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

It is what o’time in the whenever and Roy’s slouching towards
his forties and he’s never done nothing bad to nobody not even to
himself.
What’s he waiting for?
An invitation?
Didn’t he just get one?
Is he waiting for someone to twist his arm?
Pete might stick a cocked, loaded gun in his face, but he would
never make him do something he didn’t want to do.
Then is he waiting for his host to beg?
Pete would never do that, either. Nor would he berate,
belittle, or threaten to cut out his liver and eat it.
He’s just asked a simple question, made a simple offer.
Take it or leave it.
No pressure, Roy.
And it is because of this, the fact that he has been left to
choose for himself, that he decides to accept.
Roy is getting that tingling feeling again.
He’s tingling because he’s about to embark upon an
adventure.
An adventure with a total stranger and nutcase named Pistol
Pete.
Be cool, Roy.
“Why not?”
Pete elevates his eyebrows.
“Why not, indeed?”
Roy watches him roll a joint.
How many times has he seen people do this? He has always
believed that when someone smoked pot their brain got tiny little
holes in it and that, if they kept smoking, those holes would grow
larger and larger until their thoughts, if they ever had any, would
have to take great big detours around the holes in order to get
anywhere, and that was why stoners always talked so slow and
moved so slow and forgot what they were saying in mid-sentence.
He didn’t want that to happen to him.
Still—how could a puff or two hurt?
He figures the resulting pinholes would be so tiny that his
thoughts would probably not even notice.
ROY ROGERS IN THE 21ST CENTURY 2