For Barney, it was totally unexpected. He had a friend. He had tramped the country for years. He was always alone and one place just like the other in his blurred m*******a and wine addled brain. No one had noticed him. He was slight of stature, slight of build, slight of brain, and his non-descript brown hair practically gone.
If he had been born ugly, someone might have noticed him if only to say, “Man, what an ugly dude.” When he left home at the age of sixteen, it would have been difficult to decide who felt the most relief; his family or Barney. To his family he had always failed and Barney knew he had failed them. Away from them, he no longer had to try to meet their expectations.
The roads and towns were a bitter experience. The older wanderers tolerated the new ones, but the youn
