The air on Colfax Avenue roils with the thick smell of sweet half-burnt gas coming off the finned behemoths rolling along this asphalt river. It carries the flotsam and jetsam of America toward a mythical land of dreams on the far side of the mountains to the west.

Unlike everyone else, Mike Ashford has no dreams. He does have an aching emptiness that he’s driven to fill by skimming the hopes of the steady stream of people headed for somewhere else.