Jim Finn and I, standing at the side of the Kentucky highway as things on wheels rumbled and roared past us, looked over a low stone wall at a valley exploding with green living things. Even as cool breezes slipped over our shoulders, the emerald landscape glowed as though summer would never leave.

I looked at the map idly.

'We could check out Mammoth Cave.'

"Take a little break from driving, sure."

I sat in the passenger seat, watching the electronic radio screen cycle through all of its numbers, at first stumbling only for the country and gospel hour stations, then finally looping and looping into silence.

'Guess nobody feels like putting a radio station out here.'

"Guess pot farmers don't like the gospel hour either," Jim chuckled.

The greenery on both sides of the two-lane turned cartwheels and somersaults as it shot past us.

The absence of the tape player sounded like the noise of the engine, the drone of the road and the soft insistent rattle of the black garbage bag being tugged through the empty window-frame next to me.

The park ranger looked like a state trooper in his carefully starched hat as he warned us to take nothing back to the surface with us. We stared at the shiny wet mineral surfaces surrounding us.

'Dammit, Jimmy, put that chisel away.'

"Quick, hide the jackhammer."

We snickered, more at his hat than anything else, as we descended steps of stainless steel down a square spiral staircase that once must have been just a tattered rope ladder. For a second I wondered how stealing a pebble might irritate the spirits of this place more than drilling this ugly industrial thing into its walls. But then I wasn't exactly levitating down into this place myself, was I?

A line of people with jackets tied around their waists followed the bobbing funny hat along electric cable winding between flood lights that shone against the green and white wetness of the rock, and threw shadows onto the pink and gray inner folds of the earth stretching above us. There was easily room for a good-sized ancient tree in the main chamber.

'You get the feeling we've been swallowed?'

"Just keep away from that hat. It'll be the first thing that gets coughed up."

Ahead of us, the ranger called, "Any questions?"

Jim murmured next to me, "Excuse me, did you know you look like a penis in that hat?"

Ahead of us, long rows of benches arranged in arcs filled a low-ceilinged chamber. We filed in and sat like we had all arrived at some subterranean school assembly. I kicked my feet restlessly as the ranger gave a little speech about the history of the cave. For Jim and I, who had spent so much time wandering at night through places we weren't supposed to be, there was the unavoidable effort of playing along.

"Be so much cooler if we could wander around here by ourselves."

'Without all these lights and benches and handrails. Be fun to switch off the power and listen to all the tourists panic.'

"They have flashlights."

'Ah well.'

The ranger turned in our direction. "Do you have a question?"

I flashed my most winning boy-scout smile and asked, 'Which are stalactites and which are stalagmites?'

He smiled, nodding his head stiffly, so his hat wouldn't come off. "Good question. One way to think of it is that stalactite has a 'c' in it and comes from the ceiling, which starts with a 'c.' And stalagmite, which has a 'g' in it, grows from the ground, which starts with a 'g.' Okay?"

Jim said under his breath, 'My hood has a 'g' in it, okay?'

"And now we're going to turn off the lights so you can get a sense of what total darkness is like. Please try to stay quiet for the next thirty seconds and imagine what was going through the minds of the first explorers down here."

The lights died away, leaving red and purple spirals dancing on my retinas.

Several people coughed and sneezed at once and my lip curled invisibly. Were there too many people in the world, or did they just cram us together until we thought there were? What right did they have to send this guy down here to keep an eye on us?

I heard a soft whisper next to me, filled with sarcastic wonder. "Wow, does your hat really look like the head of a penis, or what?"

I smiled in the dark.

Coming up a long series of ramps out into the sunlight, I felt once more the intense green of the leaves in the forest around us. Something wanted us to stay with the group as it filed out of the darkness, but we were already levitating across the parking lot back to the car and the endless loops of silence.