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the street as Dad or Pete. Then one day he was falsely accused of something, stealing sheets maybe, and fired summarily with no pension. He was now getting back at people. This was his way of getting back at the motel bosses. But when I asked about this, he said, “No, I’m just fooling around. It’s something to do. My wife is an old shopping-cart lady. That’s Mrs. Meigs I’m speaking of. She picks up bottles all day and I do this all night.”
    â€œYou weren’t wearing that jacket thing before.”
    â€œThis is my traffic coat. Mrs. Meigs made it for me so the cars and trucks could see me at night and not run over me. It’s just got this one button in the middle and these two pockets here at the bottom. How do you like it?”
    â€œI like it all right. It looks like a pharmacist’s coat.”
    â€œIt don’t have near enough pockets to suit me but you can’t have everything.”
    â€œWhat else do you do? What else are you going to do tonight?”
    â€œFirst let me tell you what I’m not going to do. I’m not going to stand here any longer and talk to you. If I gave this much time to everybody, I’d never get through my rounds, would I?”
    He produced a harmonica, not a trombone this time, and rapped it against his palm in a professional way to dislodge any spittle or crumbs. He stuck it in his mouth and inhaled and exhaled, making those two different sounds, in and out, and then he rapped it again to clear the passages and put it away. I had nothing to say to that, to those two chords, and he bolted and was gone.
    I took the card to bed and studied it. Tiny things take on significance when I’m away from home. I’m on the alert for omens. Odd things happen when you get out of town. At the top of the card there were two crossed American flags printed in color. Under that was the ever-popular “Kwitcherbellyachin” and at the bottom was “Mr. and Mrs. Meigs/Laredo, Texas.” On the back of the card Meigs or his wife had added a penciled postscript: “adios AMIGO and watch out for the FLORR.”
    I couldn’t make anything out of this and I turned off the light. I could hear a Mexican shouting angrily at Meigs down the way. I still couldn’t sleep. I got up again and drank one of the beers from the ice chest. I looked at the card again. “Kwitcherbellyachin”! I thought, Well, all right, I will. I decided to leave at once. I would get the jump on Jack. It was worth a try. I dressed quickly and loaded the suitcase and the ice chest in the trunk of the car.
    Nothing at all was stirring in downtown Laredo. I didn’t bother with the Mexican car insurance. I drove across the Rio Grande and on the other side of the bridge a Mexican officer flagged me into a parking compound that was enclosed by a high wire fence.
    I was the only person entering Nuevo Laredo at that dead hour but it still took a long time to get my tourist card and car papers. The Mexican officer at the typewriter didn’t believe that my Arkansas driver’s license was really a driver’s license. At that time it was just a flimsy piece of paper torn from a pad and it looked like a fishing license. I gave him the registration slip for my Torino and he didn’t bother to look outside to see if that was in fact what I was driving. The big problem was the typing. When you run up against a policeman at a typewriter, you might as well get a Coke and relax.
    While I was waiting, an idea drifted into my head that made me laugh a little. The idea was to get this Mexican fellow and Nub or Dub on a television show for a type-off. You would have them on a stage glaring at each other from behind their big Underwoods and Nub would try to peck out “Choice of 3 Veg.” on his menu while this Mexican was trying to get “Raymond Earl Midge” down on his form. People would be howling from coast to coast at those two slow-pokes. I