“Mind telling us who you are?”
“Just another pilgrim.”
“Where’s your car, pilgrim?”
“Who says I have one?”
The men in shades looked at each other. “He teleported,” one said.
“You cain’t ever tell. I get around. You ever hear that song by the Beach Boys? It’s called ‘I Get Around,’” the seated man replied.
“I get it. You’ve been shooting the curl off Malibu.”
“There aren’t many places I haven’t been.”
“I dig your threads.”
“This?” the seated man said, pinching his suit coat with two fingers.
“Yeah, I thought it might be an Armani.”
“Could be. You fellows are FBI, aren’t you? Or maybe DEA?” The two men in shades and stonewashed jeans glanced at each other. “Looks like we’ve been made,” one said.
“I can tell because you’re wearing Glocks.”
“What’s your name, asshole?”
The seated man laid his guitar flatly across both thighs, his gaze focused on neutral space, the bumps and knots in his complexion like tan-colored papier-mâché. A closed tortoiseshell guitar case lay on the ground by his foot. It was of expensive manufacture, the kind of case that might contain a Martin or vintage Gibson. “I disturb y’all?” the seated man said.
“That guitar looks like a piece of junk.”
“It is,” the seated man replied. “It’s got rust on the strings. They sound like baling wire.”
“So how about playing it somewhere else?”
“Y’all think the government has the right of eminent domain?”
“Of what?”
“The right to burn down someone’s house just because the government takes a mind to.”
“I’ve got an extra sandwich here. You can have it. But you need to eat it downwind.”
“You haven’t answered my question. Somebody gave y’all the right to burn a man’s house and his books and clothes and even his Bible?”
“What’s it take, pal? You want me to bust your guitar over a rock? Do we have to walk you over the hill and put you in your car?”
The seated man set down his guitar, the bottom of the sound box grating in the sand. He rubbed his palms up and down on his thighs, the focus gone from his eyes, his lips compressed, downturned at the corners. The knees of his trousers were shiny from wear. “
You boys aren’t much of a challenge.”
“Repeat that?”
The seated man lifted his face, the sunlight shining clearly on it. “You don’t recognize me?”
“Why should we? Who are you supposed to be? Somebody from America’s Most Wanted?”
“How’d you know?”