SEMI-LOST IN CAROLINA No snow yet but the ground white with leftovers of the cotton harvest. Tornado of blackbirds in the low sky, I drive deserted US 13 south to ol’ T-Bone’s in Greenville. Cops stop me: there’s a chemical spill near Ahoskie, have to backtrack through Ghostville on 32, sunblind across the Chowan River Bridge. Seep into back country afternoon. Bear clawed pine trees. Stone crosses in cut fields. Time piled on itself like six-foot tractor tires in a horse stall. Vine pall over tall tobacco barn. Never seen so many hunters, guns strapped to their blaze-orange backs, hip boots, beer pockets, spitting wad juice at hounds whooping from pick-up truck cages, hoping winter will waste away with bourbon, venison and deer jerky. I slow for a spotted-head farmer limping the long gravel to the dented mailbox. Antebellum antiques store, closed. Bojangle’s next to a shoebox post office. Dogs chasing along white, three-plank fences. There's a thirty-acre field in ...