Nobody likes a clown at midnight

Hapscomb's Texaco sat on Number 93 just north of Arnette, a pissant four-street burg about 110 miles from Houston.

But you don't do it. Because guys like us, Red, we know there's a third choice. An alternative to staying simon-pure or bathing in the filth and the slime. It's the alternative that grown-ups all over the world pick. You balance off your walk through the hog-wallow against what it gains you. You choose the lesser of two evils and try to keep your good intentions in front of you. And I guess you judge how well you're doing by how well you sleep at night... and what your dreams are like.

Wherever you write is supposed to be a little bit of a refuge, a place where you can get away from the world. The more closed in you are, the more you're forced back on your own imagination.

Animals don't know as much about jealousy as people, but they're not ignorant of it, either.

Take the dead from the dead, the old proverb said; only a corpse may speak true prophecy.

There is the Watchmaker Theory that God wound up the universe and let it tick. That may be. or it may be that he takes a hand in things from time to time. But whatever it is, I am sure that there is something out there.