And the lane becomes a letter slot again.
"Rope plus truck," Rick says. "We're the envelope."
"Then don't blink," Gavin says. "We're the stamp."
He drops a gear and gives the engine the job brakes won't take. The strap is a taut gray line across the lane, knee high at the hydrant, thigh high at the SUV's hitch. The box truck noses from the side street, white and blank like a fresh rule being written. The gap is a hair and the hair is moving.
"Bounce the tire," Madison says, voice flat. "Compress the front. Duck the rope."
"Copy." Gavin angles for the box truck's left front, shallow, not enough to climb, just enough to make rubber do work. He kisses the curb with the right front—ssss—then sets the nose a palm-width from the tire's sidewall. The hood strap hums. The cracked glass makes the truck's flank into triangles.
"Ready," Rick says, bracing the towel bar under the headliner tear like a rib.
Gavin feeds throttle and kisses the tire. Soft rubber absorbs, pushes back, and the van's nose squats a crucial inch. The rope skates up the hood lip, tests the strap's angle, and hisses along the windshield header.
"Down," Madison breathes.
"Through," Gavin says, and holds the line dead straight. The rope slaps the roof edge, spits a streamer of nylon hair, then slides to the gutter and off. The box truck driver finally sees what his bumper is doing; his eyes go wide and then hard. He jerks the wheel to pin them to the hydrant.
"Touch and go," Gavin says. He lets the box truck's bumper kiss the slider—metal to metal, no panic—using the push to yaw the van a half-degree away from the hydrant's concrete shoe. The yaw opens the exit by two inches. That is enough for geometry that believes in itself.
Behind, someone on the rope crew loses balance and whips into the street. The strap zings back and bites its own handler around the calves. A second handler lets go and falls into the lawn, then crab-walks for the porch and loses that plan on the steps.
"Next trap," Rick says, voice grim and appreciative at once.
Gavin threads free. The box truck driver slams it in reverse to block again, late and loud. The van misses the white flank by a breath and lives on the far side. The city exhales and then coughs back into sirens somewhere else.
"Hard left—pharmacy loading lane," Madison says. "Then slip behind the billboard."
"Seen," Gavin says. He lines the curb—ssss—letting sound write the center he can't see. The billboard's steel legs sit on concrete shoes taller than a shin. Under it: a maintenance cut barely wider than the van, graffiti calling someone a liar in bubble letters.
"Low clearance," Rick warns.
"Good," Gavin says. "Low belongs to us." He puts the nose under the cross brace; the hood strap hums as steel kisses paint and lets them pass. Behind, the box truck finds its own geometry and gets stuck on a parked sedan's bumper, horn braying like a livestock auctioneer.
The maintenance cut spills into a service road along the river fencing. On their left, water black and metallic; on their right, a row of boat trailers and a portable toilet wearing a crown of duct tape. A figure steps from behind the toilet with a length of chain like it's a leash for the night.
"Chain," Madison says.
"Straddle," Gavin answers. He centerlines the links so the pumpkin splits them instead of letting one wrap a wheel. The chain jerks once under the belly and drags, then drops, choosing the past over a future it can't understand.
"Bridge ramp ahead," Rick says. "Closed gate. Chain link with a bend."
"Angle breach," Gavin says, automatic now. He sets the forty-five, feeds weight, and lets the bumper bully the diagonal. The gate's hinge pin pops like a soda tab. They shoulder through. A "CITY PERSONNEL ONLY" sign slaps the windshield and flakes into confetti that sticks in the spiderweb.
"Sight?" Madison asks.
"I have a slit," Gavin says. You can see or you can panic. Pick one. Beyond the ramp a rotary opens like a mouth with four wrong choices. "Second exit," he says, remembering the school alley's brother road on the plant side.
They slalom the rotary around a toppled statue base. Someone's bouquet lies face down in its ribbon. A dog howls once from a balcony and then decides not to learn the new law.
"School service drive ahead," Madison says. "Chain again."
"Of course," Rick says.
Gavin doesn't even say it now. He just sets the nose, lets the angle bully physics, and feels the chain choose to be a necklace on the bumper before it slips and falls forgotten. Kids' chalk drawings flash under the cracked glass—stars, a yellow hopscotch grid that the tire respects by accident, a smiling face with too many teeth.
"Runners rear," Madison says, eyes in the mirror's fractured oval. "Two human, not pack. One with a bat, one with nothing but knees."
"They'll love the stairs," Rick says, as the service drive ends in a short flight up to street level. Gavin lands the front tires square on the first riser; the rear follows with a drumroll thud. They pop onto a short street that stinks of cut grass and propane.
"Their iteration speed is high," Madison says, more to herself than anyone. "First ropes, now tires, then—"
"Roadwork," Rick interrupts. He points. Ahead, a city plow sits nose-out across two lanes, blade kissing pavement, hazard flashers dead and orange. To its right, a tall Jersey barrier leans inward like a shrug.
"Curb ride," Gavin says. He climbs the right wheels onto the curb, putting the roof under a low limb so the strap stays hugged by angle. The blade's outer bolt head kisses the slider and files a groove like an autograph. He drops off the curb smooth; the strap hums a satisfied note that might also be a threat.
"Construction choke in a block," Madison says. "Gate half down. Teeth."
"We liked that before," Gavin says. "We'll like it twice." He turns the hood dent and the strap line into a rail, draws the van under the lip, and lets steel comb steel. The roof bows and lives. Paint becomes dust that will not matter to anyone.
On the far side, a municipal yard opens into a maze of barricades, salt piles staring like snow, and one alert forklift that has nobody to help. The exit is a soft S to a side street with a bakery whose neon still says OPEN to no one.
"Smell," Rick says. "Bread."
"Don't say it," Madison says. "I will cry."
They take the S. That's when the next trap springs.
Ahead, a third tow strap stretches from a stopped SUV to the far curb. The handler is smarter: he's wrapped it once around a light pole base to eat shock. The strap is already tight. At the same moment, a faded box truck noses from the cross street again—different truck, same intent—closing the last inch of daylight into a hair.
"Again?" Rick says.
"Again," Gavin says. "But we don't give them roof this time."
"Option?" Madison asks.
"Roll the front on the truck's tire, drop the nose, then under," Gavin says, already setting the angle. "If we scrub, we scrub the roof seam, not the strap."
"Window," Rick says, meaning sightline.
"I have the A-pillar," Gavin says. He kisses the curb—ssss—so the van leans away from rope and toward tire. The box truck's driver sees the move and commits. Good. Predictable is a gift.
"Ready," Madison says, wrench braced to lift the rope if it rides where it shouldn't.
Gavin touches the tire. The nose drops that blessed inch. The rope hits the hood lip, wants to climb, and meets the strap's angle like a bad handshake. It skates, hisses, doesn't catch, and flares to the roof edge.
"Hold," Rick says, more to gravity than to Gavin.
Gavin gives one more inch of wheel, letting the tire's roundness bounce them under the rope. The strap slaps the roof seam and peels a thin lick of paint. The van slides past the box truck's fender with a whisper that costs a strip of white vinyl and buys the rest of the night.
"Clear," Madison says, eyes still on the rope handler in case physics decides a sequel.
The handler's wrap around the light base takes the load and then gives it back minimalist. The strap snaps and twangs off the pole, spitting bright nylon hair. It whips itself empty in the rearview, a thread that forgot it was supposed to be a rule.
"Left," Rick says. "River yard cut. We can hide in the shadow of the hopper."
"We don't hide," Gavin says. "We move." But he angles the shadow anyway because sometimes moving and hiding are the same verb.
They slip under the hopper catwalk. Gravel crunches. A man in a reflective vest sits on a pallet throne and holds a road flare that has gone out. He gives them a sheriff's nod and lifts the dead flare as if to bless them with soot. He has chosen a church and it is fire.
"School bus sideways ahead," Madison says. "Rear door open."
"Curb," Gavin says again, the prayer that always answers. He rides it, mirror stub scratching chain link like a man writing on tin. They brush the bus, exchange paint and no more philosophy.
The street tips down toward the river path and then up toward a neighborhood with porches and judgement. A police cruiser sits askew with its trunk open, a red cooler in back. The cooler reads ICE in blue letters as if it could still keep promises.
"Brake check?" Rick asks, a joke without teeth.
"Gossip," Gavin says, and the pedal proves it by going south and returning only because he begs.
"Gate," Madison says. "City park, rolled half down. We can underpass again."
"Last time cost us paint," Gavin says.
"Paint is cheap," Rick says.
He centers on the gate's low edge, rides the strap's line under the lip. Teeth scrape. The van breathes out the other side.
A small square ahead opens between two ranch houses. Someone dragged a couch out and set it on cinder blocks under the eaves like a porch they couldn't afford. A woman sits there with an aluminum bat across her knees, watches them pass, and does not play judge tonight.
"Road bends at the billboard," Madison says. "Then the ferry lot."
"Ferry lot is open ground," Rick says. "Snipers like open ground."
"We won't be there long," Gavin says, and hopes the world agrees.
They curve past the billboard's backside where a man sleeps on the metal ladder like a bat that forgot to be upside down. The ferry lot appears: empty lanes painted with white arrows that still believe in rules, a booth with glass starred but holding, a chain laying snake-lazy where a barrier used to close nights.
"Straight through," Madison says. "Then left past the restroom block."
"Copy," Gavin says, setting the angle for the exit slit. He doesn't get to finish the thought.
From the lot's far curb, two figures yank a fresh strap tight from a pickup to a bollard, timing it with a box truck nosing out of the maintenance lane. The truck's nose is already in their lane. The strap is already singing.
The hair becomes a thread; the thread becomes no gap at all.