He took it back to New York, downcast and unsure of what to do next. Might be Cadillac Joe'd spot him a room. Might be he could play down one of those places around Washington Sqaure a while, make enough to eat. Maybe Leo up at Vanguard would let him back in. Maybe that girl, Dana... whoosie... Yeah. Or Allman. He'd find something. But he knew one thing, he wasn't gonna ask his dad, no matter what happened. He had learned plenty since he set out to be the blues, breath them, own them, and one of them was, it was on your own, man. On your own. They didn't know that at Antioch, they dodn't know it in the Village. Well that Jimi guy knew it, and old Jimmy Reed knew it. Man, those cats were square on. Jimi running off to Europe. And what happened to Robbie? He in the city? Something'd happen, he knew that.

He had the axe, and his fingers were hearing about some kind of magic, every time he started to work it. And the Greyhound kept pulling him north, and it got to that Whitestone Bridge and came down the West side, and he was on the square gray concrete sidewalks, just like last time, walking south from Port Authority, thinking the blues, feeling the Les Paul in its case by his side.... and waiting for his luck to come down the street and knowing it was gonna happen...