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This is the end of the story. I can not imagine what is happening from the beginning. As I understand the car is climbing by flood? But I am not shure! Then I can not imagine this "where a slight curve to the right banks the road toward the passenger side," These are my questions: 1. Why 'banks' me confuse its plural? It's about gramma. 2. I don’t understand, is this all happening on the road or on the flood water?

The car has been climbing a hill, and near the top, where a slight curve to the right banks the road toward the passenger side, there comes into view an amazing sight that has cut Jeremy into silence: an old wooden two-story house on an enormous platform truck, squarely in the middle of the road, blocking them. The house on the truck is moving at five or ten miles an hour. Who knows what its speed is, this white clapboard monument, this parade, a smaller truck in front, and one in back, with flashing lights, and a WIDE LOAD sign? No one would think of measuring its speed. Conor looks up and sees what he knows is a bedroom window. He imagines himself in that bedroom. He is dripping water all over his son’s car, and he is beginning now to shiver, as the truck, carrying the burden it was made to carry, struggles up the next hill.

Flood Show by Charles Baxter

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  • It is happening on the road, but Conor has apparently been in the water before he got into the car. (He is dripping...)
    – Kate Bunting
    Commented Mar 12, 2020 at 17:55

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"The car has been climbing a hill,...". That means simply that the car is going up a hill in the usual way.

"where a slight curve to the right banks the road toward the passenger side"
This is set in a country where one drives on the right side of the road, with the driver in the left seat and the passenger in the right seat. The road curves to the right, and tilts (banks) so the right side (the passenger side) is lower.

This banking (tilting) is more evident on higher speed roads. They are designed so that the driver and passengers will feel pulled straight down into the seat if they are going at the road's design speed. If they are forced to go very slowly, they will lean toward the low side of the road, i.e., the inside of the curve.

Wikipedia: Banked turn ||

house being moved on a highway

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  • "This banking (tilting) is more evident on higher speed roads. They are designed so that the driver and passengers will feel pulled straight down into the seat if they are going at the road's design speed. If they are forced to go very slowly, they will lean toward the low side of the road, i.e., the inside of the curve". - it would be good to see an schematic drawing of this.
    – Vitaly
    Commented Mar 12, 2020 at 20:29
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    Vitaly, I have added a link to a Wikipedia article that has several drawings of the physics of banked turns to my original answer.
    – Jack O'Flaherty
    Commented Mar 12, 2020 at 23:31
  • I saw now what is bank! Did I understand correctly that the truck platform was moving slowly (due to a traffic jam - parade) in the same direction and did not allow them to drive faster. And why is there an allegory about the bedroom window?
    – Vitaly
    Commented Mar 13, 2020 at 3:54
  • Vitaly, here is what I take from the passage: Two people are driving up the road with some urgency. Upon rounding a curve, they see a "wide load" platform truck carrying an actual house, which someone is relocating. That truck is preceded and followed by two smaller trucks, for safety. The whole "parade" is moving at a very low speed. This obstacle causes Connor distress, and noting what he thinks is a bedroom window on this moving house, he has a fantasy about resting in that bedroom. I have put a link to a picture of a house being moved in my answer.
    – Jack O'Flaherty
    Commented Mar 13, 2020 at 4:37
  • Thank you, now I get it fully. Now I understand even why the author ended his story like this.
    – Vitaly
    Commented Mar 13, 2020 at 7:31

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