As a boy, Rabbit Ears hadn't known his father very well. When he would ask his mother why his father was home so seldom, she would reply that as sheriff he had an important job in the community to fulfill. He kept the bad people out of town, she would say. Who were the bad people, he wanted to know. Anarchists, she answered, and tucked him into bed.

Sheriff Detroit had a remote cabin in the mountains west of Villa Sicko where he often retreated to relax his mind and smoke a lot of peculiar substances. Mankato had been the only other who knew of the existence of this mountain retreat, and now that he was gone, no one knew where to find Detroit when he went away on these mysterious outings.

Detroit would lay on a cot for hours at time staring across the valley, watching etch-a-sketch patterns in the clouds, and wondering what had become of his life and who was he to judge others and why there weren't any good theatre productions in town anymore. He found himself growing infinitely fascinated by the minutest of details. The flight patterns of a tsetse fly could keep his mind entertained for hours, as could the steady drip of melting snow on a nearby rock outcropping. On long afternoons he even imagined he could hear his beard growing, and there was no one to dispute him. When he would finally return to town, everyone was struck by how serene he had become. But they didn't understand.