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

His eyes slide briefly, anxiously, longingly, towards his door.
28/RR
Can he make it? Can he get to the door, get it open, slip
inside and slam it shut before baldy draws?
Godamnit! Why did it have to end like this? After all these
years of being crafty, watching his back, changing his name how
many times, living in sleazy pits like this—why did it have to end
like this?
He should go down like a man, at least—guns a-blazin’—not
like some pansy in a bath towel.
WWJFD?
(What Would John Ford Do?)
Roy unclips the Sony tape player from his belt.
Now that the old man can see plainly what it is, his body
relaxes. He had begun to imagine bullets ripping through his
abdomen, exiting through his back, and burying their soft noses
into the B THRO M door.
Roy fumbles clumsily with the little box, anxious fingers
getting in each other’s way. He manages to open its taped lid,
and the cassette in question—the questionable cassette—falls to
the floor.
The old man stares at the tape where the floor interrupts its
fall.
His tape.
The one he had left for—now he gets it. Now he knows why
the bald dude seems familiar. That time—when he was coming
out of the bathroom. His face—its Gumby softness, its bulging
eyes—it all comes flooding back.
He’s not going to have to die tonight, after all.
His testicles return to their normal elevation.
In the meantime, Roy pops his knees, retrieves the tape, and
holds it at arm’s length.
“I—I like it. Your music. A lot. But—here. You can have it
back, OK? And that’s it, like. It’s done. Here.”
The old man takes a step.
“Did, huh?”
He takes another.
1 ROY ROGERS IN THE 21ST CENTURY