volume one IN THE D U D L E Y C L A R K - Ohio Vine Tours

The guy turns and glares.
And, for the first time, Roy notices his face.
He looks a lot like the late Frank Zappa, who had a musical
group called Mothers of Invention, and who was a cool dude
who even conducted symphonies, but who never got regular,
professional checkups of his male parts.
Frank may be pushing up daisies, but his music and mustache
live on.
The Zappa lookalike continues to glare at Roy.
Roy, who would look like a doofus even if Oprah gave him a
makeover.
Glaring Guy’s lips move.
Roy can’t hear a word.
Glaring Guy’s lips move again.
He watches hatefully as Roy’s lips move.
Glaring Guy assumes he must have asked some dumb-ass
question.
The worst part of his job is dealing with the fucks who come
in and ask dumb-ass questions. If it was him, he would keep the
door locked and barred and welded shut, but the owner would
freak and who the fuck else would hire him to sit around all day
listening to music while augmenting his personal LP collection
without paying a dime?
Doofus is moving his lips again.
Glaring Guy is not the least bit curious about what the doofus
is saying. In fact, he wishes he would evaporate. But word might
get back to the owner, so he reaches under the counter where sits
a big, black 126 pound AT3000 seven-channel amp with 2,100
watts of power—enough to stop charging gorillas in their tracks
and demolecularize kangaroos—and drops out the volume.
There is the story of a man who grew up next to Niagara
Falls. Never once in his life did he notice the roar of those
billions of tons of falling water. Then, one day, he moved away.
And went insane.
Roy has heard this story, but never understood until now.
Now he can imagine the cold sweats that man must have
endured as he went insane without his friendly childhood roar.
ROY ROGERS IN THE 21ST CENTURY 12