The Armageddon Rag

Gopher John Slozewski had been a huge, glowering bear of a man who liked to dress in ragged jeans and loose tie-dyed smocks. With his vast black beard, his moon face, ruddy cheeks, and paunch, he had sometimes reminded Sandy of a sort of dark analogue to Santa Claus.

The turnpike cops had been as bitterly anti-freak as any in the country, and they used to lie in wait for hippies and longhairs and go after them with an almost crazed zeal.

Maybe he was being immature and irresponsible. But damn it, he had a right to be a little immature at times, didn't he? It wasn't as if he'd run off to join the circus.

Sandy laughed. The Hogmobile had been a green 1966 Mustang, covered with leftover flower decals from the '68 McCarthy campaign.

He'd put nearly 180,000 miles on her before she finally gave up the ghost and went to wherever dead Mustangs go to pasture.

‘Why not?’ Sandy said, a bit bemused at the idea of chewing over the merits of his first novel with a deputy in the Maine woods en route to a murder site.