A part of him that still retained a measure of rationality asserted that that might be true, but what he was suffering from right this minute was heat prostration. After what had happened to Rita, he hadn't been able to ride the motorcycle anymore. He just hadn't been able to; it was like a mental block. He kept seeing himself smeared all over the highway. So finally he had ditched it. Since then he had been walking - how many days? four? eight? nine? He didn't know. It had been in the nineties since ten this morning, it was now nearly four, the sun was right behind him, and he wasn't wearing a hat.
He couldn't remember how many days ago he had ditched the motorcycle. Not yesterday, and probably not the day before (maybe, but probably not), and what did it matter? He had gotten off it, snapped it into gear, twisted the throttle, and let go of the clutch. It had torn itself out of his trembling, sick hands like a dervish and had gone plunging and rearing over the embankment of US 9 somewhere just east of Concord. He thought the name of the town in which he had murdered his motorcycle might have been Gossville, although that didn't matter much, either. The fact was, the bike had been no more good to him. He hadn't dared drive it over fifteen miles an hour, and even at fifteen he would have nightmare visions of being thrown over the handlebars and fracturing his skull or going around a blind corner and slamming into an overturned truck and going up in a fireball. And after a while the motherfucking overheat light had come on, of course it had, and it seemed he could almost read the word COWARD printed in small no-nonsense letters on the plastic housing over the little red bulb. Had there been a time when he had not only taken the cycle for granted but had actually enjoyed it, the sensation of speed as the wind rushed by on both sides of his face, the pavement blurring by six cold inches below the footposts? Yes. When Rita had been with him, before Rita had turned into nothing but a mouthful of green puke and a pair of slitted eyes, he had enjoyed it.