Before he pops in a cassette and listens to the tunes of his choosing on his way out of New York, Dalton’s radio is tuned in to 102.7, WNEW, the home of classic rock for a generation—a freeform rock station before “classic rock” even existed, back when “classic rock” was just rock—in New York. Scott Muni, Scottso, The Professor. Pete Fornatale. Carol Miller. That sort of shit. That’s the station I grew up listening to, via my father and then eventually on my own. For a while in the 1990s and early 2000s, I believe, it was a talk station, home of the shock jocks Opie & Anthony. Today I have no idea what it is.

But I cherish the idea that Dalton and I might both have listened to the same radio station at the same time. Why? Because how else am I going to connect with Dalton as a person, really? There’s the philosophy degree I suppose; I took a year of philosophy as an undergrad and remember it relatively fondly, though if asked me what I learned I probably couldn’t come up with much better than Dalton’s self-effacing “Man’s search for faith, that sort of shit.” But I’m not a dancer, I’m not a fighter, I’m certainly not a cooler let alone a bouncer, I don’t practice tai chi, I’ve never torn a man’s throat out, although I can think of one ex that was none too pleased I’ve never had sex with a woman while her ex actually watched, et cetera. The possibility that I listened to the same broadcast of “Roundabout” or “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” or “Locomotive Breath” as James Dalton, the best damn cooler in the business? How could one ever put a price on something so precious?