“I hate to admit it, but whenever I am at liberty, it seems I am ever on the prowl for hard narcotics. When I am thusly focused, Hercules, Gilgamesh, Sir Galahad—none of them boys has got nothin’ on me.” Bobby sucked on his cigarette. He said, “This guy, your gentleman friend, Carl, sounds a bit snakey if ya ask me. I’m truly appalled by the way things have gone funny since I’ve been away. You just can’t trust anyone anymore. Even your square johns are becoming dangerously unpredictable.”

“Oh God! I’m so messed up I can’t think straight,” she said.

“Your best friend runs off with your boyfriend. I would guess you would be messed up. I don’t blame you, darlin’. I thought you said he was married—Carl was married. Tell me about his precious wife?”

“She hasn’t got a clue. She’s just out of it. Doesn’t know a thing.”

“They always know. What do you mean, doesn’t know? They always know. I mean you can’t imagine it because you’re in love with this rattler snake. You are not bein’ objective. You’re blind to the whole deal.”

“I can hear you smoking. Aren’t you supposed to quit smoking when you’ve got diabetes?”

“Yes; it’s one hundred times worse. I cannot drink. I cannot eat so I’m going to smoke, take the narcotic and defile myself in all other ways possible. I am a rebel, you know.”

“The Leader of the Pack,” she said.

He laughed at this and went off on a rap. “Kind sir, your leathers, Levi’s, an’ your motorcycle boots are quite nasty; your tattoos look like Haitian voodoo, your hair is all greasy and that beard is a fright. The very smell of you is revoltin’ and if looks could kill, I do believe I would be dead. Everything is quite in order, we are all of us conformists of one sort or another, but tell me, whyever did you get a foreign-made chopper? How are you going to be a bad ass-kicker on that high-windin’ Japanese piece of shit?”

“You inflicted that refrigerator on me and now you’re Jap bashing!”

“Truly, darlin’, a two-cycle engine is an offense to the human ear. Your Harley-Davidson rumbles in the lower ranges. Whenever I steal a bike for a job, I search out a Harley. They have become utterly dependable in recent years, an’ if you are spotted in the commission of a crime, the heat will fall out on the biker groups, not yours truly.”

She said, “What kind of drugs did you get? I’ve got downers. You could have asked me. I miss you.”