"No. I was running a laundromat that year. I leased it from an old friend whose wife was sick of cleaning it. I couldn't get away. It was no big deal. There had been little festivals for years--'Soundouts,' we called them--music all night, sleep in a field. I had no idea it was going to be so huge. And anyway, it wasn't actually in Woodstock; it was about forty miles away. Did you go?" "I couldn't," Mo said. "I was in Vienna in a convent school. My father was on sabbatical. It was awful. My sister Beth was already in college. I wish I could have heard Jimi Hendrix's _Star Spangled Banner_." "A major moment," Joe said. "When Hendrix died, the hot radio station in Honolulu scheduled that piece for twelve noon. They asked everyone to open their windows and crank up the volume. That was when I was driving a cab; you could hear Hendrix blasting all over the city." Mo looked at her watch again. "It's that time, Joe." "Damn shame," he said. They said goodbye to the cat, and Mo drove them back to Lihue where Joe had no trouble changing his flight. "Fun day," he said as they parted in Honolulu. "Bye, Joe." She smiled. "I'll call you." She lifted a hand in acknowledgment. Thanks for the warmth and commitment, he thought. He had given up chasing women some time after Sally and before Ingrid. A kind woman had taken him in hand after a heartbreak and explained: "Joe, you can't earn love. Love is free. Someone loves you or they don't . . . God knows why." She had been so sad and so earnest that he knew it was true. Shortly thereafter a flashbulb went off. If you can't earn love, then, if someone doesn't love you, there's nothing you can do about it. What a liberation! He wasn't going to run after Mo. A relationship might be around the corner. Or not. He wasn't all that sure he wanted one, anyway. He'd call her in a couple of weeks. 7 Joe was going to run out of money--in less than a year. He began reading the Sunday classifieds, an experience that made him sweat and put a knot in his stomach. On a Monday, two weeks after the trip to Kauai, he followed up an ad for a programming job at a downtown insurance company. The offices were bright and modern; the staff was energetic. He left depressed. He could have done the work in his sleep, but he couldn't pretend to want to be "on board." The woman who interviewed him was too decent; Joe couldn't bring himself to try and con her. He knew that if he were hired, six to twelve months later he would be out on the street again, unable to keep his head down and his mouth shut. The next morning as he was taking a shower, replaying the scene at the insurance company, he bent over for the soap. Something split in his back. It was like being hit by an ax. He managed to get out of the bathroom and lower himself to the floor. He lay still for half an hour, getting his breath.