(Start with 7/18/07 please!)Softy, in the meantime, spent his whole life being taken advantage of in one way or another. A beggar came up to him the other day and gave him this long song and dance about how he finally found work, but he needs bus fare for him and his family to get to the job. Softy wiped away his tears and went right for his wallet. He not only gave him sufficient bus fare for a very large family, but gave him enough for some clean clothes as well.
Softy often wondered about Dusty. As much as it was difficult to live with her, he often worried whether she was okay. Sometimes he regretted not trying to get her committed to an institution of some sort. But then he would remember how happy she was in her squalor, as he’d like to call it.
He wondered how she took his death and whether she was getting his life insurance and his pension. He worried whether, without a body, they would formally pronounce him “dead.”
How he wished that he could just visit her once and see how things worked out. And he’d love to see Dirty Hairy, his favorite, if not filthiest, all-time dog.
I don’t know what overcame Softy here, but he decided to go and visit Dusty. But he needs to be sure that she doesn’t know it is he. Softy realizes that he had two choices. Either he can disguise himself or go undercover. He nixes the undercover idea he knows how rarely Dusty goes out. So a disguise it will be.
Not being the most creative soul, he decides to imitate a disguise that Tonto (of Long Ranger and Tonto fame) once used. So he dresses as a poor Mexican peasant and brushes up on his Mexican broken English. Then he starts the long drive to dustland.
His plan is to come to her door and just see how she is doing. He certainly has no intention of getting back into her life.
What if she has found a new man? Should he protest since, unbeknownst to her, he is still the rightful husband. Or should he let it be using the argument that everyone is better off not knowing the truth. Dusty would like this dilemma, he thought.
He figured he could find out if she had received the pension and life insurance to see how she and Dirty Hairy were living. Dirty Hairy’s ribs would be quite prominent if he was not being given enough food.
Softy had his own issues with money. He could not work any regular type of job because he had destroyed all of his identification. And he could do very much except sell pillows. He slept on a pillow. He sat on a pillow. He loved pillows. He knew he’d have to make some money to get across the country to Dustland.
