“I never claimed to be smart, Sheriff, but I also don’t believe I’m breaking any laws, so if you don’t mind…” The guy reached for his drink again but Grant was faster, pulling it from the bar and setting it on the sink.

“Look,” said Grant, “I don’t have many rules here, but there are a couple that I won’t compromise for anybody. The first one is, no one gets more than five drinks over the course of the evening. And the second one is, I reserve the right to lower that number if I’ve got a good reason.”

The guy shook his bottle of pills. “And these would be your ‘good reason’?”

Grant nodded. “Afraid so. You walk out of here with your pills and my liquor in your system and anything bad happens, it’s my ass that can legally be held responsible. This might not be the fanciest place of its kind, but it’s been in my family for four generations and I won’t risk that for anyone.” He pointed at the pills. “Especially someone who mixes prescription meds with booze. You wanna play Russian Roulette with liquor and pills, do it somewhere else.”

The guy stared at him for a moment, and then gave a slow, sad nod. “I’m not trying to hurt myself. Really, I’m not.”

“Then why mix your meds with booze?” asked the Reverend.

“Because every once in a while, neither one works well enough on its own.” He reached into his backpack once more and removed a small object that he looked at for maybe two seconds before closing his hand around it.

“Did’ya ever wonder,” he said to Grant, his slur worsening, “why it is that all the bad stuff that happens to us we equate with the hand?”

Grant shook his head. “I’m not sure I follow you, friend.”

“Every time something goes wrong, every time there’s a natural disaster or a bunch of people get killed when a balcony or bridge or something like that collapses, you always hear folks talk about things like ‘the Hand of Fate,’ or ‘the Hand of Destiny.’ When someone dies they say, ‘the Hands of Time stopped running for them.’ Stuff like that.”

“Sure, I’ve heard those phrases.”

“D’ya know why they use those phrases?”

“No idea.”

With the index finger of his right hand he traced the ball of his left thumb. “This area of the hand, it’s what’s called the ‘Mount of Venus.’ The first phalange symbolizes will-power, the second, logic.” He then touched the base of his index finger. “This is the ‘the Mount of Jupiter’ and it symbolizes...what? Ah, hell, you’d think I could remember what…”

“Arrogance, haughtiness, and pride,” said the Reverend.

Jackson shook his head. “Figures you’d know that.”

The guy was only half-listening to them as he pointed toward other areas of his hand, talking aloud, seemingly, to reassure himself he remembered everything. “The Mount of Saturn, the digitus infamis of the Romans…fate and destiny, that one. The Mount of Apollo at the base of the third finger stands for music and imagination and art…see how weak mine is? Bull-shit I imagined all of it. But I’ve got a pretty strong Mount of Mercury, that’s for learning, so maybe there’s some untapped potential there.”