We walked past the fringes of the fair, where small groups of folkies and tokies and various other dispossessed spirits dragged their bodies in search of new hope. One had two ukeleles and a sweet potato singing "If You Like A Ukelele Lady, Ukelele Lady Like A-You". Over in another corner there were three shapely girls in dumpy blue denim overalls harmonizing on some song about their young love playing at the ball. We past a grungy clique of guys in leather jackets, Navy peacoats, Army field jackets, anything that looked like they had earned it whether they knew anything or not. They were banging out chords on a couple of cheap Mellotone guitars and singing a raunchy version of "Back Door Man", leering and swigging long-necks from paper bags, several kinds of smoke rising above them in the night sky between the fields and the fairwar. We walked close behind one of more atonal singers, and I noticed, as I passed, that he had four studs climbing up the edge of his right ear. I noticed he looked unkempt, oily-haired and unshaven, not that I was in the best of bloom myself. At least I had Lucky along to add some tone. Then I noticed something else.

His black leathger jacket had chrome studs on the seams, chrome stars on the shoulders, thick chrome zippers in various places, and large flame-patterned letters across the shoulders in back.

The writing on his coat caught the light from the midway as he writhed around, drinking and laughing. Five letters in bright orange, dull crimson and black, hanging off his scapulae like some kind of cosmic advertisement, curved around a deep purple skull with green eye sockets. Five letters...

Cosmo