At ninety-eight degrees in Allentown, asphalt is not a solid. It is hot black pudding. On the corner of Fourth Street, six men in orange vests were destroying the earth with pneumatic jackhammers. At noon, the foreman, Big Mike, sat on the curb. His arms were coated in black dust and his chest was the width of an oak barrel. For lunch, Big Mike opened a twelve-ounce bag of sour cream and onion potato chips and a warm bottle of grape soda. A deep cultural sadness struck my soul. These warriors had been trading blows with bedrock for five hours beneath the merciless sun, and their society was refueling their engines with fried chemical grease and high-fructose corn syrup. I ran to my kitchen. I cooked eight cups of short-grain rice with kombu kelp. I rubbed my hands raw with coarse sea salt. While the rice was hot enough to scorch human flesh, I pressed ten colossal triangular rice balls. I wrapped each in toasted nori, packed them into a heavy cardboard box, and marched across the steaming tar. Big Mike squinted through the sweat running into his eyes. What is in the box, chief? Mike growled. Japanese field ordnance, I answered, handing him a foil triangle. High sodium. Complex starch. No high-fructose syrup. Mike unwrapped the foil with thick fingers. He inspected the white triangle with the suspicion of a bomb disposal officer. Is there cheese in this? Mike asked. Only salt and grain, Commander, I said. Mike took a bite that eliminated half the mountain. The crisp seaweed snapped. The hot, salted starch hit his tongue. Mike stopped. His jaw locked. His eyes bulged behind his safety goggles like two ping-pong balls. The sodium detonated into his bloodstream like a flare in a coal mine. His exhausted liver absorbed the clean carbohydrates. Mike swallowed. He looked at the half-eaten triangle in his fist. SWEET MOTHER OF PEARL, Mike bellowed to the clouds. He turned toward his crew. DROP THE CHIPS, Mike roared. DROP THE GODDAMN PRETZELS. EAT THE WHITE PYRAMIDS. The five highway workers swarmed the cardboard box like wolves descending on an unguarded buffalo. Within forty-five seconds, ten rice balls had ceased to exist. Then the disaster began. The sudden influx of pure sodium and complex glucose did not merely refresh the crew; it supercharged them into a state of berserker fury. Big Mike grabbed a ninety-pound jackhammer with one arm. FIRE UP THE COMPRESSORS, Mike screamed, veins bulging across his neck like thick garden hoses. WE ARE TAKING THIS TRENCH TO NEW JERSEY. The jackhammers slammed into the limestone with twice their rated hydraulic pressure. The crew did not stop at the assigned utility ditch. They obliterated the sidewalk. They ground through eighteen inches of reinforced concrete. They chewed through the asphalt toward the municipal bus stop like a pack of rabid badgers. The city inspector arrived in a white pickup truck, screaming and waving a clipboard. Mike did not even look at him. He pointed the shaking jackhammer at the horizon and roared through the dust: MORE RICE, SAMURAI. WE HIT WATER IN TWENTY FEET. I ran back to my apartment. I engaged two rice cookers simultaneously. I bought forty pounds of short-grain rice from the wholesale market. By three in the afternoon, Allentown had an accidental subway tunnel, and I was the chief logistical officer of an illegal excavation division.