When the woman Jake Massry lives with leaves him for another man because he can’t succeed as a writer, and his old world father, on his deathbed, orders him to get a “real” job, Jake, to get his head straight, hits the highways of America in his worn-out VW bus, Old Bones, in search of himself and his country.

It’s Spring 1974—prices are spiraling upward and President Nixon is embroiled in the Watergate fiasco. As he travels from place to place in Old Bones, Jake meets a colorful cast of characters: sexy women, gays, born-again Christians, philosophers, racists, bullies and Gary Morse, a 19-year-old hitchhiker who possesses a large “red ruby” given to him by a young heiress.

Excerpt from Chapter 19 “Ted and Alice”

The next day, when I entered Texas at Farwell and started driving north, I began to notice the difference between New Mexico and the Lone Star State. New Mexico—practically untouched by human hands. Texas—huge farms and immense cattle ranches.

I entered the city limits of Amarillo and stopped at the first bar I came to. Sitting next to me on a tall stool was a slim fellow wearing a hard hat. He was dressed in work clothes and dusty boots. His name was Ted Stanton. He was a construction worker who had recently gotten married. He bought me a beer when I told him I was just “passing through.”

“Do you know any place around here where I can get a decent, inexpensive meal?” I asked.

“Well, let’s see…” said Ted. “Yep, I know the perfect place. My place.”

“Won’t that be putting you and your wife out?”

“No, no,” he said. “My wife’ll be glad to meet you.”

After Ted helped me give Old Bones a little push, I followed him a few miles to the apartment complex where he lived. His wife Alice wore a friendly smile when he introduced me to her.

Alice—twenty-two, with long, wavy red hair, freckles covering her face, blue eyes, and a knockout figure—proceeded to give me a tour of her one-bedroom wonderland. In the meantime, Ted went into the kitchen to rustle up some dinner. As soon as she finished showing me around, she plopped down in an armchair.

After working all day, I’m thinking, the guy comes home to a wife who doesn’t have a job, and then he has to cook dinner while she sits in a chair and talks to me. What a deal she has.

Ted served us hot dogs and beans for dinner.

The Stantons had plenty of beer in the house. In fact, their refrigerator had two full shelves of it. After dinner, we drank and drank while we talked and talked. Let me clarify that. It was Alice who did all the talking. She had something to say about everything—plus more. Also, if she needed something—a beer, a cracker, peanuts, a cigarette—it was Ted who would get up and get it for her. She just wouldn’t budge from her chair.

What kind of woman is Ted married to? Does he like being her slave?

It was around ten when I stood up and told Ted and Alice that I was going out to Old Bones to bed down for the night.

“You ain’t sleepin’ outside on a cold night like this,” said Ted. “No sireee. We’re puttin’ you up on our couch.”

Ted brought me sheets and blankets and then excused himself, closing the bedroom door behind him. What a gem of a man he was.

While I was fixing the bed, Alice was still going strong. Will you shut up already! I felt like saying. But, of course, I didn’t.

Why doesn’t she stop talking? I kept asking myself over and over. And then the answer came to me. She’s lonely. She doesn’t have anything to do or anyone to talk to during the day. All she does is stay cooped up in this apartment drinking beer, smoking cigarettes, and watching soap operas. Poor Alice. Poor Ted. Poor me.

Alice didn’t stop. I listened and listened and listened and listened, but heard nothing at all.

When she mentioned President Nixon, my ears perked up. “I think he’s a good man,” she said. “I really do. He’s done so much for this country, but you think he’s respected? Hell no. Just the opposite—he’s getting shit upon. I feel sorry for that man. He made peace with China, didn’t he? Last year he brought the troops home from Vietnam. I know all about Watergate and all that crap, but that was just an itty-bitty mistake. Now the Democrats are tryin’ to impeach him. He deserves better’n that. He’s done this country so much good…”

Alice didn’t know she was talking to a man who despised the president for employing his own “itty-bitty” spy ring to burglarize the Democrats’ headquarters, but I held my tongue. I knew if I argued with her I couldn’t have changed her mind in a million years. Besides, I wanted a warm place to sleep.

Finally, around 11:30, the talking machine said, “It’s time for me to go to bed.” She rose from the armchair for the first time that evening, turned off the lights, and went into the bedroom, closing the door behind her.

I undressed, got under the covers, took a deep breath, and closed my eyes.

Silence. Peace. Sweet dreams.

Then I heard the bedsprings in their room go creak…creak…creak-creak…creak-creak, creak-creak…

Alice began to warm up real fast, moaning and groaning with such uninhibited passion. Then, as the minutes wore on, she started screaming.

I couldn’t help but tune into their privacy. In fact, I’m sure the whole apartment complex could probably hear them. And Ted, that Ted—wow! What stamina! What staying power! They were at it for close to an hour.

There’s no telling how much a man will put up with for some wild, passionate sex—even if it’s with his own wife.