We hadn’t even discussed it, just found each other there at the right times again. Except this time there was no Sully, there was Ruben. He could have come, Sully, if he wanted to. The thing is he just doesn’t like new people, doesn’t like things to change, can’t deal with new stuff. Me, I needed new stuff. My first new thing, besides Evelyn I guess, and besides Ruben, who was such new stuff he was frightening, was I got a hat. I went down to Walker’s, the one place in town that has all the hardest-core biker gear and all the real cowboy gear, which up close turns out to be pretty much the same thing. I looked the walls up then down, at high black square-toed mechanic boots, pointy gray snakeskin Acme cowboy boots, green lizard Tony Lamas, Dingos, spurs for jabbing your horse or motorcycle into going faster, T-shirts with big old Harley-Davidson eagles spread across the back and wolves or buffalo or mountain lions or black bears snarling on the front. There was a pair of size 14 elephant-skin boots.
