is a natural at what he does, a pool-hall hustler and a part-time thief. He never has been caught. I will say that. He's really cool. I like that in a man. He sure won me. But stubborn. Stiff-necked as a Jew. Well then his daddy said come back here to McCloy, I'll deed you half the property. Now that's about two hundred acres of fine pasture land, so Billy says OK and I say can I come along, 'cause I want to get away from mom and all. His daddy when he sees me like to have a cow but winds up thinking maybe I am just the one to turn his darling son around. And here it is three months and I've decided just the opposite -- I ain't ready for no mommy business with a man who pays no mind to me, a part-time country boy who's pulling off a job in Corpus Christi as we speak. I told him not to go tonight. My, my. I do go on. Change the subject. You. You're quiet, let me prattle on. I like that in a man. Now Billy never let me get a word. Are you married, Jeff?"

Makes my head spin, goes so fast. Things go on a slower path with me. Not straighter. Just not quick. "Maybe I still am. My wife has left me. Took my kid with her. They're both in Shreveport now."

"Wow. I'm leaving Billy. Your wife split. You pick me up. Is that a sign or what? The Plan is always there as clear as day. Are you feeling really bad? I'm not. Well, maybe just a little bit. Billy isn't gonna change and now I'm shut of him. Good riddance too. He's bound for trouble, that's for sure. What for she left you? Cheating on her?"

"No." And yet that is a simple-minded answer. My family is gone. My house a goodly distance back. I regret that Ricky's with me now. She takes my thoughts off Waco and community. And yet I concentrate on answering. Black hole? Ten years of marriage that fell in upon itself? "I have a feeling, Ricky, that we're doing someone else's work. I mean all of us. Now that's a kind of shorthand I've made up for notions that I have about this country, what we're looking for. I believe there came a time, when I was just a kid, when something happened, something changed. A force came over us. And we became the way we are, if you know what I mean."

"Of course we're doing someone else's work. It's clear as anything. It's the Lord's work that we're doing, Jeff. That's what you meant, now isn't it?"

"Something very like, Ricky." Touches me, just like it would in class.

"You do some heavy thinking, man. You look like you're a football player but you sound like a professor. Are you? A professor?"

"I am a teacher. Yes."

She sits up, pushes back her hat and looks at me. She's got deep eye sockets, blueblack pools of darkness. Looks quite beautiful. I see that clearly now. Slim nose and apple cheeks. She says "I like you. Glad I caught this ride."

"Me too." Why did I say the opposite like that? Richard Dreyfuss concentrated only on the mountain. I haven't concentrated on the Branch Davidians since I picked her up. And yet there's something magical, us speeding in the night, the dashboard glowing softly, headlights showing us the way.

"Where all you come from, and where you headed for?" she asks. "I feel real cozy in this cab, us in here in the quiet and the road in front. It just goes on. I purely wouldn't mind a bit if you were going all the way to Oklahoma City."

"I'm not." And then because she's struck a chord, because we are together in the night, because I have this notion, still pulling on me powerfully, I say "I come from Brownsville. I started out at midnight. I'm headed for the compound outside Waco. That's where I'll set you down."

An approving smile lights up her face and she sits straight and turns to me. "I could see it right off. You've got who you are writ all over you. The Lord does work in mysterious ways His wonders to perform but He can sure use all the help that's offered Him." Her smile is innocent and young. "That Dave, now he's the one. Nobody knows Scripture like he does. Why won't they let him be? Surrounding him and all. I know the Lord will answer prayers and I send mine up every day but still. All Dave is doing is protect his little flock. He hasn't harmed a soul." She puts her hand on mine, her fingers warmer now, and presses firm. "I'm proud you're going there to help."

And I'm not sure she understands me properly. "I don't think I'll get in," I say.

"You'll find a way. The Lord will lead you there. It makes me feel good knowing that you'd drive four hundred miles to bring whatever help you can. I don't know why but it eases some the hurt of Billy and my having to go home again. It makes me happy just to ride with you. I knew you looked OK to me. All of it is in the Plan."

I don't know what to say. For all I know she thinks that I can save the Branch Davidians all by myself because it's in the Plan. I also know my notion is too complicated to explain to her and I'm cast back to where I was with LuAnn, two people not communicating.

She opens up her purse and suddenly because I feel so down I'm certain that she'll pull the gun. I brace. But then she hauls a bottle from the bottom of her bag. I see it's Gallo and it's white. She uncorks and puts the bottle to her mouth and tilts it up. It isn't full. She has to tilt too far. When she is done she offers it to me.

What makes me feel responsible for her? This kid is nineteen or she says she is and packs a gun and been around the block. "I'll pass." Did I come over disapproving? Shit. I've done my share. It isn't heroin or hash.

"Come on. It's no big thing. Jesus and the Twelve Disciples loved their wine. We're here together, cozy as a quilt, all cold outside. You ought to feel so good, bringing help to Dave Koresh, instead of down because your wife's gone off. Some wine will help you mellow out."

And I decide, why not? I take a single swallow and I pass it back. She cradles it against her chest, boots on the dash, and I can see she is no stranger to the grape. Surely walked a crooked mile. A feeling comes straight over me. My life is passing by along this road, empty spaces where you thought there might be towns, ordinary lights like precious diamonds far apart. And me alone here in the cab in my community of two. I would give anything to lose this isolation that I hold so tightly to. Lose myself in something. What? I've never used -- not drugs or booze to lose myself. To pass the time -- why not? But make yourself a slave -- I never have. Never used sex neither in that way, although some do. Perhaps I would feel better right this minute if I had. Waco suddenly seems continents away. I'm sorry now I told my destination 'cause she's gotten something from my sharing it that wasn't there.

And I can see she's got her own community. She's got her bottle. Pretty as a rose, could choose her man, but she's secure with guns and wine and strangers in the night. She puts her left hand on my right again, a solid pressure like we're childhood sweethearts, know each other's souls. "Some good," she says and holds the bottle out to me. "One little sip won't drive those blues away. Catch up with me." All users are the same. They want you to be one of them.

"I have to keep my mind on driving, Ricky," and she takes her hand away. I see we're passing Austin, Arby's, Roy, Convenience Mart and Texaco. We own the road. Nothing flowing either way. The moon sails on. Her hand is back on mine, not resting, pressing, holding, showing she is proud of me. Long fingers, nails as red as fire trucks. I let it be. It doesn't bring me closer. Sad.

In fact I'm feeling far, far down. Starting out I was all eager for the thing I was compelled to do. Now passion's died away. Chance meeting on the road. It makes me doubt myself still more. What did I have in mind? What wild goose am I chasing now? The one inside? Too hard to get at? Try one further off? Back. I want to back off to the purity I started with.

She sits straight up and turns to me and takes the bottle from her lips where she's been suckling it and puts it to my mouth, damp from her and from the wine. "You gonna make me drink alone?" she asks. "I'd sure like company."

Shit, who am I lead anyone to Paradise, teach the error of their ways? I couldn't find a road map to myself and that was all straight lines if I'd known how to read. And who am I to seek straight lines when Einstein tells us that they bend? I take a swig and hand it back to her. It never has done anything for me.

"That's nice," she says, and strokes my hand with her long fingers, taking swallows now and then, her head thrown back. And we are close as Siamese, well side by side, sign to Round Rock 30 miles, like we have driven on this road together all our lives. Except that I feel fractioned off, not really part of anything. I can't get back.

I see that she feels comfortable with me, maybe has ideas, I don't know why, or maybe she is stoned already, had a nip or two while waiting for her ride, the ride she knew to take from following some Plan.

She finishes it off and rolls the window down, the iron grass and mesquite flashing by, big enough out there and empty too, to swallow all our sins and more. She flings the bottle out, puts her cowboy hat down on the floor and nestles next to me, her blonde head on my shoulder, hair like cornsilk on my cheek. I slow down, just like that, my concentration shot, the road no longer purposeful, just there. Not altogether unexpected, disconcerting for a sec. "I wish that you felt mellow, same as me," she whispers dreamily. "Poor baby, all uptight. I think I like you, Jeff. Y' hear? You're good and brave. I trust you, what it is. Do you like me, Jeff? Do you? Oh man, you got a biceps like a rock."

"Ricky." What is there to say? "You think I'm driving and you think you're touching me but there is no one here. You're making a mistake."

"C'mon, Jeff. You think I'm drunk? Not me. Don't you know that girls have wooden legs? Of course you're here, because you're traveling to help Koresh and I can feel your arm besides. I hear you, Jeff. You mean you're down and all because your wife. You are the one. You've done three hundred miles to be a Good Samaritan. It's time to give yourself a break."

She works her fingers in my shoulder. "I'm always horny after I've been drinking for a while. And mellow. Man. I know that I could make you feel the same way too. I know I could. I'd like that, Jeff. A man built powerful as you just has more need than anyone to lay on back and take some pleasure after all this work. They're not expecting you or anything like it's a date and my mom's not expecting me."

I'm not her father, heaven's sake, although I'm old enough to be. Not up to me to tell her do or don't. Just maybe I have seen it coming, maybe not, the heavy-duty probing of my arm. Shut of Billy, feeling free? I haven't got some great desire come right down to it, although she's cute as Christmas with her yellow hair. The urgency to get to Dave Koresh and his community is lost. I try again to get it back. "I've got to get there, Ricky. It's still pulling me. Besides, I'm one cold turnip for a pretty thing like you."

"Oh no, Jeff, no. You aren't cold. Not with that moustache, and your body's got a comfy feel to it like I could curl right up. You've been driving like for hours man. You got a right to rest your bones and take a nap. You'll be there by the afternoon."

"Ricky, are you hearing me? Even though you hold it good I think you're higher than a kite. You just got through with something bad back there. Give yourself a chance. You're too good-looking to treat yourself like you're a giveaway when you are special as you are. Besides that Ricky, even if you want to gallivant around, I'm not the one to give your treasures to."

"For me to say, not you. You like me, don't you, Jeff? Y'all's the special one in here."

Is it that she's getting to me even if I think that road's blocked off? Suddenly I feel done in. I've gone a distance, that's for sure. The prospect of a bed is not so bad.

The dawn is breaking East. The sky is graying up and she is right. I don't really have to be in Waco at some special time or even once I get there know just when I have to leave. My dashboard clock says half past five but never has been accurate.

Sign says Temple 20 miles. Sounds right, like it's an omen, giving me permission, put my purpose by. Don't have to mess with her. Just catch some winks. I have a right to rest my bones. Enjoy the company she's offering. And yet I fight against it like I always do. "Like you, Ricky? You strike some note in me that is rock bottom where I care. Some note that says that no one is protecting you. Responsibility. Now, Ricky, that's no way to start some big romance."

"Oh man, I like that, Jeff. Protecting me. Hey, no one's done that in my life. No man. I mean I've got by on my own and leaning on the Lord. Now these big arms of yours. Hold off the world. We find a place and I massage your back and you'll be up for anything." She lets her hand caress my thigh.

My body tells me maybe she is right and now we barrel on toward Temple looking for a sign. We travel for a while before we see a Vacancy in red. The Rainbow Motel. No cars. Four little cabins. I park in front of one of them and walk over to the office.

Young guy looks like Tony Perkins. His clock says 6 o'clock. I get the key and finger it the way I used to finger worry beads when I was twenty-one. What do I want of her? Not anything that she can bring to me, to make me whole, come closer to my gut. I should have gone straight on. Why didn't I? Still can. I think of the logistics. Leave her here? But she is needing something too. I can't think only of myself. I meant it what I said protecting her. She's just a kid for all the guns and wine and handing herself out. We'll have a talk.

I help her down. Stepping to the ground she holds my shoulders hard like they are pleasuring her now. I get her overnight and let her in the door. A radio, an air conditioner, three hangers on a small steel rack, an alcove with a sink, a john. Two twins with floral coverings. Venetian blinds are metal and they're down, the only light comes from the dawn. I put the lamp on in between the beds and close the door. It hits me I am still alone. I want to lose myself.

She sits beside me on the bed, then says, "I got to tinkle, Jeff." I sprawl out as I am, my heavy shoes up on the spread, staring at the rain-stained ceiling, plasterboard, above my head. I switch the radio to maybe get old Chester back again and words come out: " . . . activity. It's hard to see just what they have in mind. There are what look like battering rams that they have mounted to the fronts of tanks, there's maybe twelve."

Ricky's standing at the entrance to the alcove, nude. Her breasts are heartbreaking. They swell and rise like they could fly away to heaven by themselves. Her legs go on and on and end up in the curly hair between. Her belly-button's small. Her hips are round. Her body is a work of art. She's beautiful. "You like me, Jeff?" she asks. She comes to me across the carpeting.

"The tanks are wheeling in formation now and now they're moving toward the compound. You can hear the shots. They're coming from the compound, not the tanks. It looks like, yes, they're going to -- it isn't fifty yards. The firing is more intense but doesn't stop the tanks. They're rumbling on, the battering rams in front. They're closing in."

Ricky's stock-still, wide-eyed, listening. The tears are falling down her face. She walks to me like in a dream, then whimpers like a child and puts herself on top of me and burrows in. I wrap my arms around her, shielding her. She whispers in my ear, her tears are trickling down my neck. "What's happening? What are they doing, Jeff? With tanks!? Oh, Jeff. They can't do that. It's Armageddon, like he said. Oh no." She hides her head in my armpit as if afraid to see, to hear.

My tears are running down my cheeks, my arms around her, keeping out the hurt, except I can't. "They're gonna bury them," I whisper in her yellow hair. "Bulldoze them underground. Destroy their whole community. They're gonna kill them, Ricky, me not there."