JC: Happy Harry
By
Lazlo Zalezac
Copyright (C) Lazlo Zalezac, 2004

Sired by man and born by woman, a baby enters the world armed 
only with the genetic gifts bestowed upon it by its parents. Naked, 
defenseless, and unable to communicate, infants are vulnerable to 
the outrages heaped upon them by society, environment, and 
chance. Society molds them, the environment hardens them, and 
chance tests them. 

Then comes the day when the infant becomes an adult. The 
character of the adult reflects the forces that battered the child even 
if some of those forces were blunted by genetic gifts. Good or bad, 
divine or evil, smart or stupid - extremes in outcomes that appear 
to be the result of dumb luck. 

As the force of gravity pulls all things downwards, so it seems that 
the chance events with lasting outcomes on the child pull the adult 
to the worse. The harm caused by exposure to jealously, avarice, 
ambition, and greed drag down the victors and the victims with 
equal force. The results are hard adults who are unable to express 
their feelings or to experience happiness without a sense of dread 
that it shall be short lived. Lives are spent trying to save something 
for a rainy day without appreciating the nice days.

Life is not fair. A child is born of rich parents, given the best 
education that money can buy, and inherits wealth that eliminates 
the need to ever work. Down the street, a child is born of a crack 
addict, attends a public school where survival is more important 
than education, and spends half of their life in prison. Why should 
one child be blessed when hundreds of others suffer cruel fates? 
The answer is simple - life is not fair. It is not a reassuring answer, 
but it is an answer none the less.

In light of all the unhappiness that can affect a person, is it a 
wonder that in some private moments there are some that wonder 
if life is worth it. Hamlet faced the unfairness of the dictates of 
fortune by wondering if it was better to end it all at his own hand 
or to fight on. In the end, he fought on to find death at the hand of 
another by winning a Pyrrhic victory in which all died. Few take 
the battle with fate to that extreme, but some choose to exit life 
early while others fight to the bitter end. It is a personal choice.

Harry pedaled the three-wheeler up the mountain rode, struggling 
to overcome gravity that wanted to send him back to the bottom of 
the mountain. It was just a little farther to the restaurant where he 
would meet the Sheriff for lunch and a ride to the top of the next 
mountain over. It was an annual event that was coming a little late 
this year due to the delay of a couple days spent in jail for 
vagrancy. Harry, last of the hobos, was making his early summer 
pilgrimage to Denver where he would live on the streets for 
months before returning to warmer climes in the fall. 

The mountain air was cool as the warm sun beat down upon the 
odd looking man on the tricycle. Birds flew across the road 
ignoring him. His beard and gray hair made him look older than 
his fifty years. With a well-developed potbelly, missing front tooth, 
and scar across his forehead, he didn't look like a friendly person. 
When well-dressed self-important people actually took notice of 
him, they saw an intimidating individual who looked dangerous 
because of his homeless appearance. However, his wrinkled hard-
worn and rough looks were deceptive. Among those who knew 
him, Harry had earned the nickname, Happy Harry. His smiling 
face and easy laughter was well known in the streets where he 
lived by other homeless and police.

Unlike many street people, Harry was not down on his luck. Others 
might have been forced into such a life, but he had born into it and 
chose to remain in it. This was the life that he had lived for as long 
as he could remember. His father and his mother were hobos 
during the great depression and never settled down even after the 
depression had ended. He grew up riding on trains, eating hobo 
stew, and living the life of a wanderer free of any economic ties to 
any single location.

He finally reached the flat stretch of the road where peddling 
would be easier. It was less than a mile to the restaurant where he 
would meet the Sheriff, but that was not his immediate destination. 
Below him, a shallow stream cut through a meadow. The fast 
moving water sparkled in the sunlight drawing the eye from the 
green meadow that it divided in two. He would pause here to visit 
the stream. 

He parked the tricycle by the side of the road and put down the 
kickstand that would keep it from rolling away. Dismounting, he 
walked to the back of his bike and rummaged through the basket 
attached to it. As meager as they were, all of his worldly 
possessions were in that basket. For the moment, he needed a 
change of clothing so that he could wash and change clothes before 
meeting up with the Sheriff. It was the price he had to pay for the 
lunch and the ride he would get through the mountain pass.

With a change of clothes, Harry headed down the hill to the stream 
below. Feed by snowmelt from higher up the mountain, the water 
was not deep, but ran fast and was freezing cold. That wasn't a 
problem for Harry. In his hard life, he had bathed in ice water and 
baked in the burning sun. He followed the stream into a stand of 
trees seeking the place where he usually bathed. 

Harry wasn't in a hurry. Rushing around wasn't his style, preferring 
to take the time to smell the roses and there were a lot of roses in 
the world that he inhabited. He paused to watch a squirrel sitting 
on its back legs and holding a nut between its two front paws while 
eating it. Smiling, Harry gave a mock bow to the squirrel and said, 
"We're alike you and I. We eat all summer to store enough fat to 
last through the winter."

The squirrel ignored the interloper. Harry laughed and jiggled his 
potbelly with both hands before heading to the stand of trees. It 
was a beautiful day and he was enjoying it. He recognized the path 
into the woods, but the area had different feel to it despite looking 
the same. The air was still, the scents were overwhelming, the 
noises were unnaturally loud, and the colors overly bright. 

A chill crept down his spine. Uneasy, he slowed and then stopped 
to look around wondering what was the matter. He started when a 
naked woman stepped out from behind a tree and waved a hand to 
him in a beckoning gesture. As far as Harry was concerned, she 
was a perfect specimen of womanhood. Her body was soft and 
rounded in all the right places. It wasn't that she was overweight, 
but that she had padding in all the right places. Her buttocks were 
nice and full - the kind that softened the act of sex. Her breasts 
were full and lush without drooping. 

Harry nodded his head and smiled at the woman in a non-
threatening manner. In a friendly voice, he said, "Pardon me, 
ma'am. Didn't know anyone else was here. I'll find another place 
for my bath."

"Follow me, Harry," said the woman in a commanding voice that 
would not be denied. It seemed as if her voice came from all 
around him, echoing off the trees giving it a rustling tone like wind 
blowing through leaves. It was earthy and otherworldly at the same 
time.

Stunned by her voice, it never dawned on him to wonder how she 
knew his name. Harry followed the naked woman along a path that 
led to a large meadow that he had never seen before. Almost 
against his will, his cock became erect just from looking at her 
earthy Rubenesque body. He hadn't met a woman that had that 
effect on him in years. When she stopped and turned to face him, 
he froze four feet from her. 

For a moment, the world stopped moving. Then, the calm broke 
into chaos when the woman moved. Small patches of his clothes 
flew in the air as she ripped them off him layer by layer. His 
sweater, shirt, and undershirt were rendered into confetti that 
floated away like dandelion seeds in a slow breeze. His pants and 
underpants soon joined the fluttering cloth in the air around him. 
Shocked at the speed with which the woman moved Harry knew it 
was impossible to protect his clothes. 

Standing naked, Harry went to cover his erect cock with his hands. 
She placed her hands on his chest and pushed him to the ground. 
Rather than being hard, the ground seemed to swell up to embrace 
his body and cushion his fall. The woman lowered herself onto his 
cock and then threw her arms around him. The thought that having 
her on top would be enjoyable flitted through his mind like the 
birds flitted from branch to branch around them.

She rolled pulling Harry atop her. Before he knew it, he was 
thrusting into her. His body moved without conscious control. It 
was driven by urges that came from without rather than from 
within. His buttocks moved at a jackhammer pace as he pounded 
his cock into her. All of his attempts to slow down and take it easy 
on the woman beneath him failed. His body was no longer his to 
control and moved of its own volition. 

The first few minutes were pleasurable, but the pleasure 
evaporated the longer his body hammered into her. Muscles in his 
back started to hurt, his buttocks started to spasm, and sweat rolled 
off his face blinding him as beads of salty water ran into his eyes. 
When she tightened her cunt muscles, he thought his cock was 
going to break in half as he forced it through the tight channel. It 
wasn't making love or even having sex, but something even more 
primal than rutting.

Arms trembling from holding his body off hers, he felt his stomach 
spasm in pain. His thoughts were not of sexual release, but of 
physical escape. This was not a pleasant experience and he wanted 
it to end. He tried to disengage from her, but his body would not 
follow his mental commands. Instead, he found himself standing 
up and holding her on his cock. The strain on his back was 
tremendous, his legs trembled from the effort to remain standing, 
and his arms ached as he held her. 

It was impossible to know how much time passed before an 
orgasm blasted through his body, but it felt like days. The world 
spun around him as he started to loose consciousness. Exhausted 
from being physically pushed beyond his endurance, he collapsed 
with her landing atop him. 

She climbed off his cock and moved her cunt over his face. He 
closed his mouth disgusted at the idea that he should eat her out 
after coming in her. She was not one to be denied and, without 
mercy, she held his nose forcing his mouth open. As globs of his 
own come dribbled into his mouth, she grabbed his ears and 
twisted as a way of telling him to start licking.

Even as his stomach threatened to heave, his tongue flicked out to 
lick her pussy. He had never liked performing oral sex on women. 
The women that he usually slept with weren't exactly the best at 
feminine hygiene. Having his ears twisted in punishment for his 
lackluster effort spurred him to greater effort. He would have 
thrown up by now in normal circumstances, but there was nothing 
normal about this event.

After what seemed like hours later, his tongue had swollen in his 
mouth and his jaw had locked in place. He felt half dead by the 
time she came - flooding his mouth with her feminine juices. There 
was nothing he could do to keep from swallowing. When she was 
finished with her orgasm, she stood and looked down at him. In her 
hand was a gold medallion dangling from a thin chain.

Harry looked up at her. His eyes were drawn to the medallion 
knowing that it was his to keep. Expecting her to give it to him, he 
watched in surprise when she threw it into the meadow. As the 
medallion flew through the air, it broke into five pieces. A 
shadowy suggestion of a person formed on the ground at each 
place a piece of the medallion landed. It was impossible to tell age, 
gender, or race of the figures. 

The women pointed to the shadow people to draw his attention to 
them. Harry looked over at them wondering what he was supposed 
to do. He stood, feeling like a man twice his age, on legs that 
barely supported him. The woman pointed a second time at the 
people. The look on her face conveyed that he was to go to where 
they were. He got her message that he was to help them.

Harry looked down at his naked body and saw that his cock was a 
bloody mess. The real significance of the act passed unnoticed on 
his part. His attention was focused on the horror of his bloody 
cock. Taking a deep breath, he headed towards the closest person 
on the ground. He walked woodenly, his arms hanging limply by 
his sides. It was too much effort to swing them in time with his 
step.

As he walked, his surroundings changed from the meadow to the 
inner city. The shadowy figure resolved itself into a boy, about 
thirteen, lying on the pavement. The boy was shivering as if he was 
freezing cold even though the temperature was hot. Concerned, 
Harry knelt down and felt the forehead of the kid finding that he 
burned with a very high fever. 

Looking around, Harry recognized his surroundings as downtown 
St. Louis and knew that there was a Fusion Foundation Clinic less 
than two blocks away. It could have been miles considering his 
exhaustion. He picked up the boy and started walking towards the 
clinic. Despite the fact that the boy wasn't heavy, carrying him for 
two blocks was taxing particularly since his body was already 
exhausted from his previous activities. About halfway, Harry had 
to set the boy down for a minute to recover before carrying him 
further. 

Arms aching, back sore, sweating heavily, and legs on the verge of 
collapsing, it was with a sense of great relief that Harry saw the 
entrance to health center. He staggered into the building, nearly 
dropping the boy, and reached the front desk. The receptionist 
behind the desk looked at the pair and turned as though to call a 
nurse to the front. The scene faded as Harry returned to the 
meadow. Harry found he was holding the chain of the medallion 
instead of the boy. 

Another person was lying on the ground not far from where he 
stood. After glancing back at the naked woman, he walked in the 
direction of the person. The scene shifted around him to where he 
was walking down an alley in the middle of a frigid snowstorm, 
pushing his way through the snow. The cold sucked his body heat 
with a tenacity worthy of a pit bull. His hands and feet were first to 
go numb. His cock and balls were pulled up tight to his body.

Ahead of him was a young woman who was probably about 
sixteen years of age. She was not dressed appropriately for the 
weather and lay in the snow shivering from the cold. Just from 
looking at her, he could see the telltale signs that she had run away 
from home. Her clothes were not appropriate for living on the 
street and yet had the dirty look that conveyed that she had been 
living in them for slightly less than a week. 

Harry knelt down to examine the young woman. It didn't take 
years of living on the street to know that he needed to warm her 
before she died of hypothermia. Looking down the alley towards 
the street, he could see that nothing was open. The snow stood four 
feet high in places and moving from the alley wouldn't change her 
situation.

He went to a dumpster and started pulling trash out of it with 
unresponsive hands that were numb from the cold. Getting her 
body off the snow was necessary to save her life. Nothing would 
draw the warmth from her faster than lying on snow and concrete. 
It took five minutes for him to create a nest made of old 
newspapers, cardboard boxes, and plastic bags. The plastic bags, 
filled with trash, formed the first layer. He covered the plastic bags 
with cardboard to prevent accidental suffocation. His body was 
starting to shake from naked exposure to the elements, but he was 
dogged in his pursuit of his mission.

Returning to the young lady, he picked her up and carried her to 
the nest of trash. Settling down beside her, he arranged the 
newspapers to cover them and then pulled a layer of cardboard 
over that to prevent the papers from blowing away. With layers of 
trash beneath and above them, he had created a small volume of 
space that would insulate them from the cold. He put his arms 
around the woman and held her close to him to share his body heat. 

As he embraced her, the young woman disappeared and he found 
himself in the meadow holding a chain with part of the medallion 
attached to it. Exhausted and still numb from the cold, it was a real 
effort to collect himself to continue the mission given him by the 
naked woman.

He didn't understand everything that was going on around him, but 
he knew that he had to see it through to the end. He stood on legs 
that didn't want to support his body. It was a real fear that if the 
assaults against his body continued, he would be reduced to 
crawling to the last person. As it was, his physical exhaustion 
made it difficult to concentrate on anything. 

Stumbling over every imperfection of the meadow, he approached 
the third person. The surroundings changed to an inner-city 
landscape, with broken beer bottles littering the street. A stretch of 
cracked pavement next to the street barely passed for a sidewalk. 
The buildings had bars on the windows. Looking at the stores, he 
knew that the people working in them would be protected from the 
customers by bulletproof enclosures.

The third person was a man in his mid-twenties and he was drunk. 
Slouched against a building, the man was crying even as he took 
another sip from a bottle hidden within a bag. Harry, hands on his 
hips, looked down at the drunken man with disdain. Years on the 
street had taught him that a man who started crying while drinking 
usually turned violent before passing out.

After a minute, he started talking to the man trying to find out what 
was the matter. After a short exchange, he knew all that he needed 
to know. It was a common enough story and the man was living it 
out in the most negative manner possible. The man had lost his job 
and his house. As a result, he and his family were living on the 
street in their car while he was looking for work, but no one 
wanted to hire him. 

When the man started ranting about how unfair life was, Harry 
knew the man was working himself up to the point of violence. 
Stepping back, he waited for the anger to overflow and turn 
violent. It wasn't long before the man took a swing at Harry after 
he had made an innocent comment. Harry had been expecting it. 
After summoning what little remained of his strength, Harry 
landed one blow to the man's stomach. The booze that the 
drunkard had been drinking was lost as he bent over and retched. 

The man was not helping his family by drinking up what little 
money they had. The family needed food, shelter, and clothes. The 
money used to pay for the booze could have bought a loaf of bread 
and sandwich filling that could have fed the family for a day. That 
should have been the man's primary concern rather than feeling 
sorry for himself. There was help available, but the man in his 
stupid pride would pull his family down rather than accept the 
help.

After voiding the contents of his stomach, the man tried to hit 
Harry again. Disgusted, Harry put the man in an arm lock despite 
the fact that his body had no real strength left in it. For the next six 
blocks, he wrestled the drunken man down the street and to the 
door of a Fusion Foundation Shelter. It was exhausting work and 
he wouldn't have been successful if the man hadn't been too drunk 
to fight effectively. 

Stepping through the door, Harry found himself in the meadow and 
the man had turned into half the medallion. Two of the pieces had 
fused together and hung from the chain. His exhaustion made him 
fear that he wouldn't survive the encounters with the two people 
remaining in the meadow. His surroundings seemed to spin slightly 
as he tried to focus on the nearest person to him.  

He staggered towards the nearest person in the meadow wondering 
what he would find when he reached them. The surroundings 
changed to a city street and the person was a very pregnant 
Hispanic woman. This wouldn't be the first time that Harry had 
helped deliver a baby, but he hated doing it. It was messy and, in 
his opinion, an activity made ugly by the dirty surroundings in 
which these circumstances arose. 

He felt that babies shouldn't be born in alleyways, on sidewalks, or 
the backseat of a car. According to the stories his mother had told 
him, he had been born in a boxcar. That knowledge had always 
bothered him. He knew that a lowly beginning didn't affect how a 
man turned out, but it didn't seem right for a baby to come into the 
world amidst dirt and filth.

The current location was anything except clean. Empty paper cups, 
pages of newspaper, broken glass, and beer cans littered the 
sidewalk. Dirt filled the cracks and rough surface of the sidewalk. 
Even more disgusting, a pile of dog shit was near where she had 
collapsed to the ground. Talking in a soft reassuring voice, Harry 
knelt down next to the woman. He examined her and saw that the 
woman was dilated enough to give birth any moment. The top of 
the baby's head was visible. It was too late to get her to a cleaner 
environment, much less a hospital.

The woman screamed in pain as a contraction hit her. More than 
anything, Harry hated seeing pain and knowing that he could do 
nothing about it. There was nothing he could do except help 
deliver the child. Removing his shirt, he prepared it to wrap the 
newborn child in it. It wasn't exactly clean, but then it wasn't filthy 
either. He acted without realizing that he wasn't naked.

Harry knelt between the woman's legs to help with the delivery. A 
crack in the sidewalk bit into his knees driving shooting pains 
through his body. Talking in a soft voice, he calmed her down 
knowing that tension often caused more problems during a birth 
than anything else did. As she screamed in pain with each 
contraction, he told her the progress of the birth. When the head 
fully emerged, he reached down to support the child as it was born. 

For Harry, it seemed like the birth took forever. Leaning forward 
to support the baby put more pressure on his knees. That only 
intensified the pain in his knees. It took, in fact, only a few minutes 
before the baby was delivered. Doing his best to clear its nose and 
mouth, he waited a moment to see if the baby would take a breath 
on its own. When that didn't happen, he slapped the baby on the 
rear invoking a cry from it. He wrapped the baby boy in his shirt to 
keep it warm. 

Sitting back on his heals, he set the baby on his thighs. The baby 
might have been born, but his job wasn't over. After ripping three 
strips of cloth from his undershirt, he waited until the umbilical 
cord stopped pulsating and then used the strips to tie it in three 
places. It wasn't necessary to cut the cord since that could wait 
until true medical help had arrived. After a minute, the woman had 
another contraction and the afterbirth slid out of her. 

As Harry went to hand the baby to the woman, the baby turned into 
the medallion that was short one piece. What had been the 
umbilical cord was the chain. The scene around him transformed 
from inner city to tranquil meadow with a slowness that left him 
dizzy and sick to his stomach. The woman and child had 
disappeared. His clothes had disappeared in the process.

There was one last person in the meadow. Glancing back at the 
woman, he knew that it was his task to help this one last person. 
Turning back to the problem at hand, he stood up while his knees 
complained. A calf muscle cramped bringing him back to his 
knees. He rolled on the ground rubbing the cramp trying to get rid 
of it. When it had relaxed, he stood to walk it off. 

He slowly approached the last person in the meadow. As he came 
closer, his surroundings changed to a poorly lit city street just off 
the main drag. By the night sky, he judged that it was a little after 
midnight. In an area like this, that meant problems. When he 
reached the figure, he discovered that it was a black woman 
dressed in provocative clothes intended to advertise her profession. 

A man stepped out of the dark and kicked the woman screaming at 
her that she owed him money. She cried and pleaded with him, 
saying that she had not had a good night. Harry approached with 
trepidation. There was nothing worse, or more dangerous, than 
getting between a pimp and a prostitute, particularly a streetwalker. 
Even if you won the fight, you usually lost the war. 

As the pimp lifted a foot to kick the woman in the leg, Harry 
grabbed his arm and spun him around. Off balance, the pimp 
careened away and fell to the ground. In one smooth motion, the 
man was back on his feet and charging at Harry with rage on his 
face. Harry stepped aside while extending a leg. As a result of his 
actions, the pimp tripped and slid across the rough pavement face 
first. A horrible pain shot through Harry's leg. When the pimp 
stood, his face was a bloody mess. 

When the hooker rose from the ground, Harry stepped away unsure 
of what she was going to do. That she would strike out at him was 
just as likely as her striking out at the pimp. The pimp turned to 
Harry with a knife in his hand, an action that caused the hooker to 
back away from both of them. 

Shaking his head, Harry knew that this wasn't going well and he 
didn't have the strength to keep up the fight much longer. He could 
feel another cramp starting to form in the calf of his leg. As the 
pimp stepped in to stab him, Harry grabbed his hand and twisted it. 
Both them were surprised by the action, the pimp because of the 
speed with which Harry moved and Harry because the move had 
seemed so natural. The knife dropped to the ground between them 
when Harry kneed the pimp in the nuts.

Backing away, he kicked the knife on the ground with one foot and 
watched as it skittered into the darkness. Swaying on the verge of 
blacking out from his efforts, he turned to face the hooker. She 
stood in place undecided as to whether she should go to the pimp, 
attack Harry, or run away. It took him a few minutes, but he talked 
her into going to the Fusion Foundation Center. Taking her by the 
arm, he turned away from the pimp and led her down the street. He 
noticed the scars of cigarette burns along her arm.

As they walked, the inner city disappeared to be replaced by the 
meadow. Turning to look at his companion, he was surprised to 
discover that the hooker was gone, replaced by the Goddess. She 
smiled at him and said, "Well done."

"It was nothing that I hadn't done before," replied Harry with a 
frown.

"I know," she said as she slipped the medallion around his neck. 
She said, "Now you are better prepared. You must get your rest."

Harry woke under a tree with a start wondering when he had fallen 
asleep. Yawning, he tried to figure out what his dream had meant. 
Talking to himself, he said, "That sure was a weird dream."

Looking down at himself, he was shocked to discover that his 
clothes were clean and looked like new. It took him a minute to 
realize that his potbelly was gone. The change in his body brought 
home the fact that it wasn't a dream. Aloud, he said, "Dreams don't 
get rid of a belly."

His hand flew up to his chest finding the medallion hanging from 
around his neck. He knew without any doubts that he had met the 
Goddess and she had chosen him for her servant. A hundred 
questions about the impact on his carefree lifestyle crowded into 
his mind. That he would have to give up his wandering ways 
concerned him, but the decision wasn't his. 

Harry lifted the medallion and examined it. The front and back of 
the medallion were imprinted with images of female genitalia. 
Written on one side was the phrase, "To Help Those Who Are 
Lost." On the other side was the phrase, "To Give Hope Where 
None Is Found." His concerns were relieved since you didn't find 
the lost by sitting still.

He stood and looked around trying to get his bearings. Much to his 
surprise, he was at the edge of the trees near the stream where he 
had intended to bathe. Looking up to the road, he could see the top 
half of the Sheriff's truck. The Sheriff sat in his truck reading a 
newspaper. It was obvious that the Sheriff was waiting for him. 
Rather than make the Sheriff wait for him any longer, he headed 
up to the road.

The Sheriff looked over the newspaper and saw Harry walking up 
a path towards him. The sunlight reflected off the gold medallion 
hanging around the neck of the homeless man. Folding the 
newspaper, he rolled down the window to greet the man when he 
was close enough. He watched as Harry picked his way up the rise. 
It didn't take long for Harry to reach the road and head to the truck. 
Sticking his head out the window, the Sheriff called, "Come on, 
Harry."

Harry called back, "I see you loaded my tricycle already."

"I did that three days ago," replied the Sheriff. For the past three 
days, he had waited in that spot for Harry to emerge from the park. 
Years of watching and interacting with John Carter had given him 
the knowledge that people occasionally disappeared for days in the 
park and would emerge as Druids. That Harry would be chosen 
wasn't exactly a surprise to him. Although he lived the life of a 
bum, Harry was a good man.

"Three days?" asked Harry incredulous that so much time had 
passed. No wonder his potbelly was gone.

"Yes. Now get your ass in this truck. I'm hungry," replied the 
Sheriff gruffly. He wasn't going to let Harry know that he had been 
worried when he had found the tricycle by the side of the road 
without any kind of sign of the man around.

Harry climbed into the truck, still dazed from his experience in the 
meadow. He felt different, but wasn't quite sure in what ways he 
had changed. The most obvious change was that his potbelly was 
gone. He gave the Sheriff a big grin and said, "Sorry to keep you 
from your grub. I'm familiar with being hungry."

The Sheriff looked over at Harry and noticed a number of changes 
in the man's appearance. He said, "I like the new look. Your belly 
is flat, that broken tooth is gone, and you're clean-shaven. You're 
looking good."

Harry's hand flew to his face checking his beard. He was one of 
those men for whom growing a beard left him looking like he 
needed a shave, never getting long enough to convince people that 
it was actually a beard. His face, despite the wrinkles, was smooth 
with no sign of whiskers. At the same time, he probed his teeth 
with his tongue to find that his broken tooth had been replaced. 
Rather than reply to the comments, Harry said, "You're looking 
good. A little older maybe, but good."

The Sheriff turned the truck around and headed to the restaurant. 
He replied, "I'll be retiring soon."

This wasn't news to Harry since the Sheriff had said that the last 
two times that he had come through the area. In the past, the 
Sheriff had at times expressed a desire to travel around the country 
in a RV. He grinned and asked, "So are you going to take to the 
road like me?"

"No. I'm getting married soon," answered the Sheriff. In the past, 
every time he had picked up Harry he had pictured traveling 
around the country, living a lifestyle where he could go where he 
wanted. However, the relationship with Tricia had changed his 
mind on that matter. He could see growing old with her and living 
in a house with a white picket fence.

"So take her with you. My mom and dad did it. They brought me 
along with them. We traveled by train over this whole country, 
going north in the summer and south in the winter," replied Harry. 
He understood that rich people had done the same thing. The only 
difference was that they had tickets for the train. He knew that 
most people would consider that he had a strange childhood. 
Maybe it was different, but he had enjoyed it.

"Well, I'll think about it," replied the Sheriff wondering what kind 
of childhood Harry had experienced. 

"Talk to her about it," suggested Harry. He couldn't imagine living 
in one place all year round. It seemed like a waste of a lifetime to 
spend it all in one spot. There was just so much to see.

The Sheriff shrugged as he pulled into the parking spot in front of 
the restaurant. He'd have to think about it some more. Parking the 
car and turning off the motor, he said, "We're here. I think George 
has pork chops on the menu today."

Harry grinned at the idea of eating pork chops. He seldom had sit 
down meals and the chance to eat a real piece of meat was one that 
he wouldn't pass up. Rubbing his hands together, he said, "What 
are we doing out here? Let's go eat."

The men entered the restaurant for lunch. Harry had the pork 
chops, enjoying them with great pleasure. It was a great change 
from his normal fare - Hobo Stew, mission meatloaf, and fast food 
paid for with begged money. George and Martha enjoyed his visits 
and would have feed him for free. In his own way, he earned his 
meal with stories of life on the road and the interesting characters 
that he had met in his journeys. 

After lunch, the Sheriff took Harry to the Sporting Goods Store. 
When he pulled up in front of the store, Harry asked, "What are we 
stopping here for?"

"Peter Goodman asked me to bring you here after you had lunch," 
answered the Sheriff.

Surprised at the announcement that someone he had never met 
wanted to see him, Harry asked, "Who's he?"

Pointing to the medallion, the Sheriff answered, "He's one of 
yours."

Wondering what to expect, Harry got out of the truck and went 
into the store. Having expected the Sheriff to go in with him, he 
turned back once to look at the Sheriff waiting in the truck. Once 
inside the store, he looked around at all of the goods. He spent a 
minute trying to figure out what most of them did. It dawned on 
him that he traveled pretty light compared to most folks. He had a 
change of clothes, sweaters, a coat, and a blanket. A small 
pocketknife was his most cherished possession, given to him by his 
father. A tall thin man greeted him, "Hello. I see you have a 
medallion."

Harry's hand flew to his chest to cover the medallion. It wasn't 
something that he could deny, so he answered, "Yes, I do."

"You serve the Goddess." Peter had expected only a single servant 
of the Goddess to emerge from the meadow this time. 

Even though it was expressed as a statement, there was a hint of a 
question in the man's voice. Harry nodded and replied, "Yes, I do."

Going to the counter, Peter grabbed a stack of green robes from the 
countertop. As he handed them to Harry, he said, "These are yours. 
You should put one of them on now."

Harry accepted the robes and, after looking around for a place to 
put them, set them down on the floor at his feet. Looking at the 
size of the pile, he wondered how he was going to carry that many 
robes with him on his tricycle. Picking up one of the robes, he 
went to put it on, but found it awkward to locate the sleeves as he 
squirmed inside the robe. A very amused Peter watched Harry 
struggle within the robe, moving around like a giant green 
caterpillar trying to scratch an itch on its back. 

When Harry finally managed to get his arms in the sleeves and his 
head through the neck hole, he looked down at himself. He 
mumbled, "Beware world, watch out for the ugly guy in a dress."

Chuckling at the comment, Peter handed him a staff as he said, 
"This is yours."

Harry took the staff, examining it carefully. It was a shepherd's 
staff complete with a hook on top. It was made of metal, very thin, 
and dark. It made him wonder if the Goddess wanted him to go out 
and herd sheep or something. Puzzled, he said, "It's gonna be 
difficult trying to carry that on the tricycle."

Peter smiled as he answered, "I don't think that will be a problem. 
Go see the guy behind the store."

It seemed to him that he was popular all of a sudden. Two people 
that he had never met wanted to talk to him on the same day. Harry 
asked, "Who wants to talk to me?"

"A very important person," answered Peter. 

Harry went behind the store wondering what he was going to find. 
When he got there, he found a tall lanky man in a black robe 
watching him with gray eyes. The man, leaning against a kitchen 
on wheels, said, "I'm Ed Biggers."

"I'm Happy Harry." Harry eyed the truck for a moment and then 
asked, "What's with the Roach Coach?"

Smiling at the characterization of the truck, Ed stood up and said, 
"It's your new home. Now we have to get you a driver's license."

"I can't afford that," replied Harry turning to walk away. 

"That's not quite true. I've got an account with over two million 
dollars that is ready to sign over to you. You can afford it," said Ed 
with a grin. 

"You're gonna trust me with two million?" asked Harry 
incredulous that someone would hand him that kind of money. 

"Sure. You're a Druid, now."
