Florida’s Overseas Highway is a gray band linking isles of the Keys via bridges that arch over channels of turquoise water. On this day, as Highway 1 leaps across a channel to connect Boca Chica with Key West, it bears glittering rows of stalled automobiles. A few cars display geysers spurting up from radiators while drivers jig around their front bumpers, ineffectually waving rags.

“Just ‘nother day in paradise,” drawls Dan Cowell. He drapes an arm out the window of his own car – a vintage red Miata – and flicks open a button on his rayon shirt with his other hand.

“We not movin’, okay, not a centimeter, even!” his companion, Linda Parker, marvels. “And so-o long.”

“We’re near peak of tourist season,” Dan says. “Add a holiday. Stir in a traffic accident. There’s your recipe for happiness, beyb.”

Dan says the word “babe” using a long and strong vowel, in the Caribbean Creole argot. Saying it this way is part of their code of intimacy.

She peers out from her side of the car at the blue waters that ripple beneath the highway bridge. Tiny wavelets fling back sparks of sunlight.

“We are not so high up,” she says. “Let us jump into water, make a swim ‘round to our place. Serious!”

Dan smiles. Linda is a young, strong Moskita Indian woman, raised on an island off the coast of Honduras. She’s fully able to act on her suggestion.

“Might’s well. Our highway seems ‘bout done being a street.” He gives a languid shrug. “Guess we’re in a park-and-lock lot now…”

Bass vibrations telegraph an approach of powerful machinery. Dan checks his mirrors and sees two lines of big motorcycles bearing down on them from the east. One line seeks to thread the gap between the lanes of stopped cars, the other rumbles along the bridge’s narrow shoulder.