He had been on the road for a while trekking from city unknown to city unknown in a cloud of dust kicked up by a Greyhound bus he used a different name in every city he wasn't a criminal, but he was on the run, he simply enjoyed anonymity enjoyed being everybody's imaginary friend He took magic mushrooms in Richmond and rode the image of his grand spiritual quest like a drug induced steed, rode it straight to San Jose where he met some migrant workers who drank cheap mescal beneath the stars of the dead pan landscape wasters of the great American wasteland and in New Mexico city he was given a tab of acid which dissolved under his tongue in an explosion of hypnotic torture his life reflected as a visage as hallucinogenic as the walls which rippled all around him, Portland was ******* and oxy pills his humanity stretched tight like a drum ready to snap at any given stimuli he made it to California dreams of LA he became addicted to the limelight, pretty hipster chicks who were foolish enough to sleep with him, simply because he introduced himself as a writer, simply because he could work the word, and he settled in San Diego where the whiskey poured freely and the *** was enough to blow your ******* head off, in a small one room apartment where the rent was cheap, he drank and smoked himself in a stupor with the windows open - enjoying the soft pacific breeze which washed him of his sins he had been all over his forced continent looking for a place to call home, but he never found what he was looking for, and with grit and determination and a hunger for the freedom of the American dream he packed up again, and left for the road, a thief in the all encompassing night