“We’ve got weird scenes inside the gold mine, is what we’ve got.” He turned off the radio and we pulled over so that a too-skinny young man—maybe late 20’s, early 30’s—could get in. This guy didn’t so much stroll as slink toward the van, moving with the easy grace of a cat across the top of a wall; head tilted slightly to the left, long dark hair caught in the wind, hips swaying from side to side.

I leaned toward the Reverend. “Is it just me, or does that guy look like—”

“There’s no ‘look like’ about it, Sam. That’s him.”

Okay, there’s no way to say this without sounding like a basket case, so I’m just going to say it and be done: we’d just picked up Jim Morrison, lead singer of The Doors, a man who supposedly died in Paris almost 30 years ago.

Morrison climbed into the back of the van, closed the door, and sat staring down at the floor.

“Mr. Mojo Risin,” said the Reverend.

Morrison looked up at him with heavy-lidded eyes and gave a short nod.

“I’m a big fan.” The Reverend offered him a cup of coffee. Morrison took it with a half-grin, then sipped at it.

The Reverend watched him for a moment, and then asked, “How is it you wound up here?”

And if I’d had any doubts as to who this really was sitting in the back seat, they were erased when he looked back up and said, “I am the Lizard King, I can do anything.”

It was that voice. “The killer awoke before dawn…”, “Break on through…”, “When the still sea conspires in armor…” The same timbre, the same inflections. Not a good imitation of the singer from a tribute band. The real thing.

I started shaking. Morrison saw this, then reached over and squeezed my shoulder. “Easy there, Sam. You got no reason to be afraid of me.”

All I could do was nod.

“Why are you here tonight?” asked the Reverend.

Morrison shook his head. “Sorry, man. I’m not allowed to say.”

“Understood. Can you tell us where we need to go next?”

“Second Popsicle pickup point.” Morrison grinned. “Man, alliteration. I’d forgotten what that feels like on the tongue. Not that I ever used it much—alliteration, not my tongue.”

We drove off into the sleeting night.

5

When I was a kid, I wanted so much to be a rock star. The music, the adulation, the fame and riches, all of it.

But mostly the music.

I tried my hand at half a dozen different instruments; the harmonica, the guitar, bass, drums, the piano, and even—hand to God—the flute (hey, if Ian Anderson could use it to make Jethro Tull one of the greatest groups of all time, why the hell not?). I was a failure at all of them, except for the guitar, and even then I had the sense to realize that if I dedicated myself to the instrument, if I practiced for ten hours a day every day for the rest of my life, I would be an at-best average guitar player…and the world has too many of those already.