“‘Paradise Alley” my ass”, he thought as he hustled around it’s corner. The song that should have made him world famous had instead left him penniless and panhandling. Instant small city fame, it turns out, is a nasty Mistress and
she really did a number on Jake Penny. “Blind Dog” they called him, and he sure as shit was. So blind that he never saw the backlash coming and when you live on borrowed money, well then, your living on borrowed time. Now here he was, slipping down that very alley, a beat cop on his tail, another man’s wallet in his hand and his blood on Penny’s shoes. “Gotta throw this cop off my trail”, his bourbon soaked brain told him. Just before his hustle broke into a run, he stopped for a half a second and kicked in a wooden door on the side of a building. “Yeah,” he figured, “he’ll think I busted in there…”