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Not that he probably needed added incentive, but just exactly what was the bug up Bee Sting’s ass? The fact that Child Services ordered that he not share a household with Gagool and Oswaldina? Did he blame Pace for that? What else would inspire this thug to signify and threaten him? Having already been shotgunned once, Sailor Ripley’s only son vowed to himself that he would not let it happen again. He cleaned and loaded his daddy’s Colt Python and began carrying it with him whenever he left the property, kept it in the top drawer of his desk while he wrote, and on the floor next to his bed while he slept. Pace would have no compunction about taking the oafish Mr. Sting out of the count if need be. He would not initiate a confrontation but neither would he back away from it.

Pace was amused by this potential High Noon scenario. The image of himself at seventy years old, strapped and determined not to be intimidated by a Bug Town bully, carrying a ludicrous crush on a woman very much younger than himself, a former prostitute turned preacher, was a stretch of imagination Pace doubted even his former employer in the movie business, the director Phil Reãl, who was renowned for his largely incomprehensible but darkly riveting films, such as Mumblemouth and the infamous Cry of the Mute, could feature.

Pace’s dreams became increasingly confusing. In one, a gigantic spider seized the planet Earth in its eight sticky arms and began eating it, city after city, rotating the globe as he devoured entire countries, causing oceans and lakes and rivers to spill into outer space. In another, just as he was about to make love to a woman, she began to melt, her limbs and head dripping like candle wax until there was nothing for him to hold.

One afternoon, Pace drove to the ocean and sat in the Pathfinder looking at the water. It was a cold, windy day, and the beach below where he had parked was devoid of people. Then a black dog, a Labrador retriever, came trotting along by itself, dodging waves as he splashed ashore. Pace expected the dog’s keeper to appear, but nobody did. The dog was making great sport timing his movements in order to barely avoid getting wet. That was it, Pace realized, his timing was off. He recalled his brief sojourn in Chicago, sitting on the back porch of his apartment late at night in all kinds of weather, listening to noises made by his neighbors, cats wailing in the alleys, dogs barking, gunshots in the distance. He had felt at peace there for a while both with the world and himself. That was more than ten years ago.

The black Lab finally tired of his game and ran off in the direction from which he had come. Could a dog discover the Up-Down? The wind picked up, buffeting the Pathfinder. Why not? Pace thought. A dog was a sentient being, just like he was. Pace took the Colt Python out of his coat pocket and laid it down on the passenger seat. A big gust of wind almost lifted the front end of the vehicle. Pace started it up, backed away, and headed for home. Just as he was about to turn off the beach road onto the two-lane to Bay St. Clement, the black dog dashed in front of the Pathfinder. Pace braked just in time to avoid hitting him.

“Thanks, buddy,” Pace said. “Maybe I’ve got my timing back now.”