Jules Hinton's Strange Trip: Chapter 2 by JCH and Kas  

        It happened again a few days later.  He had decided against sleeping under the stars as the sky looked threatening.  He found a little inn in a town called Gun Barrel, Texas and, after his first home-cooked meal in a long while, found comfort in the small confines of a room at the end of a hall.
         He had just laid down for the night when he heard footsteps coming down the hall.  He could tell from their sound that they were either dress shoes or boots.  In the back of his mind, he knew he should be alarmed.  It didn’t hit him until they came to a stop just outside his door.  Boots.  The boots out in the desert that night.  Under the doorway, he could see the shadow of a someone standing there.
         Jules rose quietly and walked slowly to the door.  He gulped as his hand went to the door knob.  Without allowing himself to think about what he was doing, he swung the door opened.  There was nobody there.
         The door across the hall jerked opened and a middle-aged man appeared.  “What’s going on here?”  The man had apparently been asleep and did not like having been rudely awakened.
         “I thought I heard something out here.  Or someone.  I guess I was wrong.”
         The man softened a little.  “No, you weren’t wrong.  I heard it too.  Sounded like someone had boots on or something.  Like a cop.”  Jules thought the man put too much emphasis on the last part of that, like he thought one should be looking for him.  The man stared at Jules for a moment before turning and going back inside his room.  Jules closed the door to his own room and locked it before returning to his bed.
         But sleep would not come easily as his mind raced to find answers.  He had managed to put what happened last week to rest as something that would never, and could never, be explained.  But then it happened again.  Or did it?  The only thing that could possibly connect the two events were the boots.  But this was Texas.  Didn’t everybody wear boots in Texas?
         He didn’t know how long he lay there before falling into a fitful sleep.  When he woke up the next morning, he was as tired as he had been the night before.

         He walked into an almost empty diner at a little after 10 a.m. to order his first full breakfast in quite a while.  So long, in fact, that he could not recall the last time.
         He was sitting in a booth near the back when a waitress, an older woman, came out of the kitchen.  She saw him and smiled.  “I’ll be with you in a minute, dear.”  It struck Jules that she thought she knew him, or at least recognized him, the way she had smiled and spoke to him.  It wasn’t what she said, but rather, how she said it.
         She walked up with her notepad.  When she reached where Jules was sitting, she looked at him for such a long time that it made him feel uncomfortable.  “Can I help you?” he asked, aware of the irony of the customer asking the waitress that question.
         “I’m sorry.  You look like someone I know.”  She continued to stare at him.  “The resemblance is uncanny.  Do you have a brother?”
         “No, I don’t.”  He did have a step-brother who, not surprisingly, he looked nothing like.
         “Well, you know what they say about everyone having a double.”  This seemed to be a plausible explanation to the woman.
         He ordered his breakfast and the woman walked off.
         As he was leaving, he noticed a young woman sitting at one of the picnic tables off to the side of the diner.  Sitting alone, staring at the ground.  Jules turned his head as she looked up.  A few years older than him, maybe, and very attractive.  She was looking at him, drinking from a styrofoam cup.  For the millionth time he asked himself the question:  “Is the girl looking at me or the bike?”  Feeling a devilish whim come on, he nodded and smiled at her.  Yes, very pretty indeed.  Black hair with dark lipstick to match.  Her skirt was short; her boots were long.
         She stood up.  Jules felt a little embarrassed and turned to lower himself onto the bike.  He turned the key and the engine came to life.
         “Nice bike,” came a voice from her direction.  Close.
         He glanced over to see that she was standing now only about fifteen feet away, still sipping her drink.  But now with a dark leather backpack hanging over one shoulder.  Interesting.  He turned the engine off.
         “What?” Jules called over, pretending not to have heard her remark.  She continued sipping, adjusting the straw, and walked a little closer.  This close he could tell that her clothes were just a little worn--just a little wrinkled.  Tourist?
         “Sorry,” he said, patting the gas tank in front of him.  “Couldn’t hear you with the engine going.”  The girl gave him a strange, searching look, but there seemed to be a hint of amusement in her eyes.  He could see a smear of  her lipstick on the straw as she spoke.
         “I was just wondering why you smiled at me.  Did you think you knew me?”
         A chill ran through him for half a second.  Strange town, he thought.
         “Just trying to be friendly, you know.  You’d be surprised how little people will talk to a guy riding across country on a motorcycle.”  He gave her his best grin, considering his clothes needed washing and he was already sweating in the mid-morning sun.
         “What do you mean?  I’m talking to you, aren’t I?”  She walked closer, drinking noisily from her styrofoam cup.  She was looking in the diner window at a pair of truckers who had stopped in mid-chew to watch her.  Jules gave a short laugh.  She looked back.  Brown eyes.  Very pretty.
         “Yeah, well, it’s not that people aren’t friendly," he explained.  “It seems like a lot of people just don’t know what to say when they see me come in.  I get the same thing all of the time... ‘Hot out there on the road, eh?’  Or ‘You’ve got to be crazy to ride one of those death machines!’  And then, there’s always ‘the stare.’”  She was watching him very carefully as he spoke.  He felt himself blush, realizing he was talking too much, too fast.
         “I think I know what you mean about the ‘stare’ thing.  I’m getting it right now from those guys in the diner.”  She nodded in the direction of the window.  Jules chuckled.  She didn’t seem ready to break off the conversation.  He paused, giving her the chance to make some excuse to get back to the people that she was with, or to move off so that he could back the bike out.  But the dark-haired girl just squinted back at him.  Again there was a hint of amusement or mischief in her eyes.
         “Well, I suppose you’ve got to get used to that sort of thing.  I’m sure you get it all the time.”  Jules pretended not to notice when she smiled at him.  “And I’ve been getting that stare almost every day for the last few months.”
         “Months?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.  She continued talking as she walked over to a nearby trash can to throw the cup out.  He tried not to be too obvious watching her, but her skirt was tight and... he rubbed the bridge of his nose realizing she could have just as easily been watching him watch her in the reflection of the window.  “What do you mean months?”
         Jules scratched the back of his neck where a thin layer of sweat was beading.  “Oh, you know.  Doing the bike-trip, soul-searching thing.  Just me and the road.  And the road-kill.  I’ve seen some interesting things out there on the road.  The road-kill I mean....”  He didn’t know why he had said that, trying to keep the mood light, maybe.
         They both laughed for a few moments.  She really was attractive.  He almost hated to leave.  But when he got out on the road, the wind would cool him down, even with the Texas sun beating down on him.
         “Well, you watch out for yourself,” she began, fingering the strap on her backpack.  “I guess all you need is just one thing to run out of the road in front of you and that’s it.”  She began to shuffle her feet, still looking at him.  What was she waiting for?
         “Hah, that’s the other thing they always say!”
         “Sorry,” she grinned.  “I usually try not to act like anyone else.  Maybe I should break the cycle and be more personal, right?  Like, what is your name, oh stranger on a motorcycle?”  She folded her arms across her breasts and adopted a falsely serious expression.
         “Jules...”
         “Verne, right?”  She was laughing.
         He stared back at her.  “Funny.  But you’re right.”
         “What?  Are you serious?”  Again there was a mischievous look in her eye, but something else.  She was looking at his face very carefully again.
         “Yeah, my dad was a big fan of his books.  But I could personally do without the Verne part.  Too many bad jokes, you know.  The high school that I grew up in, hardly anyone outside of the teachers knew who Jules Verne was.  Or cared.  And now there’s that stupid fuck, Jim Varney.  ‘Hey, Vern.’  I get that a lot now.”
         “I bet you do.  Hey,” the pretty dark-haired girl said, and Jules could see the gears turning in her head, “does that mean you’re into traveling to strange places like he wrote about?”
         Jules just stared.  Who was this girl?  It had been a long time since he’d had this kind of spontaneous conversation with a complete stranger.  Let alone a pretty girl.  But here she was talking to him like they were good friends.  What would his brother say when he finally got back home and described her and the other things that he has seen on his trip?  Probably wouldn’t believe him.  Jules continued staring at her until she stopped giggling.  Time to turn the tables.
         “And you are?  Let me guess,” he ran his eyes up the length of her, ”a student of some kind?  The way you seem to take in all the details around you, I guess you’re a writer of some sort.  Maybe a poet.  Right?”  She winked at him, but didn’t say anything.  “Returning to college?  Or maybe heading off to spend the rest of the summer with distant relatives or friends?  Going to write a book or a story about the strange things you saw on the way there?  Are you going to write about meeting Jules Verne on a motorcycle?”
         “I’d tell you,” she smiled back, ”but then I’d have to kill you.”
         She laughed for a good while as he muttered “very funny” and scratched the days old growth on his chin.  He could see that she was shuffling her feet again, as though she was wanting to go.  He still didn’t see anyone with her.  Maybe she was staying at the motel.  He looked back that way, trying to guess which car she’d come in.  Probably the Honda.  It looked like it had some kind of strange necklace hanging from its rearview mirror.
         “Well, I’ve got to go,” she said, starting to back away.  “Like I said, watch out for strange animals running out in front of you.”  She began to walk back to the picnic table.
         Jules reached behind himself to grab his helmet.  It was already hot in the sun.  He watched her walk back to the table.  Nice skirt.  Very nice legs.
         She turned to wave good-bye as he started the bike.  He raised a thumb in return and began to walk the bike backwards out of its parking space.
         “Just what I needed,” he muttered to himself.   Someone to think about for the next few days.  And the what ifs.  What if we’d talked longer?  What if she wanted to know more about me?  What if the two of  us had gotten to know each other a little better.  And what if...  He let his mind wander, thinking about the unusual dark-haired girl in the parking lot as he rolled onto the road, cutting across where it continued over a bridge and down the ramp onto the highway.  He looked back, but she was not there.  But the Honda was.
 
         That evening he stopped again, turning off the interstate into a little cluster of retail malls, gas stations, fast food restaurants and hotels.  It seemed as though every town that sprang up along the great highways would eventually grow this sort of extension.  A border area.  A place that was not quite the town, but not just a gas stop on the highway.  In some ways he liked these places.  At least he knew what to expect from them.
         He was getting a headache.  Too much bright light.  The sunglasses he had bought were the cheap kind.  On top of that, they didn’t fit very well inside his helmet.  He splurged again, getting a room on the second floor of one of the higher class hotels.  Maybe he’d stay a few days.  Relax by the pool.  Maybe take in one of the local nightspots.  He made a mental note to decide before it was time to check out.  The old woman behind the counter seemed to have put extra emphasis on telling him when he would have to turn in his key and leave.  Unless he did decide to stay another day.  But his head was throbbing now as he slung his bags into the chair in his room and threw himself down onto the bed.  Maybe a little sleep was all he really needed.  And thoughts of the pretty dark-haired girl he’d met that morning.
         He dozed for a couple of hours but, unfortunately awoke with the same headache.  The last thing that he needed now was to get sick and have to stop somewhere for more than a few days.  Jules sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes.  He would have to find an all-night pharmacy--maybe a little cold-medicine was do the trick.  Something to wipe his headache away.  He stretched and then grabbed his denim jacket from the top of his bags.
         Half an hour later found him sitting at the bar of the local Applebees clone, Frasier’s.  Some headache medicine and a couple of drinks.  That would do the trick.  His brother had always joked with him about his idea that a little alcohol can heal; after all, it was in most of the cold medicines, right?  The ones that worked, anyway.  He had been talking about the idea with the bartender and a few of the waitresses.  Making small talk   Mostly they were asking him about riding the bike after drinking.  But the headache was almost gone and he really didn’t care at the moment.  If he had to get a cab back to the room, that would be fine.
         Somehow they starting talking about music, and one thing led to another.  Someone had seen him with the guitar on his bike.  Or maybe he had mentioned it in passing.  He couldn’t recall.  They’d invited him to come and play or sing at a nearby club.  He told them he might consider it if he felt better, or might go by in another day, if he felt like staying in town a little longer.
         Back in his room he took a shower and collapsed on the bed watching a cable program on insect life in the Amazon jungle.  Something about ants.  Streams of ants moving like living ropes.  All black and glistening and writhing in the sunlight.  The narrator’s voice was deep, resonate, soothing...
         A spider-web touched his face and he woke slowly, feeling as though his brain was packed in cotton.  He sluggishly brushed at the side of his face.  Not a spider-web, but his imagination.  His headache had returned.  He could see the light from the TV through his eyelids.  It felt late... or very early in the morning.  What was that sound?  Static on the television?  Or running water?  He felt warm.  He had turned the air conditioner down when he came in that evening, but now it felt as though the room was a sauna.  Well, that's what you get for staying at these cheap, roadside roach motels, he thought to himself.  He pushed the bedspread back and yawned, trying to sit up in the bed.
         He couldn’t remeber having undressed.  A sudden wave of nausea came and went.  His head was still throbbing now that sleep no longer numbed the pain.  A news show, a documentary, but the sound of water running behind that.  He had to make it to the bathroom before he left his dinner all over the bed.
         He’d left the bathroom light on.  And the water running.  No wonder it was so hot in here.  Jules sat up, holding his head carefully and shutting his eyes as tight as he could.  An immense pain shot through his brain. Come on!  This is crazy!  The pain made it hard to think.  A sound...  Something moved across the room.  He looked up.  A woman stepped out of the bathroom, walked casually into the room.  She was wearing a white bra and panties.  Cotton, very sexy against her dark skin.  Dark hair.  A familiar face...
         “Jules,” she began, looking in his direction, a question forming at the sides of her mouth.  The pretty girl from the parking lot at the diner?  What!?  He tried to stand but the pain knocked him back down.  Before he realized what was happening, he was vomiting on the floor.  When he could catch his breath he looked back at the girl, scrubbing at his mouth with the back of his hand.  But she was gone.  A hallucination?  Either that or he was a lot sicker than he thought.  He rose carefully to check the bathroom.  The water was running.  No one there.  He stared at himself a long time in the mirror before grabbing a towel to clean up the mess that he had made on the floor.  Had she left?  Or had she even been there in the first place?
         He was so tired, was starting to lose consciousness.  Could he make it to the bed?  Maybe he’d just...  Maybe...  Maybe he’d...
 
         He woke up lying on top of the covers felling a good deal better.  Perhaps a little more sleep and a good breakfast, and then maybe he would see if there was a local medical clinic along the strip that could tell him if he was coming down with something.
         Surely he hadn’t been out long.  The old woman downstairs would have come looking for him.  When he had checked in the night before, she was quite adamant that if he was still in his room five minutes after 11 a.m., he would have to pay for a second day.  He looked around for the time.  No clock.  He hadn’t worn a watch in years.  Had not felt the need nor the desire to since elementary school.  He turned the ancient Zenith TV on and found the weather station.  Shit.  It was after 1 o’clock.  He had been asleep for almost three hours.
         The phone beside his bed rang, nearly causing him to fall out of the bed.  He stared at it until it stopped.  He was sure there hadn’t been a phone there the night before.  Had someone put one in while he was passed out?  Surely not.  It rang again.  He picked it up before it rang a second time.
         “Mr. Hinton.”  It was a man’s voice, probably elderly.  “So sorry to bother you, but there’s someone here to see you.  She won’t give me her name.  She said you would know who she was.  Shall I send her up?”
         “I don’t know anyone around here.”
         “Very well, Mr. Hinton.  I’ll send her away.”
         Jules put the receiver down and looked around the room.  That there was now a phone did not seem to be the only difference.  For starters, he thought the sheets had a different design on them from when he had checked in the night before.  A logical explanation was that a maid had changed them, but the room wasn’t clean enough to suggest a maid had been in.  But the towels in the bathroom were not the same color as he remembered.  Jules was sure he was wrong.  There was simply no other logical explanation.  He had the creepy feeling of seeing a maid enter the room while he was sleeping, of cleaning the room around him while he slept half naked on the bed.  He went to check his wallet.  Everything was there and intact.  He looked at the floor and froze.  The spot was gone, the spot where he had been sick the night before.  There was no trace of it at all.  He had been about to clean it up but had passed out instead.  Or had he?  He couldn’t remember clearly.
         The girl.  The girl who had been downstairs had to be the same girl from the diner parking lot the day before, the one that he had dreamed--hallucinated--about that night.  No, that was crazy.  It had to that waitress from Frasier's, maybe come to talk to him about playing music later on at that bar.  He bolted from the room without bothering to put his shoes and shirt on and ran down the flight of stairs almost bumping into a janitor who shouted obscenities at him as he passed.  He darted through the lobby and out the door.  She was nowhere in sight.
         He muttered something under his breath, then turned to go back into the inn.  People were looking at him oddly.  In the distant back of his mind, he almost wished it had been the unusual dark-haired girl from the diner.  If she’d been passing by, could she have even seen his bike from the highway?  He was unsure why he would even have wanted to see her.  What would be gained from it?  Well, it was lonely on the road and the absence of intimacy was beginning to wear thin.
         It wasn’t the lack of physical contact that he so sorely missed, but rather the kind of emotional connection that was established over time, the kind he once shared with his friends and family.  And various girls over the years.  This realization surprised him.  He had told himself some time ago that all he needed was his bike, a guitar and the road.  But now it seemed that all three had failed him.  Maybe he had been on the road too long.  Maybe that could explain last night.  Or maybe somebody--a waitress--had spiked one of his Tom Collins.  He laughed that notion off and went to his room, finished dressing, and went to the counter to pay for the extra day that his nap cost him.
         “That won’t be necessary, sir,” the old man behind the counter told him.  “You’re paid up through the night.”
         “Are you sure?” Jules asked.  “I’m certain I paid for only one night.”
         “You did, sir.  You paid for tonight.”  The man was looking at him curiously.
         Jules was prepared to argue with the man.  But why bother? he thought. Their mistake was in his favor.  The old woman must have written it down wrong, or put a wrong number into the computer.  He guessed maybe she had been busy staring at him when she was checking him in, probably trying to guess what he was doing flashing the kind of plastic that he did at the same time walking in dirty from the road and the motorcycle. He decided to stay another night and get some rest.  If they caught their mistake, he’d pay for the night anyway.  Maybe the old woman wouldn’t spot him when she came in for her shift.
         Jules walked out to check on his motorcycle in the parking lot.  He would have to make a decision soon about his future.  If his health wasn’t going to start playing cruel tricks on him.  Or his mind, for that matter.  He was not looking forward to thinking about it, but knew it was inevitable; he could not run forever, no matter how strong the temptation.  These last few months had been kind of unreal.  After all, it had always been a fantasy of his to head out across the country with no real destination in mind, and no purpose other that to get himself lost.  But that was running away from things back home, right?  Well, he thought, leaning against the motorcycle and staring out at the highway down below, doesn’t everyone deserve to take a vacation from reality every once in a while?
         He grunted to himself.  It seemed lately that his senses had started to take their own vacation without him.  Maybe that’s what the sun did to a man after a while.  He sounded like a cowboy talking now.  But there had to be some truth to that.  Lack of real human contact.  Even conversation.  It was true that the bike put him into deep meditative states sometimes.  He could ride for long stretches of the day, and if he was not careful, his mind would take over the little tasks of riding, and in broad flashes, the countryside would fly by without his ever noticing any of the details.  When he would reach a stopping point, he would hardly remember much of the journey or what had occupied his mind on the way.
         He stood up and stretched.  Time to find a laundry and wash the few clothes he had with on if he was going to play some music tonight.  He frowned at a dark smear on his forearm where he’d been leaning against the bike--grease.  He wiped at it.  Not grease.  Lipstick.  Dark lipstick.  Jules looked back at the bike’s seat.  Someone had written something there in what looked like lipstick, but he had smeared it into a blur leaning against it.  He wiped the rest of it off with his handkerchief, glaring at the row of hotel windows in front of where the bike had been parked for the night.  You’d think someone would have been looking out the window at night, he thought.  Unless one of the waitresses from the night before had left the message.  Maybe.  It seemed likely given that one of them had stopped by looking for him.  He would have to run by the restaurant when he got back from the laundry and find out where that bar was located.

         He was just out of the shower when the phone rang again.
         It was the old man from downstairs.  “You’re a popular man, Mr. Hinton.  There’s a young lady here to see you again, sir.  Shall I send her away too?”  There was a hint of bemusement in his voice.
         “No.  Send her up.”
         He had enough time to pull on a pair of newly washed jeans and a shirt before there was a knock on the door.  He swung it open hoping to see the girl from the diner.  It was one of the waitresses from the bar instead.
         “I hope you don’t think I’m being too forward,” she began.  “I was just wanting to see if you were planning on coming by tonight.  Ed was talking about that after you left.  We don’t get many musicians in town.”
         “What’s the name of the band?”
         “Right now, it’s The Snake Oil Salesmen, but we’re trying to come up with something different.”
         “I kinda like it.  What kind of music do they play?”
         “We play mostly anything.  Blues, classic rock, new rock, acoustic stuff.  Not much country though.  That's why we're trying to come up with a different name.  Maybe to The Snake Oil Salespeople.”
         Jules chuckled.  “Sure.  I’ll be there.”
         “Good.  You can’t miss the place.  It’s a brick building on Highway 55 called the Horny Toad.  Ed’s brother bought it a few years back.  Unfortunately, he still hasn’t changed the name.”  She handed him a piece of paper.  “That’s the directions.  I put my home number on it, you know, just in case you need to call me for anything.  Feel free to call me for any reason.  My name is Susan.”  She began to walk away.
         “Thanks.  I guess I’ll see you there.  Oh, by the way, I tried to catch you earlier but you were already gone.”
         “What?  Earlier on?  What do you mean?”
         “The man behind the counter called me a few hours ago.  Said there was someone to see me.  I guess it must have been you.”
         “Sorry, but it wasn’t me.  I’ve been with my kids most of the morning.  I’ll see you tonight.”  She walked toward the stairwell, then down and out of his sight.
         The phone in his room was ringing again.
         “Hello.”
         Dial tone.

         The Horny Toad was starting to fill.  The lights were low, the jukebox was blaring Junior Brown and small clusters of people, many of them obviously travelers and tourists, were gathering along with a good scattering of locals.  Jules had to admit it was a nice place.  Not quite a restaurant and not quite a bar, but a comfortable compromise between the two.  He had been talking with the manager, Ed’s brother from the night before, who was more than happy to let him play for his drinks and food.  It was Thursday night after all, and the band that he would be playing had already been paid for the night.
         The manager was in a good mood and told him that when it got dark in an hour or so, business would start picking.  Jules had spoken with Ed and the band and they had talked over a few songs.  They all agreed that the night felt a little more like rock and roll than country, but they would have to wait and see how the crowd went.  The drummer had joked a little too loudly that they’d have to do a hand count of the cowboy hats before they made any real decisions.  Jules checked the electric guitar that he had borrowed from Ed for the night.  It had been a while since he’d played with one.  Before the roadtrip.  But he knew it like the back of his hand.
         Within a few minutes, the band eased into Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers "Runnin' Down A Dream."  Jules knew the song well, remembering the red-head he had met when Lenny Kravitz opened for them back in 89 or 90.  For this song and most of the night, he stood beside the drum kit and played rhythm, allowing Ed to show off his licks, even kidding with him that he was almost as good as another guitar-playing Ed.
         During the first intermission, he, Ed and Susan moved to the bar.  Jules ordered a Tom Collins.
         “You’re not medicating yourself again are you, Jules?” Ed asked.
         “I sure am, Ed.  I started getting a headache about half way through the set.  I think it was when you went into that long solo.”
         "The first or second one?" Susan asked.
         "I don't know," Jules said.  "I lost count."
         “Nothing but jealousy," Ed said, patting him on the back and walking off with beer in hand.  Susan took his seat next to Jules.
         “You ever played in a band before?” she asked.  She had surprised Jules on-stage with her piano playing and backing vocals.
         “My brother used to have a band that I would sit in with every now and then.  I never was as serious practicing like I should have been.  Always too busy with school.”  Jules was ready to turn the conversation back to her when he saw a familiar face at the door.  “Excuse me for a minute.  I see someone I know.  I think.”
         He walked across the room, still not sure whether it was really her or not.  He had only caught a glimpse of her as she walked in.  But as he got closer to her and saw the back pack draped across one shoulder, he knew for sure it was her.  She turned toward him as he was about to say something.
         “Hey.  There you are, Jules Verne on a motorcycle.”
         “I thought that was you.  What are you doing here?”
         “I’ve been looking for you.  I mean, I saw your motorcycle back at one of the first motels coming into town.  I even left a note for you.”
         “The lipstick, right?  Sorry.  I accidentally wiped it off with my ass before I saw it.”
         She smiled.  “That’s OK  Why don’t we find a seat?  Can I get you another drink?  A Tom Collins, right?”  He must have looked surprised when she had named his drink.  “I used to wait tables,” she explained.  “After a while, you learn to recognize the drinks.”
         Jules found a booth in the corner of the Horny Toad and was just finishing his drink when the girl returned with two more--one for him, one for her.
         “I have a question for you,” Jules announced.
         “What’s my name?”
         “All right, I have two questions for you.  First off, what is your name?”
         “Nikki.”
         “Nikki what?”
         “Cauthen.  What’s the other question?”
         “How did you know I was going to be here tonight?”
         There was a slight pause, Jules thought.  A moment before she answered.  A flicker in her eyes.  “I didn’t,” she replied.  “But I’m glad you were.  I’m staying in the hotel across the street.  I got bored with the same old Must Scream TV, so here I am.  My question is, what are you doing here?  I thought you said you were doing the bike trip, soul-searching thing.”
         “I was.  I mean, I am.  I thought I’d take a few days to rest and decide where to go next.  Plus, I caught up with a bartender at this place called Frasier’s who invited me to play with his band tonight.  So here I am.”
         “That's cool,” she said, stirring the drink with the tip of a finger.  She looked nice tonight, he thought, wearing a white t-shirt and a pair of faded jeans that fit her well.  Her hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail, though he thought it had looked better in the diner parking lot when she was wearing it down.
         Jules started to say something, but Ed walked up.  “Five minutes, Jules.  You are going to play with us some more, right?”
         “Sure, if you want me to.”
         “Of course.  The crowd is just starting to pick up.  Clyde wants us back up there as soon as possible.”  Ed walked away, following a girl Jules thought was too young for the bartender/guitarist with the receding hairline.
         “Are you planning to stick around?” Jules asked.  “I mean, Jules Verne on a motorcycle is one thing, but Jules Verne in a rock ’n’ roll band?  Come on.  You just don't see something like that every day.”
         She smiled.  “I’ll be here.  I don’t have anything but time.”
         “You and me both, I guess.”  There were many questions he wanted to ask her--something just didn’t fit about the girl--but none of them seemed too important at the moment.  He rubbed his forehead.
         “Headache?” Nikki asked.
         “Yeah.  The Tom Collins aren’t working yet.”
         “I think I’ve got some aspirin.  Let me check.”  Nikki dug around her small purse and pulled out two small capsules.  Jules took them with the last swallow of his drink.
         “It's been killing me lately,” he said.  “I haven’t been to a doctor in over a year, but I might have to go soon.”  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Ed, Susan and the rest of the band were taking the stage again.  He winked at Nikki, then joined them.

         He must have had more to drink than he realized.  Or maybe the liquor was stronger at the Horny Toad than at Frasier’s.  Because three songs into the band’s second set, Jules was having trouble standing up.  His headache was gone, though.
         Ed eased over during a song.  “Are you all right, man?  You don’t look too good.”
         Jules couldn’t help himself; he started laughing.  Ed shot him a mean look, and Jules straightened up.  His headache had been replaced with an almost euphoric feeling that Jules could not, nor did he care to, explain.
         He didn’t remember much after that.  The room began spinning; the guitar fell to the floor...  Everything turned black, but he could hear people’s voices, mumbled and disjointed as they were.  And then he woke up in a strange room, the kitchen area of the bar.  Nikki was the first person he saw, then Ed, then the manager, Clyde.
         “What happened?” he asked, trying to sit up.  Ed put his hand on Jules’ shoulder, knowing he was not ready to sit up yet.  Nikki was stroking his hair.
         “You collapsed on stage,” Ed replied.  “Right in the middle of CCR’s “Proud Mary.”  Man, if you didn’t want to play that song, you could have just said so."
         “He will be all right, won’t he?” Clyde asked.  Jules knew the manager’s concern had nothing to do with him personally.  The man didn’t want to be sued.
         “He just needs a little rest,” Nikki said. “Isn’t that right, honey?”
         Jules looked at her for a moment, wondering why she called him that.  Was he dreaming again?  He had dreamed about her before.  Hadn't he?  Was this just another...  He was very cold.  His teeth were chattering and he was shaking.  For a moment he had the feeling he was in an operating room of some sort--everything was white and generic and cold--but the images were coming at him in broken pieces.  He passed out again...  And woke up in another strange room, the manager’s office.  He and Nikki were alone.
         “Your friend went to call a doctor,” she said.  “How do you feel?”
         “Like I don’t need a doctor.  Let’s get out of here.”
         He tried to stand, but fell down again.  He seemed stunned for a moment, then shook it off.  Nikki helped him to his feet.  “Where am I?”  He sat back down on the desk.
         “You’re in the office at the Horny Toad.  What was the last thing you remember?”
         “I was on stage.  The band was playing.  Everything slowed down.  Ed turned to me, said something.  And then I woke up right there on the floor.”
         “You don’t remember anything else?”
         “No.  I don’t think so.”
         Ed walked back into the office.  “Doc said if we got you to his office in fifteen minutes, he'd see you.  If not, we’ll have to take you to the emergency room.”  He looked at Nikki.  “Do you have a car?”
         “No.”
         “Wait a sec.  I’m not going to see a doctor.”
         “Yes, you are,” Ed said directly.
         Jules looked at Nikki and she nodded.
         “All right then.  Let’s go.”
         “We’ll take the van,” Ed said..  There’ll be plenty of room with the equipment on stage.”  Jules stood up carefully and with one arm around Ed’s shoulder and the other around Nikki’s waist, walked out the back door.

         The doctor couldn’t find anything wrong with Jules but wanted him to check into the hospital for the night so they could run more tests.  Jules laughed that notion off.  In the hour since he had woke up on the floor in the manager’s office at the Horny Toad, he had begun to feel much better.  He was paying his bill at the desk when he noticed the clock on the wall.  With all that had happened, it was still only a little after 11.  With his receipt in hand, he and Nikki walked outside to where Ed and Susan were waiting.
         “So, what did he say?” Ed asked.
         “Much to my chagrin, it appears that I’m going to live,” Jules replied with a wry smile.  “He wanted me to stay the night, but I said no.”
         “Did you tell him about the headaches?”
         “No, I didn’t.  I’ll be fine.  I just need some rest.”
         “Can we give you two a ride anywhere?  I know your bike is at the Toad, but I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to ride it tonight.  If you give me your keys, Susan and I will get it for you after we drop you off.  It’ll be there when you wake up in the morning.”
         Jules hesitated a moment as he reached into his pocket.
         “Relax, man.  I’ll be careful with it.  I’ve had more motorcycles in my life than I’ve had cars.”
         “What are you talking about?” Susan asked.  “You’ve had more motorcycles in your life than you’ve had women and cars combined.  At least since I’ve known you.”
           “I trust you, I guess,” Jules said, tossing the keys to Ed.  “My hotel is right down the road.  You can drop me off there, then...”
         “You can leave both of us there,” Nikki interrupted.  Then, to Jules, “I don’t think it’s such a good idea for you to be alone right now.”
 

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