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

Roy smiles and nods back.
“Roy what?”
Roy replies,
“Weston.”
The old guy’s almost friendly face twists into a sneer.
“Fuck you, asshole!”
He ducks inside his room and slams the door shut behind him.
Roy stares at his slammed shut door. On the other side,
deadbolts are shooting home and chains rattling.
Roy’s brain is all a-jumble—what just happened?
All he said was his name.
Stunned by this unexpected fork in the road, he is turning to
slump away when, on the other side of the door, deadbolts reverse
direction.
He stares at the battered white door, his lips dry as if linehung
on a summery day, while Old Guy undoes sixty or seventy
locks.
He speculates on a motive for Old Guy’s highly anticipated
return, and all he can come up with is—he’s changed his mind!
His summer-dried lips curl into an autumnal smile.
The door snaps open, but remains chained—so it only opens
about three inches—just wide enough to see Old Guy’s burl of a
nose.
“That really your name?”
Roy nods.
“What?”
Roy clears his throat.
“Yes. Yes, sir, it is.”
Long pause.
“That was one’ve his names.”
Roy nods again, but decides it’s the wrong direction for his
head to go, so he shakes it from side-to-side.
“No. I dint.”
“Yep,” Old Guy’s nose continues. “Back in the day when him
and Bob started th’ Sons.”
Roy wants desperately to get this right. He feels like a
1 ROY ROGERS IN THE 21ST CENTURY