It was slower and prettier going off the beaten path. They were deeper in New England. Ted had the Dead blasting as he slogged his way through a second Saharan bologna sandwich. He kept eyeing the food Mariana had delivered. The frijoles’ siren song. Finally, he could restrain himself no longer. He reached over and grabbed a handful of something and jammed it in his mouth, and then mouthful after mouthful, like a man coming out of water, gasping for air. Marty approved:
“Eat, drink, and be merry.”
“How ’bout two outta three? Where do we go up here?”
“Fuck if I know.”
“What do you mean? This is your neck of the woods.”
“No, it’s not. Not my neck.”
“You grew up outside of Boston.”
“No, I didn’t. Let me have more coffee.”
“We can’t be stopping to pee every five minutes.” But Marty grabbed the thermos anyway.
“Said in the journal you were from just outside Boston, and as a young man you used to travel all around New England on your Triumph motorcycle.”
“Motorcycles scare me.”
“You don’t ride?”
“God, no.”
“But you’re from Boston?”
“Nope. Never even been there.”
“What? Then why … why are you a Sox guy?”
“I lived in New York and I like rubbing people the wrong way.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“Why? It kept people from talking to me about anything meaningful and pissed them off at the same time. Win-win.”
“Were you born in 1918?”
“What an insult.”
Ted coughed.
“Will you put on a fucking scarf?”
“What’s with you and the scarf already? Don’t change the subject. How much of the journal is real and how much is fiction?”
“It’s faction. And that’s a fact, Jack. But it’s fiction. That’s a fict, Dick. It’s like Razzles. No one knows. History is a big fuckin’ mystery.”
“Settle down, Rhymin’ Simon.”
“I don’t know anymore and I don’t care. Don’t wanna know about Yeats or Whitman and what they did with their dicks, don’t wanna know about me. Just wanna…”
“Wanna what?”
“Just wanna fuckin’ be. And I gotta pee. Pull the fuck over, Jeeves.”