When I returned to the cab, Hamza sent me back into the 7-11 for a People magazine and a package of No-Doz, explaining that he had had no luck mixing hashish with liquor. "It is too pleasant," he said. "Allah punishes men who seek such bliss without Him."

It sounded plausible, but I was in no mood to discuss the superstitious complexities of Islam with a hash-addled neurotic whose crippling fear of crowded intersections had just caused me to miss tonight's Chamber of Commerce-sponsored dinner at the Mangy Moose. I bought his bogus speed and a copy of People, and then ordered him back onto the freeway.

As I went to work on the twelve-pack, I came across an article about Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York who, it seemed, after ten years of criminal deception, had suddenly hit The Wall in her run at the Royal Marathon, which some now say is the greatest endurance test on the face of the planet. I had never liked her anyway (no amount of money or liposuction can make a silk purse look stylish off the shoulder of a Guernsey heifer), and it further convinced me that the Britishers should do to the Royal family what the Bolsheviks did to Czar Nicholas and his court, and that the spoils should be divvied 50/50 between the British commoner and the United States taxpayer to pay off some of their debt on the Marshall Plan.

But reading the article made me carsick. I swiped the pipe from the armrest and again turned the Zippo loose on the bowl. "So: how long have you been in my country?" I asked, exhaling.

He nodded, taking another turn. "My family came . . . eeer . . ." he said, slowly bleeding the smoke from his lungs, "in 19 and 79. My father was what you call 'Major' in Shah's High Command. We fled in the month before the crazy man took control of everything. It was the only way."

"Why here? Why not France?"

Hamza laughed bitterly. "We had heard that even a fool could become rich in America. But it was not so for us. My father ran away with one of your . . . beembos during first year of our residency; he left us nothing. If it were not for your welfare system, we would have surely starved."

I gritted my teeth and untwisted the top from a second bottle of Coors, which I drank off in three swallows. "I'm so glad we could be of help."

"You are right to sneer," he nodded. "The world laughs at your stupid generosity. Your nation is like old woman in poker game. Please," he motioned, refilling the pipe and passing it back again. "I would return all that my family has received from your country, if only I could find meaningful work. There is nothing in Iran; but there is nothing here, either."

By the time we crossed the border into Evanston, Wyoming, I had killed off one bottle short of a six-pack and my bladder was beginning to spasm. "Go ahead and pull over at that truck-stop," I said, pointing at a garish sign that promised: "FIREWORKS! REAL TURQUOISE JEWELRY! DON'T PASS US BY!" I had always been a sucker for explosives, and the call was impossible to resist.

Hamza followed me through the store and toward the restroom, where I saw him pause at a drinking fountain to wash down a small pile of No-Doz tablets. When I returned to the fireworks counter, he was already holding an oversized paper sack.

"That's the spirit," I smiled. "What'd you get?"

He grinned heavily and extracted a fifth of Myer's dark rum from the bag.

"I thought you said you didn't drink?"

He shook his head. "I said Allah does not approve. Today I find my own way."

I pulled a twenty from my wallet and told the shriveled old man in soiled bibs behind the counter to load up a combination of Roman candles and bottle rockets. "And a couple hundred jumbo firecrackers. As long as I'm here."

"Any ground spinners?" he suggested. "The kids loves them the best."

I told him I wasn't married

"Yer smart," he whispered, glanced slowly from side-to-side, then snorted deep into his sinuses, letting out a thick, tubercular cough.

It was just before three o'clock when we got back on the road, and it was not long after we had left the outskirts of Evanston that Hamza broke the seal on the bottle of rum and took a long pull. He had walked straight past the soda machine on his way out of the store, and I knew then that he had no intention of diluting his liquor. He took another drink from the bottle and offered it to me. I begged off politely, mumbling vaguely of my preference for cheap suds. About an hour later, my good judgement began paying dividends.

The highway through Wyoming was remarkably unchallenging, but between lighting his pipe and searching for a decent station amidst radio static and swilling from the half-empty flagon of rum, Hamza was having a tough time of it. Twice, I felt compelled to reach over the head-rest and hold the wheel, while he fumbled at his crotch for a burning cherry. About thirty miles from Jackson, I looked up into the rearview mirror and saw the stare of a fighter far gone on the ropes. It was then that I decided to take over.

"How 'bout pulling over right here, my man? I bet you could use a few winks." I pointed to a wide shoulder a few hundred yards ahead and braced myself for a vicious argument, but Hamza simply took his foot off the accelerator and let the car roll to a stop in the center of the two-lane highway. "That'll work, too," I nodded. I helped the wilted young cabbie into the back seat, then hurried to return the cab to the speed limit before we were crushed to shrapnel by a four-axle Peterbilt that had been trailing not too far behind us for the last many miles.

From the back seat, Hamza began muttering about a life gone terribly wrong: "My friends are all investment bankers and jewel traders and wealthy arms merchants. They own mansions in Bel Air; they ski in Zurich in the winter with their mistresses." He took a long swig from the bottle. "They call me less and less. When they do, they say, 'Hamza, why are you still driving taxicab? Do you not want to be rich?' Soon I will be friendless."

I remained silent, knowing that I could not, nor would I wish to, conceal the joy from my voice.