Bolin removed the ring and tossed it to Hendrix. “It was kinda tight, anyway.”

“Says you.” Hendrix slipped it back on his finger, and the two men smiled at each other.

“She’s a ghost,” said Cobain, pointing toward Roberta Martin. “We’re…shit, I guess you’d call us…what?”

“Ulcerations of the idealized,” replied Entwistle.

“Good going,” said Morrison. “We’re more than a memory but less than something alive.”

“I still don’t understand.”

“Who says that we do, hon?” asked Billie Holiday.

In the street, Roberta Martin stopped and turned toward the van. Everyone inside became quiet. She smiled at us, lifted her hand, waved, and then disappeared into the sleet.

“Girl had the fire,” said Hendrix, his voice suddenly sad.

“She sure did,” replied Buchanan.

Cobain nodded. “A fuckin’ shame.”

Jerry Garcia leaned forward, passing halfway through Janis Joplin, who shared his seat. “You know anything about physics, Sam?”

“A little, I guess.”

“So you know how black holes are formed by stars that collapse inward on themselves, right?”

“Okay…?”

“And how matter can be reformed into anything as it passes through…I mean, at least theoretically?”

I shrugged. “I guess, sure.”

“Then think of us as something that’s come out of a black hole…only in this case, it’s a black hole of idealization, formed by a collapsing psyche.”

I opened my mouth to speak, then shook my head and looked at the Reverend.

“They’re not ghosts,” he said to me. “They’re the idealized versions of themselves. They’re not the people they were, they’re the icons, what they were imagined to be by those fans who idealized and worshipped them.”

I nodded. “The legends, not the human beings?”

“Right.” He looked back at our passengers. “Right?”

“Close enough,” said Morrison. “At some point, every one of us has been idolized by someone. Be idolized by enough people, and that idol-image becomes more real to them than you ever could be. Fuck, man, I had so many people calling me a ‘rock god’ that I started believing it myself.”

“I wouldn’t know, mate,” said Paul Kossoff.

I looked back at the guitarist. “But you were good. Back Street Crawler was a kick-ass album.”

“Thanks, mate. But after I left Free…” He shrugged. “All I was to the world—to whatever part of it still noticed me—was ‘ex-Free guitarist…’ And the only thing Free did that people still remember or care about was ‘All Right Now.’”

“But at least that’s remembered,” I said.

Kossoff smiled. “Yeah, there’s that.”

“All it takes,” said Buchanan, “is one person. One person idolizes you, and you’re screwed. Like it or not, from that moment on…you kinda split in two. Some part of you is always aware of the idol-half.” He gave his head a little shake. “And it can mess with you.”

“Amen,” said Cobain.

Morrison tapped my shoulder. “You need to get moving again.”

“Where are we going?”

“Back to the good Reverend’s shelter.”

“Why there?”

“Because,” said Entwistle, “the source of the ulceration that brought us here should be there by now.”