It was Allie and I up into the early morning hours speaking on the crazy whirlwind of things and throwing our theories off of some balcony to see if anything made a splash. She was an eerie kid, that Allie, and that’s why we got along. She was talking about the swamps of Louisiana. “You should see ‘em, you should see ‘em Rocco!” “Have you ever seen them?” “Well, no, but you should see them! They’re spooky and beautiful and I’ll bet they just swallow you up without making you drown at all. Riding on into it. Swaying on into it. And the crazy reptiles!” I was trying to set up what she was talking about in my head, but something else was fighting for center stage. My calmness was subsiding and something a bit impatient was taking its place. Basically it was this: where in the heck were we going? and what in the heck were we to do? “Say,” Allie said, “how come he’s so bushed all the time?” Milky Way Joe’s snoozing eyes were in my rear-view mirror. His head bobbed along with the car. “He’s dying,” I said. Allie shot her head back at Joe. “No kidding?” “No kidding,” I said. “What’s wrong with him?” “I don’t know.” The sun had yet to pierce anything and say hello and I was wondering when it would. I stopped once to put gas in the car and get a coffee. I put the cup on the roof of the car and squeezed the pump in the chilling air. I could see Allie snoozing, her head almost completely horizontal and resting on her shoulder, her long hair consuming her like a cloud. Then I saw Joe and a shock seized me. His eyes were wide open and bloodshot. He took a massive breath in and his body began jolting up and down with nervous excitement. Then he wiped at the foggy window frantically and tried to peer through the little slot which quickly fogged up again. I heard a muffled groan then heard the door open, the the sound of his shoes shuffling and scratching on the concrete. “Joe, you all right?” I said. “It’s the rougarou! The rougarou goddammit!” He was shuffling back and forth on the pavement as if he was playing defense, waving his arms up in the air and looking around for someone to give his warning to. “Whoa man, take her easy! What are you trying to say?” “The rougarou! There isn’t enough time to prepare…” His voice trickled off. Whatever energy had snatched him up was putting him back down. I swear I saw all the breath go out of him as his arms dangled freely and his shoulder fell hard against the car. Allie was up. We helped him into the backseat and then I went into the store to get him some water. The guy at the cashier told me to take the water and beat it, that he didn’t like the scene we were making. I didn’t say anything. As I returned to the car, a pickup truck pulled in behind us. Behind its headlights I could see two familiar faces. It was the man and woman who had questioned me at Blondie’s. The man got out and was preparing to pump some gas, but he didn’t take his eyes off me. I peeled out of that place, engine screaming and all. “What a hurricane!” Allie cried. “You had some kind of nightmare, man!” I couldn’t believe it but Allie was thriving in the excitement. She was in the backseat with Joe, holding him like a baby. “The rougarou…the rougarou…” Joe was going on and on. “Rougarou!?” Allie declared with amazement. “I’ll be damned Rocco, he’s rambling on and on about the rougarou.” “What’s that?” I asked. I was looking in the rear-view mirror like a maniac, anticipating the tail of the friends who had joined us at the gas station. “The rougarou is from the bayou. No kidding, man, I was just talking about the Louisiana swamps. Shoot, Joe, I’m sorry. I think I triggered a nightmare for him.” “The rougarou…we gotta get away…” Joe went on murmuring. “Rougarou is a kind of werewolf creature,” Allie said. “Thing’ll rip your throat out.” “I’ve got a tumor,” Joe suddenly said with more lucidity. “That’s why I’m dyin’. They couldn’t get old MW Joe with a bullet so they put something in his brain.” “How long do you have?” Allie asked. “Doctors sat my mother and me down and said maybe two months, maybe five years. They have no damn clue. But I know what’s what. I know. Do you guys really believe me? You believe we’ll find Tom Gettysburg? What do you think? You think I’m crazy? I wouldn’t blame you if you did.” “Shhh,” Allie said to him. “Take it easy. I believe you. I’ve been listening day in and day out to so-called sane people all my life. Even if you are crazy, I’m glad I came.” “You wouldn’t believe this nightmare folks. You wouldn’t believe it. It was so real. The rougarou, that motherfucker. I was on an airplane reading the funny papers and some bastard had cut out the final comic strip, some bastard cut it out so no one would know the punch line. Next thing I knew I was on a train and this gorgeous gal was sitting across from me, but her face melted into a cup of broccoli cheddar soup, and I was screamin’ out for someone to help this gal, but instead this real greasy bastard with a mustache came around and he asked for my ticket, so I gave it to him, but then it turned into a small piece of bread and he tore smaller pieces from it and ate up the soup with it, and I said ‘aw man you’re a fuckin’ lousy greasy ticket eater’ and my words were coming out all weird and I started thinking everything I was saying was off and wrong. Then I wasn’t on a train anymore. I was rowing a boat in the bayou and this gypsy woman was talking about the rougarou. The full moon was behind her through the mist and I was starting to feel awful. Then this real tall sonofabitch was walking through the swamp. And he morphed into the rougarou. A terrible creature. The thing had flesh hanging from its teeth from the last kill and its eyes were glowing with spirals. It was bony, not muscular, thin as can be, creepy thin, and fur like mold. The damn thing looked like it was melting. And then Roc, you were there, and you started trying to hum one of your melodies. And Allie, you fuckin’ rolled on in on some kind of waterboard, and you had buckets of paint that were leaking into the swamp and making all these halloween colors appear, like glowing green and pumpkin orange. And you began, the two of you, to battle this fuckin’ monster. Allie, you were hauling paint up into the air and it was sticking and it constructed this wall that was also a treasure chest, and when it opened the rougarou couldn’t help but be drawn in by the golden majesty of what was inside. I couldn’t even look directly in it or I felt I would lose myself. And Rocco, you were singing the greatest songs I’d ever heard. And it all seemed like it would be all right, that you two would defeat the monster. But suddenly I was disappearing, and at last I saw the creature multiply into these other sharp-toothed fiends. There were so many of them. So many…” There was perspiration on his forehead. “He’s as hot as a skillet,” Allie said. “I’ve got to get us off the road and out of this car,” I said. “We’ve been driving too long, and plus, we’re being followed.” “We are?” “Yeah.” “Fuckin’ so many of 'em…” Joe was rambling, he was delirious. I got off at the next exit and began taking random turns. I didn’t know where to go, but at least I could confuse those two following us. I had this terrible dread that if I didn’t get Joe someplace he could rest, eat some food and regain his strength, that he would die right there in the backseat.