Here we are, in the shoulder, facing the oncoming traffic.

Nothing happened.

We look at each other, touch each other. Here we are, covered with glass, blood and fear.

But we are alive, we can move, and laugh, and cry.

Nothing happened. We didn't hit anybody.

Two good Samaritans pull over, and help us to get out of the destroyed vehicle. All of a sudden, I'm drinking some juice that a dark smiling Hindu guy offered to me. Somebody is calling 911.

No, thanks, we don't need an ambulance, we don't. Nothing happened. Nothing happened. Nothing.

All the social and moral paradoxes of the American dream are condensed in the super highways of this country. To get in, you need to first reach a certain minimum speed. You have to prove the power of your car at the on ramp. The others should realize that you deserve a place in the line, a space between them. In fractions of a second you should win the silent acceptance of the others, and you should accept them too. All the time. Every time.

It looks like a great exercise in democracy and all that. The highway is politically correct, sterile and cold. Up there it looks like your race, age, and sexual orientation do not matter anymore. You are just what your car shows.

You are a van or a coupe, you're domestic or imported, green, red or blue --- You are rusty or brand new, classic or vulgar, expensive or cheap. It doesn't matter if you are seated inside, with all your prejudices, your manias, your preferences or your antipathies, because nobody can see you behind the wheel.

• You are conservative and black if driving an old Lincoln.
  
  
• You are a gay or a woman if you don't behave aggressively enough.
  
  
• If you are driving a huge truck, then you're white, and fat, and bad. Everybody hates you, or is afraid of you. Perhaps you're the heart of America up there, on your sixteen wheels, coming and going. But for the rest of the drivers in the highway, you're just a dangerous hairy animal that swallows too much fast food and doesn't sleep enough.

In the highway, the Americans reproduce all those behavioral schemes that set the pace of the big national hypocrisy. Here reigns both the law and the order. Everything is labeled, measured, predestined. Everyone is crazy, but everyone is nice. People are ready to give you a chance, to take your place, or to kick your butt.

Paradoxically, in this rigid universe, where every single movement is just part of a huge intuitive choreography, the Americans feels more free than anywhere else.

In the highway you just need to follow certain hints and trust in certain signs. The implacable rules of driving are substituting any other consideration, any other ethical or social concern. You just can't think too much. At 80 mph there is no room for that kind of mistake.

Your own ability to survive up there is a good indicator of your chances at social success, in general. If you can't get on the highway, be ready for taking back routes, greasing bicycles, waiting for streetlights to change, and pedestrians to cross.

You are out the system, out of the race, out of the big game. You are off. Better not shoot for the golden version of the American dream. Better stay at home, you know. Because you're out if you don't get a good job to pay fat bills. If you don't have a bunch of credit cards. If you're not ready to create your own .com, to start your own good American family, with BBQ at the backyard, Christmas, and the beach house, and so on --- Forget it. If you don't do it this way, you're out. If you aren't in, then you're out. If you aren't on, you're off.

And it is not that bad, you know. I'm off here.

I'm now afraid of going on the highway.

I'm afraid of not fulfilling the minimum requirements. There is nothing wrong with it. The accident made me lose part of my optimism, some of my confidence, most of my blindness.

I just arrived from Cuba, where it is obvious that people don't have any freedom. Here it is not that obvious. The pressures are different. The methods are different. There's the highway, that's the game. You take it or leave it. You're on or off.

Just remember that there's always a chance to make it through the back routes. There's a bunch of people trying it. So you don't have to give up. And I don't have to destroy another brand new car to be sure of it.