“Go ahead and release him.”

He chuckles. “When the calls started hittin’ my office Jack was barrelin’ down the interstate at 70 miles an hour. You gotta picture this. The bottom half of a dead man’s body is swingin’ back and forth, blood and guts flyin’ everywhere, but damned if he don’t just keep comin’, all the way to Baton Rouge. But does he stop at the city limits? Hell no! He circles the whole damn city and winds up downtown. Take a guess what he does next.”

I actually don’t know. I thought that was the whole story. So I shrug.

Sheriff Pike says, “Jack drives a half-mile down the center of Government Street, sees an all-night gas station, makes a wide u-turn, pulls up to one of the gas pumps, and stops short. That causes the torso to swing around so hard it crashes into one of the pumps, where it does some minor damage, and somehow gets hopelessly hung up in the top half of the pump. This is the body Jack claims not to have noticed.”

Pike chuckles till tears form in the corners of his eyes. Then he says, “The guy workin’ the gas station’s Pakistani. Tahir Hesbani. It’s his first fuckin’ night on the job. Been in the USA exactly two days. All his life he’s heard how violent Americans are, but always thought that was propoganda.

“Tahir’s cousin got him a work visa, found him a job at the gas station. Tahir’s been workin’ the late shift by himself for all of eight minutes when Jack Tallow pulls into the station with a man’s bloody torso swingin’ from the back of a tow truck. You could’ve murdered Tahir’s whole family, he wouldn’t have screamed any louder. He hits the floor, starts to call 911, but hears someone tappin’ on the glass above him. It’s Jack, tryin’ to pay for his gas in advance. Tahir takes one look at Jack, who’s bleedin’ from head to toe from wild hog bites, and tells him to take whatever he can. Jack hisses at the guy and scares him half to death. See, he can’t talk because his vocal cords have been cut out. So he motions for a pen and paper. Tahir supplies it, and Jack writes that Tahir has to unlock the pump. Well, to do that, Tahir has to stand up. So he does, and realizes he’s dumped four pounds of shit in his drawers! He unlocks the gas pump and watches Jack fill the truck. But he won’t call the cops ’cause he thinks everything that happens in America winds up on the Internet and he doesn’t want the whole world to know he shit his pants.”

“Makes sense,” I say.

“But Jack won’t leave. After fillin’ the tank he comes back to ask directions. Want to guess what he’s lookin’ for?”

“A doctor?”

“A veterinarian. To patch up his hog bites.