We sat in the living room and waited for him to wake up. I sat in a chair and Allie sat cross-legged on the floor. “What’s his problem?” Allie asked. “He doesn’t have a problem.” “Is he drunk?” “I don’t think so.” “Is he a lunatic?” “Not completely.” Joe sat up slowly and then bobbed his head forward, moving his mouth as if the sleep had been a meal and he was finishing up chewing. “Yep,” he said, “that’s where they go sometimes.” I looked at Allie and she looked at me. “Who’s Tom Gettysburg?” Allie said. She was all no-nonsense. “Roc, what day is it?” And he yawned and then let himself fall back on the couch. “What year?” he added. Allie sprung up to her chuck taylors, took Joe’s wrists in her hands and yanked. “Hey! Hey! What’s the big idea?” “Joe, you’ve been sleeping since yesterday. For like eighteen hours you’ve been sleeping.” “Who’s she?” “That’s Allie. I invited her to help me bury your body ‘cause I thought you were dead.” “Really?” “No, not really. Why don’t you give her the scoop huh? And fill me in while you’re at it. You’re a person of interest, by the way, and now I’m on the radar.” Joe pushed himself up off the couch and sighed strongly. “Don’t you think I know that? Shoot! I’ve got the whole militia after me. They’d unleash Kong after me if they could. But the sonsabitches killed Kong too. Can we trust her?” I nodded my head. Joe put a cigarette in his mouth and then immediately took it out. “Gettysburg is the last man standing. He’s the last good cat there is.” He pointed the cigarette at Allie and then at me. “He's at the end of the road, Gettysburg is. And he doesn’t even know it. The last of the best is about to take a swan dive into the deep end of everyone’s miseries. It’s all pooled up! We thought it was nothing!” He put the cigarette in his mouth, grabbed his bag and then sprung out the door. We were on the road at eight o’clock at night. I was driving. Allie was riding passenger and Joe was sprawled out in the back with the window down, lighting cigarette after cigarette. “This guy keeps smoking like that and we’ll all be dead by tomorrow,” Allie said. “Smoking, is a human tradition,” Joe asserted poetically to the roof of the car. “Joe why don’t you give it a rest eh?” Joe tossed the cancer stick out the window. He leaned forward against Allie’s seat. “I wasn’t able to get the guitar, as you may have noticed.” “That’s all right man.” “Wait, Rocco, you play?” “No, not really. It was kind of a half-cooked idea. Sometimes I’ve got these melodies in my head.” Allie was smiling and looking out the window as if she was trying to hide it. “What are you smiling about, good-timer?” I said to her. She did not take her eyes away from the window. She watched everything outside move along like a picture show. “Sometimes I hear whole horn sections," she began, "and crazy strings. And they paint for me. The conductor whips her arms emphatically and splashes of yellow, splashes of blue, visions of pink go bleeding towards some vacant space of everything.” I looked at Joe. His face was squinting at the notion, trying to picture it. He returned to the back seat and lit up a cigarette. “So what,” Allie continued, “was this supposed to be a tour bus?” “I suppose so. I’ve got a bunch of words written, some melodies. I don’t know who we were going to play for though.” I turned back to Joe for a moment to see if he would come to the rescue, fill in the gaps, but he was sound asleep with his hand dangling out the window. I watched the cigarette get taken by the wind. Why was he so tired? “He’ll start a fire someday, that one.” “Looks like he already has,” Allie answered. “He’s got us barreling east in this car, hasn’t he?” The road was dark and the path was only lit a little ways ahead of us. For some reason I was calmer than I had been in a while. Not resting. Calm, and ready. “No, it’s not him. In fact, MW needs us more than we need him. And for some reason I can’t understand, and I won’t speak for you Allie, but I know something’s waiting for me out there,” and I nodded my head towards the dark. Allie peered into it. She was not calm. She was apprehensive. I did not think to tell her it would all be all right.