almost a dialect. It omitted so many consonants that I could barely understand it, and Martha had to quietly translate when it came time for me to order. I thought back to Indian reservations in South Dakota, the street gangs I had written about in South Central Los Angeles, poor whites in rural Appalachia. In none of those places did I feel like such an outsider, or have such trouble with basic communication. It added to the mounting impression that I had entered another country.