Jeff is the baddest dude I know, and one of the best friends I've ever had. His whole existence has been preeminately at odds. We were introduced by a mutual friend after Jeff had returned from a bit at a labor camp in the Cascades. From birth, this guy had total disregard for everything decent. And it wasn't a put on, and it wasn't a show. It was the sincere expression of his being, and making it work in this world, being appropriate to this world, seemed to require more than he was capable of giving. He was born in the desert.

Jeff was a living, breathing archetype. The great outsiders of film only mimic Jeff, and great works of literature have been written about him. He menaced the highways of California in an XL Ford Bronco, mad, Dean Moriarty mad:

"Suddenly I had a vision of Dean, a burning shuddering frightful Angel, palpitating toward me across the road, approaching like a cloud, with enormous speed, pursuing me like the Shrouded Traveler on the plain, bearing down on me. I saw his huge face over the plains with the mad, bony purpose and the gleaming eyes; I saw his wings; I saw his old jalopy chariot with thousands of sparkling flames shooting out from it; I saw the path it burned over the road; it even made its own road and went over the corn, through cities, destroying bridges, drying rivers. It came like wrath to the West. I knew Dean had gone mad again."

He was, is, the perfect expression of the Western spirit, the kind of man that can only be nourished in the vast landscape of North America. He is not cowed, will not be infringed upon. The man follows a code. Merle knows the man I'm talking about: