I usually know when Harvey W. Keene is going to hit the road. As if his batteries need recharging, he slows down and gets dim. At home, he might distract himself for a while getting into the usual trouble, but after a while nothing interests him and soon he starts to sulk. Things tend to get interesting about then.

The summer was ending; the nights were getting longer and cooler, and you could smell the new spring leaves beginning to change into old fall leaves. The last time Harvey got thrown out of the Last Stop Cafe was over a month ago. We'd been back since then, of course. After all, he owns the place. But they do have to make a show of barring him when he really goes over the line - for a while, at least. This time Harvey tried to drink every tropical drink that Julie the bartender knew how to make. After a while he started to abuse the singer in the band on stage.

"Show us your tits!!!", Harvey kept yelling.

Finally, the singer, who was a male, had had enough. A brawl did get started, but nobody's heart really seemed to be in it, though they did break a lot of furniture and glassware. Dull as it was, though, that was the last real excitement we had seen for quite a while. We hadn't seen any of the guys from the band in ages. Harvey started sleeping late and didn't get dressed until dark - if at all. He'd been shuffling around the house in his slippers like an old fart for a couple of days when he got up one morning, packed his old Martin guitar and his backpack.

"Come on, John T!" he called.

With that we were off, first hitching a ride out to the parking area on Route 495 where the interstate truckers rest up before heading south overnight. It wasn't too long before Harvey had talked us into a ride with a fellow named Chester. Chester came from Jenkins, Kansas - just outside Topeka. He owned his own White FreightLiner, contracted with Americold, and was hauling a load of fish sticks south to Nashville and Dallas.

Chester dropped us outside of Nashville where we stopped to visit one of Harvey's old friends. Willard Barnes and his wife Beverly live just outside Nashville in a suburb built in the late '40's. The trees have grown in since the area was developed and the houses are individual enough that, close as it is to downtown Nashville, you still feel like you are in the country. Willard is something of an amateur pharmacist to the musical community in Nashville.

I love visiting Beverly! She is always in the kitchen cooking something, and there's always food on the floor. She makes a big fuss over me. It seems like every half-hour she picks me up, and it's like being hugged by a big warm field of wildflowers. I gotta say, that kitchen is one of my favorite places in the world, and that's exactly where I stayed while Harvey and Willard went off for a couple of days in Music City.

I generally don't like to let Harvey get too far away, but barhopping in Nashville isn't one of my favorite things to do. It seems to me that you spend most of the time getting in and out of cars. The barrooms all smell the same - stale beer, sawdust, tobacco, urine and vomit, perfume and aftershave - not bad, mind you, just monotonous. The worst thing is, the way they dance in the South, you have to keep looking out that you don't get kicked or stomped by some drunk cracker in boots made out of dead snakes. No thanks! Beverly's kitchen is fine with me!

Harvey and I left Nashville two days later, early in the morning. The CropDusters were touring the South in an ancient bus that looked like something out of an old sci-fi movie and smelled of burned oil and unburned gasoline. Harvey was not in a playful mood as we climbed aboard. Everyone, with the possible exception of the driver, was asleep, snoring or moaning softly. Right then, The CropDusters looked and smelled a lot more like refugees than they did like musicians. The driver didn't have a lot of teeth, but he seemed to be making up for them with tattoos.

"Is he gonna shit?" he said looking at me dubiously.

"Eventually," said Harvey W. Keene.

This apparently satisfied the driver, who pulled the door closed and dropped the antique transmission into first gear. It wasn't long before Harvey was snoring right along with the band. Around mid-day, somebody in the back of the bus got up, opened a window, and threw up all over a good portion of Mississippi. This started a general stir, and before long the bus had stopped at a rest area and the CropDusters were beginning their day.

Wally, the bus driver, cooked breakfast over a grill. He didn't look like much, but he could cook. Everyone ate eggs, ham, biscuits, and coffee at a big picnic table in the shade. The day was hot, though there was a soft breeze blowing not from the highway, but across a field of clover behind us. Now and then, the road gives you a special moment.

Later, back on the bus and fortified by food, beer, and pot, Harvey and The CropDusters did get around to picking some tunes. We were in Florida in no time, but Harvey didn't want to go all the way to Miami and The Keys. We'd been there a year or two before. He was delicately taking the final hit off a roach, sniffing a last wisp of smoke up his nose before rolling it into a little ball between his finger and thumb which he popped into his mouth, when his eye twinkled.

"Wally! Let me off at the next bar you see. OK?" he shouted to the driver. Wally had turned out to be a fine individual, despite the first impression I had of him. It wasn't long before we were standing in the parking lot of The Grouper Bar & Grille, waving to Wally and The CropDusters as they headed off down the road.

The Grouper was a low ramshackle tin roofed mess built in a clearing on the side of one of those featureless Florida roads. There was a large, gravel covered area in front of the building with a half dozen cars and pickups scattered around it. Even in the early evening, the air was oppressive. Harvey picked up his pack and guitar case and we headed inside.

It felt good to get in out of the heat. The bar was cool and full of new smells. When we go into a new place, Harvey usually hangs back and lets me check it out first. I got a pretty good nose for trouble, and he gets to size people up from the way they react to me. It was a good sized place - bandstand and dance floor to the right, lots of mostly empty tables. A couple of parties of young guys were having an early dinner. I could smell barbecue sauce and pork for sure. Maybe a cheeseburger, too. There were three pool tables in a big alcove in the rear. Two couples were playing an uninspired game of eightball at one of them. I didn't see the girls as Harvey's type, besides the guys with them were pretty big.

A long bar ran almost the whole length of the left side of the room. A couple of older guys were drinking draft beer and watching the TV over the bar. There was a woman sitting at the far end of the bar where it turned and formed a corner with the wall. There wasn't much light in that corner of the room, and I smelled her before I actually saw her. Her smell stood out over the darker barroom odors - she smelled fresh, just washed, and lightly scented with lilac and rose. There wasn't anyone else's smell near her - she was there alone.

I went over to give her a close-up, doing my best cute act. I love sandals, and that's what she had on. Her legs were long, tan, and muscular. She had on white shorts, a red halter-top, and her hair was light brown and cut short like a man's. When she glanced down, her eyes looked right through me. I knew Harvey would be more than interested. Just to prove me right, he strolled over to the stool next to her.

"Howdy, ma'am. Would I be imposing if I joined you?"

After a pause, she looked up at Harvey, then down at the seat of the stool beside her, and back to the almost empty glass in front of her. She shrugged. Harvey sat down. The bartender came over and they started going over the beer and whiskey selection. They settled on a Rolling Rock and a shot of Jack Daniels.

"Harvey Keene's the name, ma'am, and this here is John T. Barleycorn." Harvey gave the woman beside him his best smile, and paused for her to say something. There was no response. "John T. and I, we're on a little holiday. Just hitched in. We don't know a soul around here, and I do hate to drink alone in a strange town."

The bartender produced the drinks at the perfect moment to allow Harvey to punctuate his last statement with a shot of whiskey and a long pull on his beer. While he did this, she turned her head and looked through him for a long while, but there was no way of knowing what her expression meant. She raised her empty glass to the bartender, and then looked back down at the top of the bar in front of her.

"I do hope we're not imposing on you..." Harvey fished for a name again. No bite. "Listen, I'll send John T. away if he's bothering you." I knew he didn't mean it.

"Suit yourself." Her voice was deep, and slow.

"Well, If we ain't bothering you...."

She turned her head again and looked Harvey up and down. A smile might have crossed her face, but her voice was a tired sigh. "You don't bother me."

"Now we're gittin' somewhere." Harvey had the Big Smile out again. "Look, I need something to call you. Do you have a name."

"Call me, uh, Cindy. Hah! No, call me Jane. Yea, Jane." The bartender returned with her drink - whiskey on the rocks, a double by the looks. She drained half of it and set it down in on the bar in the wet ring from the last glass.

"Jane? You sure?"

"What's the difference?" Another shrug. Harvey took a deliberate pull on his Rolling Rock, and set it down conclusively.

"You know, I'm the kind of guy who wonders why an attractive woman like you is sitting alone on a night like this singing the blues into a glass of whiskey. I suppose it's none of my business, but it just don't seem right to me."

She picked up her glass, finished the drink in two swallows, and set it back down on its ring of water.

"You're right," she said. "It's none of your business."

She stood up and reached in the pocket of her shorts, pulling out a fold of bills. I could smell Harvey's disappointment as she peeled one off and tossed it on the bar. He was looking glumly at the last swallow of Rolling Rock in the bottle in front of him. Little did he know! She put the bills back in her pocket, took out a ring of keys, and headed for the door. Two steps past Harvey, she stopped and turned back.

"Well? Are you coming?"

Harvey was out the door after her, pack in one hand and Martin in the other. It still wasn't dark outside, and it still wasn't cool. On the other hand, the insects were getting active. She had a little red sports car of some sort. The motor was running when we got there, and we just made it in as she tore out onto the road spraying gravel across the front of the bar.

She drove fast, but seemed to know what she was doing. I couldn't see much, though, since Harvey had me in his lap and holding on for dear life. Harvey doesn't like to be taken for a ride by a woman. Before long, she slowed the car and pulled off the main road. A painted sign lit by a single light bulb said Bayou Vista Motel.

"Go get a room, Harvey." She said as she pulled up by the back porch of a house that must have fronted on the main road. Another single light over the door lit a hand lettered Office sign. The driveway continued on past the main house where it circled around a clearing containing what appeared to be a brick barbecue and an old rusting swing set, surrounded by a group of rough cabins.

Harvey left me in the car with her as he went in. She acted like I wasn't even there. I even did my Big Whine Act for her. Nothing. I was getting suspicious by the time Harvey got back with key.

"Give it to me," she said.

He handed her the key and she drove down and stopped in front of the farthest cabin from the house. It was getting pretty dark by then. I had to take care of something, and gave the place the quick once over. There didn't seem to be anyone else there. I didn't smell anything, and there weren't any lights in the other cabins. By the time I got back, they were out of the car, but hadn't gotten into the cabin yet.

They were standing in front of the cabin, kissing the hell out of each other. Harvey had both hands on her rear and she was rubbing the back of his thigh with her ankle. After a while, she broke it off, picked up a tote bag that was laying on the ground at her feet and walked over to unlock the door to the cabin. Harvey gathered up his stuff and followed her in.

The cabin was interesting - it smelled of tobacco and disinfectant, masking mildew and vomit and more. There was a double bed, a TV with rabbit ears on a low chest of drawers, a table and one fairly comfortable looking chair, a bathroom in one corner. I hopped into the chair. I figured they probably wouldn't be needing that.

She produced a bottle of whiskey from the tote bag. There were four glasses wrapped in plastic on a round plastic tray with an ice bucket next to the TV. She poured two drinks, handing one to Harvey who was still standing awkwardly by the door to the bathroom. Then she walked slowly over to the foot of the bed, took a long sip of her whiskey, and turned around.

"Are you ready, Harvey," she said as she somehow slipped off the red halter top without putting down the glass. She took another sip and then slid the glass over her chin, down her throat, down between what Harvey would later refer to as "magnificent" breasts, across her flat tan stomach until it paused just above her navel. Her other hand slowly lowered the zipper of her white shorts and they fell away. There was nothing now but the sandals. Harvey stood, drink untouched in his hand. He was not moving and hardly seemed to be breathing. She stood six feet in front of him, running her glass in slow circles around her belly, seeming to stare right through him. Finally, Harvey caught his breath with a sort of choking gasp.

"Lord Almighty." he whispered. Then he put up his hands. "Don't go anywhere. I gotta clean up."

She just kept standing and staring like before. Harvey moved fast. I could hear him taking off his clothes and jumping in the shower. She stepped out of her sandals and lay on the bed. I shut my eyes for a nap. I'm not all that interested in what was going to happen next, although I wouldn't have minded chewing on those sandals. I heard the shower go off and the sounds of Harvey furiously toweling himself dry. I heard her moving on the bed, and as Harvey opened the bathroom door and stepped out, I heard something else - a sharp, solid metallic click - that made me look up.

Harvey stopped just outside the door to the bathroom with a small white towel wrapped around his waist. He held the towel together with one hand while the other held his almost empty glass. She lay on top of the frayed brown bedcover, head on the pillows, naked. Her glass sat on the bedside table, and in its place on her stomach was a large pistol.

"I can't do this," she said to no one in particular.

"Huh?" said Harvey. I figured him for something like that.

"There's nothing I can do," she said.

Harvey's lips started moving, but nothing was actually getting out. They stayed like that for a while: Harvey wearing only a towel, looking down at a beautiful naked woman on a bed in front of him with a pistol on her stomach. He gave me a quick "If we ever get out of this" look, and then drained the whiskey left in the glass and put it down very slowly on top of the TV.

"What is the gun for?" he asked.

She didn't respond at first, but her eyes focused on his face.

"The gun? You're holding a gun." Harvey likes to get answers to questions that bother him so.

She looked down at the gun on her stomach.

"I was thinking of killing someone," she said after a while.

"Who?" A good question.

"I don't know," she shrugged. She pointed with the gun as she spoke. "Me? You? The dog?"

The last idea did not get my vote.

"Jesus Christ!" said Harvey as he sat down on the edge of the chest of drawers. The gun pointed back at him. "I don't believe this."

The gun moved up to her temple.

"Now wait a minute," Harvey said raising his hands again. "Don't do anything crazy."

"Just get the fuck out of here'" she hissed. She cocked the hammer.

"Now look, damnit!" Harvey objected. "I don't have any clothes on. I don't know who the hell you are. I don't know why you want to kill yourself. And on top of that I rented this goddamned cabin. So just wait a damn minute before you start shooting."

They looked at each other for a while.

"Put the gun down, OK?" said Harvey. "I'm gonna get us a drink. And you're gonna tell me what the hell is going on. Right?"

Harvey got up slowly, but forgot about holding up the towel. He caught it awkwardly just before it hit the ground. Then, fumbling one-handed with the bottle and glasses, he lost the towel a second time. This time, he missed it and wound up spilling whiskey down his front. By the time he was done swearing and jumping around, trying to dry himself off and keep himself covered, she had starting to giggle, although the gun was still aimed at her head.

"What the hell are you laughing at?!" yelled Harvey W. Keene. "And what the hell is you're name?! Will you tell me your goddamned name!"

She broke out into full laughter, and the gun moved down again onto her stomach and quivered there with each spasm, the hammer still cocked. Now I admit that I don't really understand laughter, but I have noticed that it can be contagious. Before too long, Harvey smiled, chuckled like a car starting up, and then joined her. They laughed hard for a while, but when Harvey moved just a bit in her direction, she pointed the gun at him and her face turned grim.

"Hold on there, Harvey," she said. Harvey raised his hands, sighed, and sat back slowly.

"Will you at least tell me your name, please?" he asked.

"Why do you want to know?"

"It just want to. I like to know folk's names. I like to know who I'm drinking with." Harvey got up and resumed clumsily filling the glasses while trying to keep the towel around him. It took a lot of clattering and fussing about. Somewhere in the middle of it she spoke.

"Karen."

"I'm pleased to meet you, Karen," said Harvey as he stood up and turned around, a glass of whiskey in each hand. "Now that we're acquainted, could you stop waving that gun around, drink this, and tell me what is going on."

Ever so slowly, he handed her one of the glasses, and then settled back on the chest of drawers. He raised his glass to her and they drank. The gun still lay against her naked stomach, ready for use.

"Come on, now," he said. "You owe me the story." She looked at Harvey for a very long time.

"Why not?" she nodded. "That makes as much sense as anything else, doesn't it?"

Harvey raised his glass and they drank again.

"To my husband," she toasted.

"You're married?" said Harvey in horror. He actually does have some scruples.

"Married?" she asked. "What's married? Who cleans his socks? Who screws him? Who gives up what?" She shook her head.

"Oh, God," groaned Harvey, raising his glass.

"The youngest female patrolman in the history of Florida law enforcement!" she raised her glass. "Could have been the first female detective too. No! Only one of us can work."

"You're a cop?!" Harvey spit out along with a fair amount of whiskey.

"I could have outranked that asshole! No! Part time office work! Raise the kids! What kids?" The gun started to wave around the room.

"You're a cop?!" His head was in his hands.

"Now he's Big Mister Police Chief! Now he gets to screw his Personal ASS-sistant! Miss Cindy-Fucking-Cowbrains!" Karen was very close to shooting something right then, but she just didn't seem to be able to decide what.

"You're husband is a Police Chief?!" Harvey was rolling now.

"Big Chief Randall Cindy-Fucking-Cowbrains Asshole Martin of the Jacksonville Police Department!" Karen raised her glass and drained the contents.

"You're husband is the Chief of Police in Jacksonville?!" Harvey raised his head and then let it drop back into his hands. "Jesus," he said softly.

"I could have killed them right there in bed. I watched them there together. I could have blown them away right there." A quick and bitter laugh. "You know what? She's frigid and he can't get it up! Why bother to kill 'em?"

She started running the barrel of the gun up and down the inside of thigh. Harvey was staring in fascination.

"So now what do I do? Kill myself? Run away?" She looked at Harvey as if for the first time. "That's when you came in. I thought maybe I'd fuck somebody else too."

The room was quiet for a while. I listened to each one breathing - his soft and shallow, and her's getting deeper and slower. Harvey began to tell her about an aunt he had back in Garden Creek who left her husband. Now, he's generally a fine storyteller, but this one was as dull as could be. As his voice droned on hypnotically, Karen's breathing became slower and deeper. Before long, her eyelids began to droop, and, after a while, her head fell to one side. A few minutes later, she began to snore in a very unladylike way, the cocked pistol still in her hand on her stomach.

Harvey's voice trailed off and for a while he listened to her sleep. Then, with great stealth, he crept across the room and got the pistol. Karen didn't stir. Harvey W. Keene stood admiring her for a moment, then sighed, wiped his forehead with back of his hand, and headed off to the bathroom to dress.

Moments later, he was back, struggling to get Karen dressed. He had slipped the contents of two of Doctor Willard Barnes' Patented Sleeping Draughts into the last drink he had given her, so she wasn't helping. The halter top took several tries before he was satisfied it was on correctly. He loaded her and everything else into the car, left the key in the cabin door, and we were off into the night.

-------------------------

Harvey wasn't familiar with the roads in the area, and that helped bring on the next part of this disaster. Although he knew which general direction Jacksonville was, it turned out that the road we were on just cut through one corner, coming nowhere near the center of town. The experience of the past hour had unsettled Harvey, and his plan at that point was to get the girl to a hospital and take it from there. We were moving pretty fast, headed out of Jacksonville as it turned out, when blue lights started flashing behind us.

Harvey pulled over to the side of the road, and looked over at me, sitting on Karen's lap.

"John T, we are deeply screwed." he observed.

"License and registration, please," said the police officer's voice from slightly behind the driver's window.

Harvey gave him his license and started to rifle through the glove compartment. He found the registration quickly enough, and the policeman took the documents back to his cruiser. Before too long, he returned, with gun drawn.

"Mister Keene. Would you please step out of the car." The officer crouched, holding his gun with both hands. Harvey got out slowly and raised his hands.

"Please lie down on your stomach, Mister Keene. Now, sir, would you please place your hands behind your back." Harvey complied with each request. The cop handcuffed him and came over to check out our passenger. That's when he noticed me sitting in her lap.

"Is this your dog, Mr. Keene?" he asked.

"Yea." answered Harvey from the ground on the other side of the car.

"Does he bite?"

"Does he look like he bites?" I was doing my best to look harmless.

"Mr. Keene, you call your dog so I can take a look at this woman." He was still polite, but there was an edge to his voice.

"Come on, John T. Get out here."

With me out of the way, the officer gave Karen a quick once over, checking her pupils and feeling the pulse at her neck. Apparently satisfied, he straightened up.

"You had better pray she's OK, Mr. Keene," he said as he walked around to where Harvey lay on the ground. "You know who you have here, don't you?"

"Look, I haven't done nothing..." started Harvey.

"I don't want to hear it, Mr. Keene," he interrupted. "You have the right to remain silent, and I hope you choose to exercise it. Anything you say will be taken down, and can be used against you..."

The officer proceeded to arrest Harvey and put him in the back of the patrol car. He had been as polite about it as either of us had even seen, but it didn't help much. Harvey dislikes being arrested as much as anything, I guess. I didn't feel like being left behind, so I followed them over and hopped in the back seat while the cop was maneuvering Harvey in.

"The dog can't ride in there, Mr. Keene."

"He'll be alright," said Harvey. "He won't hurt nothin'."

"I'm sorry, sir. I can't do that. He'll have to get out."

I didn't feel like going anywhere else, so I hunched down on the far side of Harvey and growled a bit.

"John T. Shut up! Jesus, this ain't the time!"

I always know when Harvey is serious, and he was serious then. He was a little scared too. Still, I didn't want to move.

"I'll have to get someone to take him away," said the officer.

"Just put him in the front with you," Harvey suggested.

"Can't do that either. He has to get out of the back seat now, Mr. Keene."

"Go on, John T." said Harvey. "Get on out now."

I started to whine.

"John T. Please. Get out of the car!"

No way.

"Look, officer, he's just scared. He ain't gonna hurt anybody." Harvey argued. I was doing my best to look harmless. "Look at him."

"I can't have a suspect's dog in the car with me." The officer explained. "Regulations."

"Well, I'm out of ideas," said Harvey Keene.

"Mr. Keene, you are in a great deal of trouble. It appears that you may have drugged and kidnapped the wife of the Chief of Police. You were exceeding the speed limit in a car that might be determined to be stolen. In addition..."

"...I have a dog that won't pay me no mind." Harvey interjected. "Look, man. This ain't been my day. I know this looks bad, but I promise you, I have done nothing wrong. When she wakes up, she'll tell you that."

"I'll have to call someone for the dog," said the officer after a pause. And that's just what he did. Before too much longer, an ambulance came to get Karen. Then another patrol car pulled up behind us and the driver got out.

"What you got here, Bill?" he asked as he walked up.

"Suspect's dog, Jack. Won't leave him."

Jack looked in at me. I whined a little for effect.

"I'm surprised you didn't shoot him, Bill," he said with a straight face. "Is the suspect dangerous?"

"I don't think so."

"You really called for backup. For that?"

"Hey. Since the last time I got my ass chewed off, it's straight by the book."

"But Jesus, Bill," said Jack, looking in at me again. "OK. Let's get this over with."

He turned to Harvey.

"You ain't gonna give me any trouble, are you?" he asked.

"No way." Harvey assured him. "Just be careful with the dog. OK?"

"Don't worry, pal. I got four dogs myself." Jack lifted me out of the back seat as gently as he could, and tucked me under one arm. I liked the way he smelled, but I whined it up just for show. Jack scratched between my ears. "Easy, boy."

"His name's John T. Barleycorn." said Harvey.

"OK, John T. Let's go." Jack took me back to his cruiser. I rode on his lap all the way to the police station. He even had some Milk-Bone Original Biscuits on him.

 

-----------------

 

We got to the station just after Bill arrived with Harvey. While they were booking him, Jack found a can of Beef Flavored Mighty Dog, and set me up in one of the holding cells. There was a long wait while they took a statement, and then Harvey W. Keene was ceremoniously locked in the one next to me. The rest of the cells were empty.

"You seem to be doin' OK, John T." said Harvey. "This sure is one big fuckin' mess though, ain't it?"

I had to agree with him.

"What else do you suppose will go wrong."

As he said that, the door to cells flew open and the Chief of Police of the City of Jacksonville entered the room. Randall Martin smelled like a jerk - deodorant, cologne, and paranoia. He was a big guy, handsome like a movie star, and he carried himself like his chest was a battering ram. Bill was with him as he stopped outside Harvey's cell.

"Mr. Keene," he said. His voice was icy. "Why would you want to kidnap my wife?"

"I want to talk to a lawyer," answered Harvey.

"All in good time, Mr. Keene. But first, I am going to beat the crap out of you."

"I told you what happened..."

"Please shut up, Mister Keene. No one here cares what you have to say." Chief Martin smiled coldly. "Officer Cooper, open that cell, and handcuff the prisoner to the bars."

"But, uh, Chief..."

"You heard me, Cooper," yelled Chief Martin. "Handcuff him to the bars!"

"Wait till she wakes up!" shouted Harvey as the officer started uncertainly toward him. "Your wife will tell you what happened!"

"But she has already, Mister Keene. She says you kidnapped her against her will. Now, Officer Cooper, 'cuff him to the bars."

Bill began to unlock the cell.

"Now, Mr. Keene. Do you have any pre-existing medical conditions that I should be aware of before I kick the shit out of you?" asked Chief Martin.

"Yea. I got a weak aorta and a mortal fear of having the shit kicked out of me," answered Harvey as officer Cooper stepped into the cell.

Right then, there was a commotion outside the door to the holding cells. The door burst open, and Karen Martin walked through.

"Hold on, Randall," she shouted. "Leave him alone!"

"Karen," he said. "What are you doing here? You should be in the hospital."

"Let him go, Randall. Unless you want to go into this now."

"You must be delirious, Karen. Please, you should be in bed."

"Cram it, Randall," answered Karen. She turned to Bill Cooper. "Would you like to see pictures of your Chief fucking his personal assistant?"

"Well, uh..." said officer Cooper.

"Karen. Please," pleaded the Chief.

"Fuck you, Randall. Let him go now. I'll talk to you at home."

Chief Randall Martin turned on his heel and left. Karen turned to Harvey.

"I'm sorry, Harvey. I didn't mean any harm," she said. "My head is killing me, and I assume that is your fault. I guess that makes us even. Huh?"

She turned and walked out. Officer Bill Cooper stood awkwardly in the cell for a moment, then he smiled at Harvey.

"I guess you're free to go," he said.

And that was it. Harvey got his pack and guitar back, and Bill drove us out to the town line.

"I'm glad everything turned out OK," he said as he dropped us off. Then he was gone.

I had a something to take care of, and when I caught up with Harvey, he was ambling south along the side of the road.

"Well. What did you think of that, John T." he said after a time. As usual, I didn't answer.

"I ain't sure I like my fascists that polite." Harvey shook his head and we continued on down the road. He kicked at a rock on the side of the road. I gave a thought to going after it, but there wasn't any telling how long we might go on walking.

Suddenly, he started singing. "You get a fine greeting before your beating in the Jacksonville Jail! They greet you when they beat you at the Jacksonville Station!"

He had already stopped and dropped his pack on the ground, and was taking the old Martin out of the case. I settled down in a shady spot, wondering if Harvey had any food on him. We could be there a while. Then, after a vague attempt at tuning, he went to work.

"Well, I went out on the town last night and got higher than the law allows......."