Although I had just met Jack for the first time, I had no idea that I would meet him again and that it would mean so much.

The room smelled like I imagined Rubie smelled. Pleasant, not alluring, constant, assuring, stalwart, and safe.

I wanted to burn the leathers right there and then, before even getting into the bath, but instead I piled them carefully in a corner of the room, minimizing the amount of surface contact between them and the floor. If I had had an air-tight box to seal them in I would have done so. Or if I could have nailed the lid onto a wooden crate with them inside, or if I could have dropped them into a bottomless pit.

I decided that they weren't going to move, and I went back to check on my bath water. Just right.

The first time I woke up the water was still hot. I had jumped enough to splash water all over. I knew I needed a lot more rest than that, and that no matter what it was going to be worth the time to take it now. I relaxed as I replayed the events of locking the door, checking the windows, drawing the curtains tighter, bolting the door, setting the chain, and finally booby trapping the room with a lamp on the floor and the lights out. After that I had locked myself in the bathroom with everything except the leathers. Everything was accounted for. All assets, all entrances, all exits, all evidence.

I conjured a dream for myself now. A song that played on the radio a million years ago while I listened and waited for Marconi to invent the future. The sound in my mind was immaculate. I heard it playing the way a live show sounds once in a lifetime.

Everyone hears a live show that's just as good as the best live show they have ever heard. The performance is one thing, but only one thing. The performance given at a live show might be a pinnacle achievement, but for the listener it's different. The audience member has a different experience, and the pinnacle of fandom happens, or can fails to happen independently of the performer. All the performer needs to do is show up and fill a perfunctory role. But the thousand points of light that illuminate the performance are what make it memorable or not. And each observer experiences a different thousand points of light.

In that unique experience of mine, in some distant past I floated a little above the stage and the cowboy playing the stand-up bass grinned as he saw me float above the floor in front of him.

I don't know when I have ever heard this song with instrumentation like this. Did I make it up? Was my brain able to clean the recording so well? If I had tried, I would not have been able to scrub it so clean. So I just listened to a sound like no-one has ever heard:

The silence of a falling star /
Lights up a purple sky /
And as I wonder where you are /
...something, something, something...

I might have heard it before, since I know it is an old song, but I never would have been able to think of it outside of this dream. Maybe I made it up. Probably not though. The version I heard in my dream was clear and powerful, soothing and demanding. Demanding of action, like something needing to be set right.

At some point I really did fall asleep because when I next woke the water was cold. Now I was relaxed enough to be tired. It wasn't very dark out, but I could see the sun was a lot lower now. I dressed and put my boots beside the bed and climbed in to sleep a little longer.

I dreamed another serenade.

I woke and it was dark out. I carefully looked around the room without moving and without making a sound. Slowly, I got out of bed. It was an early hour, but I was rested enough to move on. I was glad to be rid of the motorcycle now, but my mobility was a little more restricted without it. I had thought about driving it all the way north, but I thought about the registration. I didn't know for sure if it was actually insured. I didn't know if the owner was wanted for arrest anywhere. There seemed to be a lot of risk involved in staying connected with it, so I had wiped it down and abandoned it.

I knew I would be able to make my way back to my people but at this point I was feeling very vulnerable. I wasn't afraid of law enforcement any more, or at least I wouldn't be once I got rid of the clothes that did not belong to me. I needed to do a good job of that.

I looked out the window into the back parking lot of the motel. Jack was out there throwing bags of garbage into an incinerator. I packed up the leathers in a plastic laundry bag that was in the room and collected myself and my things to go. I waited until Jack was out of sight and then on the way through the parking lot I disposed of the bag in the incinerator and kept going. I walked out to the street and tried to figure out if this town had a middle so that I could aim for it.

I didn't go far before seeing an eighteen wheeler that slowed down enough for me to ask for a ride. I climbed on up and sat beside a lonely trucker who wanted to tell me stories. Perfect. I love hearing stories live.