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

parking meters to thwart beefy, thick-calved Meter Maids. He
also uses them to toss to panhandlers because he used to be once,
and probably will be again.
Roy considers it prudent to have good Panhandling Karma.
He also uses them for Juke Boxes.
On that particular night he began supplying Rick with the
two tools that would later be instrumental in Roy’s admission to
Harborview ER—shots of 1800, and a stack of quarters.
The Old Crow had tons of Van Morrison on its Juke Box, and
that night Rick listened to them all, but the one he kept playing
over and over was the one about being Higher Than The World.
Well, I’m higher than the world
And I’m livin’ in my dreams
I’ll make it better than it seems
Today—
Higher than the World
But my head is in a swirl
I gotta give a life a whirl
Today—
Roy kept trying to get Rick out of the Old Crow before
something bad happened. It seemed like in no time at all Rick
had slipped into the second phase.
Melancholia.
The clock was ticking.
Rick was in tears. Everyone was his friend. His bud. No-one
could do any wrong. Everything that was bad was bad because
of The Man. Life was tragic—no, it was comic—no, it was
metafuckingphysical—no, it was ironic—no, shitfuck whatever.
And he began to weep for the world, for its dead children, for its
hungry, its homeless, its Thalidomide babies, the fuckin’ price of
gasoline, and what’s up with gawdamned pigeons shitting on us all
the fuckin’ time?
It was during this stage—Van Morrison growling in the
background—that Roy, the older one, the responsible one,
managed to pry his brother away from the bar and drag his ass
outside. Between Rick’s wailing and screaming obscenities at the
1 ROY ROGERS IN THE 21ST CENTURY