Pyle walked into the classroom. There were two people in the classroom who had come to hear him.

He walked to the lectern with his backpack.

One was a man in a Husqvarna baseball cap. Was that chainsaws, riding lawnmowers, or a motocross bike? Any of the three was Pyle's kind of person.

The other was an older man, with an oxygen bottle, on wheels, and tubes in his nose. He was a regular at this particular writers conference.

Pyle didn't know his name, but he knew what he had to say. The man shared freely at presentations. Pyle had listened to him before.

To this man, Pyle said, "You came to hear me last year. I am like a broken record. A Johnny-One Note. You have heard everything I have to say. I have nothing new to say. You have heard it. Perhaps you'd be happier listening to Cricket Freeman or Michael Connelly."

He got it.

He took his oxygen bottle and left. Take my bongos and go home. As the Beat poet said.

"Mexican bus fumes," Pyle said.

The man in the Husqvarna hat laughed.

Jonathan Winters once appeared on the Tonight show with an oxygen bottle. He said he believed in air pollution. He supported it.

Johnny Carson asked him what was in the bottle and he said, "Mexican bus fumes."

Michael Lister's wife Pam walked by the front door and looked in.

It was Pyle and one attendee.

She kept walking.

Whiskey tango foxtrot, chief? What the fuck.