HOSS: It’s just a little hard to take, is all. If it’s true. I don’t believe we could be that cut off. How could that happen? We’re playing in a vacuum? All these years. All the kills and no one’s watching?

CROW: Watching takes a side seat. Outside. The Game hammered the outside.

HOSS: And now you hammer us with fucking indifference! This is incredible! It’s just like I thought. The Outside is the Inside, now.

CROW: Harrison Beatle did that ancient. It cuts a thinner slice with us. Roles fall to birth blood but we wing that by playing intergalactic modes. There’s scores marked on Venus now, Leathers. Neptune, Mars.

HOSS: How do you get to Neptune in a ’58 Impala!

CROW: How’d you get to earth in a flathead Merc?

HOSS: There! Right there! Why’d you slip just then? I sense a boggle. Some vague humanness. You’re into a wider scope than I thought, bug boy, but there’s a crack. You’re playing my time Gypsy but it ain’t gonna wash. And get the fuck outa my chair!

(CROW slides out of the chair and cruises the space. HOSS sits in the chair, sips his wine. Slowly, CROW begins to assimilate HOSS’s walk until he’s got it down perfect.)

CROW: Yer tappets are knockin, Rock Man. I smell an internal smokin at the seams.

HOSS: I’m beginning to suss the mode, Crow Bait. Very deadly but no show. Time is still down to the Mark, kid, no matter what planet you visit. How’s yer feel for Mind Trains?

CROW: More ancient pitter-patter? Smokey? Miracles? The Platters?

HOSS: Don’t play mooncalf with me. Mind Trains is hieroglyphic in any domain.

CROW: Breakdown lane. Side a the road days, Hoss.

HOSS: Yeah, well that’s the way it’s gonna be. Turf decrees the tenor. Even in your sphere.

CROW: Throwin to snake-eyes now, Leathers.

HOSS: (voice shift) So you gambled yer measly grubstake for a showdown with the Champ. Now ain’t that a bit of pathetic. Pity and shame. Pity and shame. You young guns sproutin up outa prairie stock. Readin dime novels over breakfast. Drippin bacon fat down yer zipper. Pathetic. Gone blown right across the wide wasteland.

CROW: Cute shift, Leathers. Real cute. Time warps don’t shift the purpose any more than bad acting. Yer clickin doorhandles now, hermano. There’ll be more paint on your side than mine. Guaranteed.

HOSS: We’d drag you through the busted street fer a nickel. Naw, wouldn’t even waste the gelding. Just crunch yer knees and leave ya fer dogmeat.

CROW: You’re about tached out in second, aren’t you Leathers? I’d go to overdrive right quick before the universal takes a shit.