I had put away about eight beers by that time. My blood alcohol content was probably in the .10 range or maybe a little lower or higher. It didn’t actually matter. Squeezing her legs together didn’t help matters any at all. It was hopeless. I didn’t know what to do and I didn’t want to go back home. I kept riding, drinking, riding. I thought maybe I might run into somebody. I knew I’d eventually have to bury my dog. I knew she was sitting out on the porch, waiting on me. Watching all the lights coming down the road, wondering if each one was me. I felt sad about it and bad about it. I opened another beer and realized the folly of not stopping by the liquor store while I was in town and purchasing a half pint of peach schnapps to go along with my nice cold beers. I deliberated for several minutes over this dilemma and found it was probably an oversight on my part. I did not want to go home, neither did I want to be indicted by the Mississippi Highway Safety Patrol for Driving Under the Influence of alcohol. I observed that I was driving fairly straight and I had not slurred any words yet to my knowledge. Quite the opposite, in fact, and my eyes were not red and my blood pressure did not feel elevated. I felt that a short run back to town would not have astronomical odds in favor of my being overtaken after a highspeed pursuit. I turned around at a small place on the road and began to retrace my route back to civilization.

I returned to and from town without incident and once more resumed my erratic wanderings over country roads near my home. The evening hour had begun to wane and it was nearly dark. I knew if I stayed out much longer there would be some dramatic scene with Mildred upon my arrival home, and I wished to postpone that as much as possible. Mildred could never understand my wanderlust and my anxiety over her never-ending overtures of love and affection and requests for sexual gratification, which she constantly and at all hours of the night pressed upon me while I tried to sleep. However, I knew that however late I was, Mildred would probably only raise a token protest in lieu of the fact that I was home and could begin once more plunging fruitlessly into the depths of her passion. The only defense available to me was to guzzle quantities of alcoholic beverages that would allow me to arrive home in a state of lethargic consciousness in which a stupor might then be attained.