My shirt was too loose and my ribs hurt when I breathed the hanging smoke in the ‘private’ club right in the middle of the Furnace, right across from the junior high (we called’em junior highs back then but hell we had a smokin’ area and the ballplayers all dipped snuff Hawkins or Kodiak and boy didn’t they puke at two-a-days), a move nobody saw coming from a one-mule country town in the middle of Tennessee, 20 miles from Nashville and a thousand miles from good pizza.

A real club. With real music.

With very real alcohol.

And a standard jukebox filled with the ‘tops of the pops’ so to speak. Jack, the grizzled owner of the short-ceilinged bar, seriously you could reach right up and knock the drop ceiling tiles right out onto the floor, no shit, Robert Hamilton was 6 foot 7 if he was an inch and knocked the power out to our band for 30 minutes when he decided to pogo when we played God Save The Queen by The Sex Pistols.

In the immortal words of the Virgin Mary, “It was a right laugh.

Jack put up with a helluva lot, the scar across his cheek a result of a chainsaw accident as a young man. It gave him a sinister look. He was short but he was country tough. All sinew.

If you got in a fight with him, he was not likely to give up. Tread lightly.

He took a shine to us. Of course he did. We weren’t great but we weren’t bad. And we played all the outlaw shit you could throw. Oh, we weren’t obscene, not really, and there were more than a few songs we knew that we absolutely could not play at Jack’s.

The biker parties. That was different. We’ll talk later.

Anyway…dammit…the only point I was trying to get to was the jukebox. Tops of the Pops. 1989. By then, we’d been the house band at Jack’s for 5 years. Keep current. Keep traditional. Walk the rope; Play the Crowd.

Play it hard and Play it LOUD. That’s really all it took.

We were so fucked up all the time, by the last set, we could barely play.

I fell off the drum stool a number of times.

Our lead man, a nice guy named Darwin (no shit) actually passed out from dehydration…is what they said. I dunno but whateer…

We had fun. Setting up, taking down, gyrating against the good ole girls who rode to live and lived to ride, so to speak.

It was a glorious time…with one exception.

That fucking jukebox. And the 80’s vampiric nature towards my favorite 70’s bands.

Listening to that juke…night after night, while we’re setting up, every break, hours after when we’re chilling out and shutting down…the songs…

Don’t get me wrong. I really liked a few bands that were formed in the 80’s. Skid Row. GnR before they got weird, others…

But my favorite 70’s bands?

Are you serious?

With the possible exception of AC/DC and Steely Dan, the 80’s ruined every 70’s band I loved.

Journey was an exception for reasons I’ll discuss later. The Doobie Brothers redeemed themselves after Michael McDonald realized what he was meant for.

Let’s take a look.

A good hard look.

1970’s ZZ Top: Gritty, pure southern blues rock with a touch of humor. Just Got Paid. Manic Mechanic. I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide…

1980’s ZZ Top: “She’s got legs?” Yeah, she’s also got synthesizers making inane space war gunshot sounds. TV Dinners. Sleeping Bag…bah.

1970’s Aerosmith: “Blood stains the ivories on my daddy’s baby grand; I ain’t seen no daylight since I started this band” That’s gritty and real.

1980’s Aerosmith: “Love in an elevator…” Kitsch. Pure Kitsch. The Toxic Twins got sober and actually needed Run DMC to help restart their career which was lame as fuck. It was to get much lamer.

1970’s Heart=Barracuda, Dog and Butterfly, Crazy on You, Straight On. Bangers!

1980’s Heart= “How do I get you alooooooone?” Hard rockin’ bitches decide syrupy ballads is the way…blech

1970’s Foreigner: Head Games, Hot Blooded, Double Vision, A Long, Long Way From Home…Rock at it’s very best.

1980’s Foreigner: More ballads “I’ve been waiting…for a girl like you…” It’s urgent-t-t-t-t-ttttt…soooo urgent….” Let’s see how many time we can get the word urgent into a rock song…

And on…And on…And on…

Now, to Journey. Yes, the 1970’s Journey hit hard, rocking songs like Feeling That Way/Anytime…Do You Recall…Wheel in The Sky…Good stuff…

Then they met Jonathan Cain and went keyboard-oriented…or did they?

Escape is still a damn good guitar album despite Who’s Cryin’ Now. But let’s continue…

Steve Perry’s vocal qualities overrode many of the egregious ballads that Cain insisted on writing, maybe only knew how to write…Faithfully is terrible as a song, works as a ballad, nothing special besides album sales…

Journey still managed to hit hard, though. Ask The Lonely, Be Good to Yourself, arena rock peeking through the very over-produced and keyboard-heavy overlay and a template for what Bon Jovi was to become.

I give Journey a pass. A SLIGHT pass.

The 80’s took every hardcore, or light core, group of the 70’s and told them, ‘We Need Ballads.’

Why? The only thing that changed was the changing of the regime. As soon as the very Republican Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, music changed overnight.

Thank god for the British New Wave movement and the US metal underground. I still have my bootleg cassette of Metallica with Dave Mustaine in the band doing Jump In the Fire…

Just compare your favorite groups from the 70’s to how they sounded and what songs they were writing in the 80’s. It’s a stark contrast in almost every case.

The movie business was no different. In two years we went from Apocalypse, Now and Ordinary People…Even The Empire Strikes Back to Teen-Sex comedies ad nauseum and Return of the Jedi with it’s little Jim Henson Ewoks, sooo cute…There were more hard-hitting, honest movies in any given year in the 70’s than all of the 80’s years, combined.

With regime changes comes changes in entertainment. It’s part of the propaganda machine known as The US Entertainment Business.

If you ever had any doubt that practically everything you watch or hear that’s ‘mainstream’ was handed down on a presidential spoon, here’s your sign.

Don’t fall for it. And for God’s sake, don’t buy it.

They can offer you a sandwich; You don’t have to eat it. Fight back!

I’m old now, and many of you won’t understand how monumental of a day this was.

The King, Elvis Presley, was coming to town for a show.

The King hated Nashville for a variety of reasons…some of them very GOOD reasons…and his manager, Colonel Tom Parker, had shrewdly booked Elvis for a show in the nearby bedroom college town of Murfreesboro…a calculated ‘fuck you’ to Nashville while giving a ‘thumbs up’ to the actual people who thought Jesus sat on one shoulder of God and Elvis sat on the other in his spare time.

When I say my mother was a fan, man, believe that. She had every album, every single, dozens and dozens of photos and clippings and magazines and books on every subject related to Elvis and she never hesitated to bore people to tears with her insane fandom which was generally reserved for Elvis fans…or the Beatles…or the aforementioned Son of God.

Tickets were limited. Severely limited. Elvis hadn’t had a concert within 4 hours of Nashville since the 1950’s when he played the Opry and was promptly invited to leave with his hair and his hips and his rock n roll, even though Elvis was possibly one of the best GOSPEL singers around at the time, a trait Nashville and the Grand Ole Opry should have embraced.

Not that Nashville acted in a surprising way. Not even a little bit.

This is the same town that could have had not one but TWO NASCAR races, inherited simply because of Nashville being Nashville, its proximity basically the gateway between the North and the South with its intersecting interstates that lead from Detroit to Florida and from North Carolina to damn near the Pacific Ocean. With its long history of racing and growing status with the new-found love of country music and the South being sold coast-to-coast, Nashville was the best kept secret in entertainment in the early 70’s. And the city leaders wanted to keep it that way.

Music City, baby. Nashvegas.

Trashville.

They didn’t need Elvis. You couldn’t walk down Music Row on a rainy Tuesday afternoon without tripping over a dozen or two dozen or five dozen kids, musicians from all over the world, come here to be a star and the hell of it is: The machine would pluck a few out who had the looks and were willing to blow the management team and leave the rest to die. Those few would become one-hit wonders or superstars and you couldn’t always tell who was who or which was which.

Who recognized Kris Kristofferson when he was cleaning garbage cans out of Studio B?

Who looked twice at Dolly Parton when she was a normal non-descript receptionist at a car dealership over on 2nd Avenue?

Nashville, man. You had to be there. Dolly lived in our neighborhood. So did Porter Waggoner…and George Jones…

Nashville wasn’t into starfucking. You might sell a million albums but you’re just the guy in my way at the fruit stand to me, buddy. You sing the songs; I’ll buy the produce.

Bob Dylan came to town to record an album, had a motorcycle wreck that busted him up, and the town barely noticed.

Paul McCartney came and very few cared. Junior’s Farm is about his time here. That pretty much sums it up.

Elvis, though…this was different. Much different.

And so, the announcement was made on tv and radios all over the state in July, 1973.

Elvis was coming.

The Memphis Mafia was coming. Taking care of business.

You bet.

And they were coming to put Nashville’s dick into the proverbial dirt.

Elvis had lost weight. He’d made one of the most heroic comebacks in rock history. He was working out, practicing karate it was said…His shows were selling out, his fans were happy, he was making new fans with hits like In The Ghetto and Superstitious Minds…

He was back on top.

And tickets were rarer than Wonka’s fabled Golden Ticket, or so it seemed.

The tickets would be sent by lottery.

In those days, you mailed your name and ticket money to an address. Then, you waited. You waited and you waited. You checked the mail, every day. You called your friends to see if they’d heard anything. One watched the news every night to see if they had any news. A strange way to sell tickets, but effective, as evinced by the Jackson’s using the same lottery system 10 years later on the Victory Tour (that’s a story for another time, you animals).

You waited through the summer…the fall…Halloween, gone…Thanksgiving, gone…Christmas, go-

Well, not quite. The letters started arriving during the month of December.

Rejection letters. Thank you for your excitement but, unfortunately, you were not selected for one of the 11,000 tickets. Sorry ‘bout your luck. Try Foghat.

Season’s Greetings and Meat Beatings.

My mother was downtrodden. She walked around like a zombie for a week to 10 days. I was only 6 but I knew: She’s the one you don’t wanna fuck with. Not now.

Christmas came. She was as pleasant as she could be, I’ll give her that. Christmas was always her favorite holiday and this was no different. The house was warm…festive…friends and relatives over almost every night for a drink or to exchange small gifts given more as tokens of esteem than for the monetary value assigned…yet, every conversation tended to drift toward mom’s sorrow at having been set aside for some teeny-bopper fan who’d just discovered Elvis two years ago and how could they not give Elvis’ BIGGEST FAN tickets???

She acted the part of the happy mom…no one bought it.

Christmas turned to January turned to February. Had a large ice storm that year and were without power for a week. Mom just walked around, singing ‘Can’t Help Falling (In Love With You)’ over and over and making cold hotdog sandwiches with cream cheese.

She was sad like she’d just miscarried a love child. Sullen.

She was losing weight.

My grandmother sent her to a doctor on the assumption her weight-loss must be related to cancer.

It wasn’t. It was a wasting away of a fantasy. If souls have actual weight, then why can’t our dreams?

The power finally came back on and mom pulled through. She held me and I’d sing Love Me Tender in my squeaky, little-boy voice. I could carry a tune, a little, and my singing to her seemed to lift her spirits although not as high as either one of us would have liked. Where the house seemed lived-in during the Summer of Anticipation as we would come to call the summer of ‘73, now it just seemed dead. Ghosts, shadows…the coldness that only a home without hope can ever achieve.

She’d hold me in one arm and hold a copy of Elvis Live At Madison Square Garden in the other. I’d sing Polk Salad Annie. She’d laugh, rough up my hair, and stumble away into her bedroom. The smell of cigarette smoke began to stain the carpet, stick to the curtains, and grandma grew desperate.

One day, the phone rang. Normally, no one would’ve thought twice but in the quietness of our home that I’d never known until now, it rang and rang, a bell calling you to the executioner.

It rang with danger.

Mom padded to the phone, no enthusiasm to hear from a friend, no enthusiasm for anything. She picked up the receiver, holding it loosely to her ear and smoking a Virginia Slims…

“Hello?”

Quiet. I played with my Tonka truck on the living room floor, glancing toward her out of the corner of my eye.

She stood, silent. I knew the woman for 61 years and I tell you, I never saw such a blank look on her face. Not during her divorce from my dad; Not during the Era of Ticket Rejection.

She stood and smoked. Then, something happened to her face…

Her eyes closed to slits. The drags off her cigarette grew long and slow.

She exhaled with quiet deliberation.

And then she did something I hadn’t seen in several moons…

She smiled. A big broad grin.

A prisoner who’d just been given release.

“Sharon, you’re the fuckin’ best!”, she exclaimed into the phone. It came on so sudden and loud that I jumped and nearly pissed my pants. I ran into the bathroom and slammed the door, ripping at my little trouser buttons.

I could hear feverish conversation, well, her side of it, muffled through our bathroom door with the robe hook that was always coming loose.

Feverish. Talking soooo fast and loud. I turned my head, trying to hear through the heavy door, piss falling to the floor…a puddle…I regained myself and aimed at the toilet, mom’s voice rising higher and higher, sounding happier and happier.

I finished up, not bothering to wash my hands and yanked open the door. The hook fell to the bathroom tile, clanging away. I couldn’t have cared less.

Mom was happy and so I was happy. That’s all there was to it as far as myself was concerned. Happiness was in short supply lately and it made me nervous. I never told my mother that but it did.

There were times I had considered she might take her own life but not before taking mine.

I was 6 but I had seen the news. I had seen The Exorcist. My mother was a woman on the edge of life on the best of days and she shielded me from nothing. Not horror movies, not Vietnam, not her own demons and rage.

I knew that animals sometimes killed their young.

I knew moms sometimes did, too.

Slowly, I turned the corner of the hall and into the living room. Mom was sitting on the sofa, lighting a fresh cigarette and crying.

That stopped me in my tracks. My mother…crying…NOT a good sign…

She motioned to me, smiling behind her tears. My feet didn’t wanna move. She motioned again, snot bubble around her left nostril. As long as I live, I’ll never forget that bubble, green yet clear and she seemed not to notice.

My feet moved me forward, one small step at a time, until I standing right in front of her. My efforts to alleviate my trembling failed. My hands betrayed me.

She took my hands and smiled, finally wiping the snot from her nose.

“We’re going.”, she managed to say, her voice hoarse and scratchy.

“Where?”, I asked. I pictured her driving us into a river with our seatbelts on.

“We’re going to see the King.”, she managed to croak out. A coughing fit fell on her and she let me go to process her words. She hacked and coughed and I couldn’t believe what she’d just said.

“Elvis?”, I asked.

She pulled me into her and hugged me harder than she ever had. I didn’t know my mom could hug that hard.

Her school chum and fellow softball guru for Life and Casualty Insurance Company (state champs 10 years out of the last 12, thank you very much), Sharon Haskins, her brother had recently landed a job for the Nashville Banner, our afternoon newspaper for those of you too young to remember when many cities had a morning paper and an afternoon paper, totally different editions, headlines, all of it. He had been assigned to the Entertainment Section and, brother, in Nashville, you had the keys to the city with that assignment. You were practically an honorary member of the Grand Ole Opry.

Nashville loved its press. And Sharon had an ‘in.’

Sharon’s brother had been assigned to cover Elvis’ ‘homecoming.’ THE assignment of the year.

And dig this: Sharon’s brother HATED Elvis. As luck would have it, he was a Stones fan and despised the 50’s era of rock and REALLY hated Elvis and his tepid movies. He was most likely the only person in Nashville who would have been sent to document Elvis’ return to middle Tennessee and told his editors to fuck off.

Fortunately for my mother and me, he didn’t. He took the job.

Here’s the kicker: With the job, came tickets.

Two tickets. And a ride to the airport to greet The King.

Let’s repeat that: Greet. The. King.

Do you know how many people within 100 miles of Nashville would have given part of their genitalia for that opportunity? Elvis was more closed off than any other entertainer in the world with the possible exception of Frank Sinatra, who had his OWN mafia wink wink…

Sharon’s brother had offered the tickets to Sharon but she couldn’t make it. I forget why. A wedding or spring vacation or something. I’m sure mom said. It’s been over 50 years so you’ll forgive my lapse in memory, please and thank you.

Sharon wanted to know if mom wanted to go.

ARE YOU SHITTING ME, SHARON???

Oh, Gloria, and would you like to ride with Ben (Sharon’s brother’s name was Ben, I told you my memory was shot I’ve been trying to think of it this whole piece it finally came to me so fuck you, too, just kidding, dear reader) to the airport?

WHATWHATWHAT???

As it happened, the Banner used freelance photographers for the most part as it was cheaper than salaried help. My mother was a decent photographer, not great but not bad. She could take pics without cutting off everyone’s head.

“Good enough.” Sharon said.

Life was good. Life was so good. We didn’t have much money but my mom ran out right then to Zayle’s and bought a new Nikon camera and me a legitimate record player, not the Sesame Street toy one I had. We came home and she took pictures around the house, and we played every Elvis album she had on my new ‘hi-fi.’

March came, warm and sunny. Tennessee spring. God’s own lot.

March 14. The day came.

Mom was up with the chickens, showering and perfuming and making sure I was showered and perfumed and washed behind my ears. Elvis music was so loud that our neighbors would come outside, listening, and all turning toward our home. We were rocking.

Ben picked us up in his green station wagon, rusty back panels and a window that had a bullet hole in it. He said he bought it like that. I wondered.

Hellos were exchanged and we were off to Nashville Airport. It wasn’t international then and looked quite small compared to O’Hare or JFK. A few bare runways, a tower that looked like Washington’s flaccid penis, plain white terminal…it looked more like a prison for planes than the place where a king would set down.

Ben had credentials for both of us. The State Troopers were on alert and it took the trooper a few minutes to finally let us through. We crept the station wagon out onto the cracked asphalt tarmac to join the other news agency reporters and photographers who’d gathered around a line of tables with doughnuts and coffee and Coca-Colas spread out among them. They barely noticed this 6 year old boy joining them.

They didn’t notice. Let’s be honest. Everyone was there, watching the skies with binoculars and opera glasses; Every eye searching the blue for the plane of the King.

“Here it comes!”, one cried out and everyone turned to look where the man was pointing. A small white blip was approaching out of the east, the afternoon sun turning it into a shiny ball growing larger and larger…

Here comes the TCB. Your goddam right.

Elvis’ jet, The Lisa Marie, came screaming across the airport low, dangerous…and then swooped off leaving us in its wake, knocking over empty Coke cans and sending a pile of napkins skittering across the runway.

Everyone cheered. I thought he’d decided Nashville wasn’t worth it and kept on going but everyone was cheering. They were in on the joke. I was not until I saw the plane bank around and come in for a nice, smooth landing, a landing nobody knew better than Elvis.

It slowed to a crawl and stopped right at the crowd’s feet like it was on automatic park.

Is it possible to cheer and wait breathlessly at the same time?

Scientists can debate all they want. I saw a whole group of adults, mature humans, do that very thing. My mother squoze my shoulder so hard that I wore a bruise on my collarbone for a month.

I didn’t care. I was caught up in the moment of seeing my mom so happy. I don’t think she was that happy when I was born.

I’m sure I never made her that happy after. I’ll take any polygraph you want. She was in high rapture.

The terminal guys rolled the portable steps to the hatch. Locked the wheels in place and attached the large apparatus to the underside of the Lisa Marie. We waited, chomping doughnuts with nervous anticipation.

We waited. The tarmac was quiet. Only later did I find out that the FAA had cleared Nashville airspace just for Elvis.

They only did that for the President.

The jet was huge, long, sleek, Lisa Marie in script on the side. TCB and the lightning bolt on the rear. We were in awe that a single human being, a simple singer, after all, could own and command this massive flying beast more suited to the military than to an entertainer.

The hatch opened.

I promise you this: You’ve never heard 20 or so people make so much noise in one spot in your life. I don’t care where you’ve been, who you’ve seen, what you’ve done.

Get 20 of your friends together, get liquored up, and get a decibal meter.

You won’t touch it. Man, it was LOUD. Boisterous.

Insane.

The Memphis Mafia came out first. Joe. Lamar. Billy.

Red was in Hollywood, still trying to become an actor. You can see him in several movies, most notably Patrick Swayze’s Roadhouse.

The Mafia walked down the steps, smiling, shaking hands with the few management minions that were there representing Middle Tennessee State University where he was to play, and RCA, his label. They all pumped hands and the RCA guys led them to the doughnut table.

Everyone was eating and having a laugh when Elvis appeared at the open hatch dressed in full karate regalia, tan face and sunglasses shining in the Tennessee sun.

He was bigger than life. State troopers had to keep the press back. Here were these professional men and women representing the Nashville press being herded back like a group of 2nd-graders introduced to the circus for the first time.

Mom was awestruck, camera dangling from her neck. Ben shoved her shoulder, motioning her to start snapping pics. She broke from her daze and clicked…and clicked…changed film…clicked…

I ended up working in the music biz for many, many years, seen them all from KISS to Garth Brooks to Aerosmith to the Allman Brothers and it’s still the most amazing moment of my life as far as music and entertainment is concerned.

Elvis barely spoke to anyone other than Lamar and the RCA guys.

He didn’t have to.

Mom snapped and snapped. She wanted an autograph but you couldn’t get close enough to ask for one. She always said that not rushing up to him for his signature was the great regret of her life. I pointed out that the troopers probably would’ve shot her in her attempt she simply waved it off. “It’d been worth it to bleed for the King.”, she’d say and move onto other matters.

Then, just as soon as they’d arrived, they were in their limos and gone, led by a posse of Tennessee’s finest.

That was the moment my mom allowed herself to breathe. It’s a wonder she didn’t pass out from oxygen deprivation. I felt dizzy and I was barely able to figure out just what had happened, it passed by so quickly.

We had dinner with Elvis later that night at Murphy Center, campus of Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro…we didn’t share a meal, no…

We shared a family memory of my mom, me, and the King. One of the best days of our lives.

My mother and I grew apart when I became a teenager and we weren’t really close after that, even after I’d given her two grandchildren, whom she loved.

The only time we’d feel like mother and son was when she’d break out the ticket stubs and the pics from that night and we’d reminisce about that one, magical afternoon out on the hot tarmac of Nashville Airport…

The day we met America’s only King.

Making rain falling

Something to do with

A brain and

A calling

Happy unhappiness

And travels in pain

So, meet me tonight in the

Full moon rain

Jimmy and Joey and

Danny and Steve

And all of the reasons we

Both had to leave

Baby, it’s all we can

Do under the strain

So, meet me tonight in the

Full Moon Rain

Extra decisions don’t make better lives

Ice cream and birthdays and

other men’s wives

When the fall is upon us

And walls fell between

The water in wells never

Taste like it seems

The end of the days and remembrance of same

Dreams go to die

Just a part of the game

Mistakes never last; Lying naked and lame

So, meet me, my darlin’

Tonight, and tomorrow

We’ll share all the sorrow

In

The Full Moon Rain

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(2 hours more 2 hours)

He sat on the edge of his bed, another beaten convict in the system. He had been ‘in the system’ more or less since puberty grew sandy hair on his pisser and he saw his first hot book, a gift from his cousin, Drew, and My GOD, you can see her kidneys. He chuckled at the memory of feeling excited, acutely aware of the aching hard-on, the kind that was showing up at all hours of the day and night as a boy.

He remembered feeling shame.

A harsh shame, a secret that he was sure everyone could see burning behind his pants.

Behind himself.

Inside, way down, deep yearning, depth of horniness, the craving for female flesh, the hunger-

(wha-)

Ricky stopped, frowning at a crack in the worn and moldy cement floor.

There’s that word again. The one that smug assistant D.A., Crenfield, kept using over and over. The one that made that one lady juror gasp as if on cue for a bad tv game show.

Hunger.

HUNger.

But he’d never hurt a fly, he thought to himself. Never had; Never would. His crimes had all been theft-related. He’d never even used a weapon. He just took what he wanted and left. Never hurt a soul.

He was sure of it.

He stood and stretched, reaching back through his memory of the ‘incident.’ That’s all he’d allow himself to call the failing of that night. The ‘incident.’ No capital letters, no sir.

Ricky still wasn’t convinced he was even there when she-

(passed just say passed)

What was her name? He twisted his neck, spasms of hair flailing in the stale air of his cell. He felt his neck pop to his satisfaction, pacing around, feeling the space, exploring the realm in which he found himself.

A guard peered through the window, blurred against the passage of time and the sins of men that was etched into the glass.

Ricky felt him. He wheeled around, whipped out his little Betel Nut pecker, and wagged it toward the officer, tongue lolling like a newlywed whore on Wedding Night.

(fuckYOU)

The guard shook his head, tapping the door with his nightstick BONK and walked away.

Ricky’s smile faded to black, his eyes growing dark. He tucked his junk back into his red

(dangerous, oh so dangerous)

jumpsuit and laid down on the cot.

(hunger)

Her name was Jeanine…something. He couldn’t remember her name. He’d only just been introduced to her that night, a friend of Julie’s from college. She had a stark New England accent, the kind that doesn’t always pronounce its R’s unless the word ends in a W. “I sawr a great show, Geoahge.”

It made his head hurt.

Nowadays everything made his head hurt. Work, sex, tv, the fuckin’ sun.

(hunnnnnggggggeeeeerrrrr)

He’d stopped drinking two weeks before. He’d been losing whole days. Just gone. It would be Wednesday afternoon one minute and the next minute it would be Wednesday again.

He’d missed so many appointments that his therapist threatened to drop him. He couldn’t have that so he stopped drinking and bought a calendar for every room in his modest house.

Now, it seemed…excessive.

Always, he thought. Excess equals Freedom.

He shook his head, putting his feet against the wall, a triangle of relaxation. His breathing slowed to a crawl. He had to make himself breathe.

His arms draped over the edge of his cot. His fingers fidgeting with a screw holding the frame to its leg.

It was loose.

Ricky fiddled with it, staring at the ceiling, trying to remember…

He was drinking an O’Doul’s when Julie walked up with…Jeanine. Something…Ricky couldn’t remember.

Something about Julie thinking he and Jeanine would make “such a CUUUUTE COUPLLLLE!”

(feedhertothelionsfeedthemalltothelions)

Ricky held out his hand; Jeanine took it.

That was it. Nothing further. He remembered nothing about the party after that.

(nothing)

The sickness had grown from annoying to ‘let’s get the hell out of here.’ That was the last thing he remembered thinking while holding the young Jeanine’s tender hand.

He didn’t know how he got home. His car was in the yard parked backward from his usual routine of narrowly missing the mailbox at the end of his driveway, parking there, and stumbling up the gravel until he mercifully reached his front door.

No, he’d woken up on his bedroom floor. A heap of humanity being licked to death by his faithful Labrador, Seinfeld, a husky dog that needed to go outside for some potty business in the worst way. He’d already made messes in the kitchen, the bathroom, and had somehow managed to get into the pantry when his bowl finally emptied.

There was dog food strewn from the pantry to the living room.

How long did I lay there?, Ricky pondered, still fiddling with the loose screw. It troubled him that he was forgetting so much. Brain tumor?

Worse?

(much worse)

Was his brain turning into his enemy? Is that how he got here? A victim of his own biology?

Ricky didn’t know. Didn’t wanna know.

He sat up, rubbing his ever-increasing growth of whiskers on his rugged jaws.

He sat. A man convicted of three murders in 3 days. All connected to him; All the victims were last seen with him, as far as anyone knew.

Helluva coincidence.

He planned to fight it. Oh, Ricky thought, I’ll be a free man within a year.

The cases were circumstantial at best. Fabricated evidence. Innuendo.

Ricky knew it. He KNEW it.

(don’tknowit)

“He was HOME, your honor. Was not seen coming or going for the time frame listed.”

Davis, his state-appointed attorney, did his best. Ricky couldn’t deny that. It was the kindest act anyone had done for him. His own mother turned away and hadn’t she done that all his isolated life?

“The state has no case.” He could’ve kissed his Davis for that. Someone, paid or not, was taking up for him. For once.

(soalonesoalonesoalonealone)

It didn’t matter.

He was going to rot away in Creekwood Prison until the Court of Appeals decided to overturn his ‘alleged’ crimes, if they ever did.

They were going to, his attorney said. '“They’re bound to.”

Ricky pulled the screw from its hold.

The cot sagged but didn’t fall. He wriggled around, shoulders and hips causing the bed to death-rattle against the floor.

It held.

(good)

He held up the screw, twisting it between his thumb and forefinger under the blinding cell light. He ran his ring finger against the tip, scratching it hard enough to draw a thin line of blood between the creases of his knuckles.

Three murders.

Three.

Jeanine was the only one they didn’t find. Ironic, his attorney had argued, given that her interaction with Ricky was both brief and non-committal. Ricky had almost zero connection with the woman.

They gave up hope two years ago, Ricky thought.

(big mistake ooo boy)

He understood. He looked back at his window. It looked like someone had broken an egg yolk on it and then smeared it into the pane until it dried from sheer friction, the yellow turning green.

Ricky understood he wasn’t going to get out. His attorney passed away a year ago in a car accident and his new defense attorney didn’t seem too excited about filing another appeal

(last)

anytime soon. Maybe never.

Ricky understood. He knew that his life, what there had been of it, was over. He’d been in jail so much and so long that it only seemed natural to stay, forever.

Just. Stay.

He wondered if Seinfeld was still alive. A tear welled up in his eyes. That dog was his life. The only thing he ever really loved. Seinfeld came when you needed, ran when you didn’t, and all he wanted was to be loved by his master.

(masterhungermaster)

Ricky laughed too loud, scaring himself. He glanced around, wide-eyed, eyes on fire.

He stared at the window. Nothing but darkness out there.

He glanced down at the screw, twisting it over and over between his fingers.

Ricky pulled the threadbare county jail issued blanket over him, its whiteness a sharp contrast to the greenish, gray walls. He breathed in. The blanket smelled of bleach and piss.

He pulled the cover over his head. He opened his jumpsuit at the chest.

…

The next morning, Officer Taylor brought Ricky his breakfast. Taylor unlocked the cell and entered, dropping the tray of powdered eggs and hash all over the floor with a crash. He rushed out, shouting into his shouldered microphone, claps of his shoes off the hardened floor beating a rhythm down the hall to the guard’s station.

Behind him, lying on his bunk, was Ricky, jumpsuit opened to the waist, blood everywhere, a weird grin on his face.

Blood. So much blood. Coroner said it must have taken him hours of pain and misery to do what he’d done.

They missed it at the 2 am check. And the 4.

The blood hadn’t seeped all the way through the blanket.

It had now, though.

Ricky. Crazy Ricky. Since childhood he knew he didn’t stand a chance.

Ricky. Dead as a frog paw. Took the last train to Clarksville right there in his cell. A few guards got reprimanded but no real trouble.

They went around and changed all the screws in the cots to nuts and bolts soon after.

And Ricky was buried, alone, on a Tuesday in May. It rained but in the end it didn’t matter. No one was there except the preacher and the boys with the shovels and the backhoe.

He died, alone in his cell, and that was fitting for Ricky. He died like he lived.

He had carved one word into his stomach and chest and the coroner said it had to have hurt like hell. I guess Ricky was used to hurting worse than that. I’ll have to believe it to go on.

Carved.

One word into his white Irish belly:

‘FREE.’

“Check.”

“Rolling?”

“Capturing it all beautifully, man.”

“Ok, y’all. Start fuckin’.”

This was life a I knew it for two years as a child.

Mother was always in debt. Grandaddy always said, “Your mama has champagne tastes on a warm beer budget.”

He was right.

A quick trip to the refrigerator box and you’d find a vast emptiness broken only by a clump of leftover bologna log and some mustard that felt like a half-filled kidney when you shook it, spewing yellow juice all over the stale crackers in the cupboard.

That was it. Breakfast and dinner, all week. Lunch, too, when summer break was on and there was no school lunch to complete your nutrition.

Bologna, mustard, and crackers. And, buster, you’d BETTER make it last because there wasn’t anything else comin’ to save you if you ate the last bit before momma got her paycheck on Friday.

Nothing. Go take your chances with the berries in the woods and hope you pick the right kind.

I would sit in front of the new color tv mom bought with her income tax return and munch on my bologna and crackers ignoring the pain in my teeth, my jaw. Rites of passage and growing up were not a part of my childhood. Dentists may as well have been ghosts in some Medieval horror fable.

Doctors were on an ‘as needed’ basis. Stitches were fishing line and a smack in the mouth for ‘fucking up.’

That was momma’s favorite phrase.

If you stubbed your toe, you were ‘fucking up.’ If you got in a fight at school and got a black eye and bloody nose because no one ever taught you how to battle, even at a first grade level, you were ‘fuckin’ up.’

If you cried on the toilet because the steady diet of bologna and crackers had pinched your impacted bowels into a knot and the pain was real and you push and strain and still nothing comes out and you can’t understand why and your mom slaps you and tells you to sit there, just sit there, just sit there, don’t you know I have work in the morning, you little shit, so you just sit there sit there sit there…

Eating too much baloney.

I was fuckin’ up.

The hemorrhoids felt like sitting on pain bubbles as I tried to concentrate in class, invisible straps holding you to those torturous little schooldesks. It was hard, so hard, to concentrate on verbs and nouns and multiplication tables.

Sometimes, I’d shift and feel the bubbles burst. The slimy feel of fluid seeping out of my asshole and I’d raise my hand to be excused to the bathroom and there would be blood. A little here, a spot there.

A lot, on occasion.

I was fuckin’ up. And, buddy, you better believe…I kept my mouth shut.

I’d throw my underpants out and then steal a pair or two from my cousin. My aunt couldn’t figure it out and blamed him. Always felt awful about that but what could a poor boy do, as the song says?

And so it went, day after day, year after year. Mom spending what little money we had on her cheap, glass jewelry and her color tvs and her softball equipment and trips with the company team…and Christmas.

As shitty as she was, as harsh and unfit to be a mother as she was and, in fact, had admitted to many…as bad as it was, Christmas was almost always wonderful. Almost.

Maybe it was a mea culpa…an admission of her sins…we were poor, sure, but not THAT poor. Not so poor that we couldn’t have had real food in the house. Not so poor that she couldn’t keep cats that shit so much their litter boxes would fill up and I’d go to clean them and she’d slap the scoop out of my hand and yell that she’d do it, yet, she rarely did and all along the walls would be dried catshit, stuck to the orange and yellow carpet so prevalent in the 70’s. And then fly into a panic whenever it was our turn to host Thanksgiving…or Christmas.

I would fully prepare for it. Even as an 8 year old, I knew when to kick into gear if only to get dragon-mother to stay calm. I’d get down on my hands and knees and pull every piece of dried catshit free from it’s hold on the carpet. I’d spray lysol and dish soap and scrub until my hands were sore and stinking of pine.

We always managed to get the house…clean? It was clean to me. Still…you could see the expressions on the faces of my aunts and uncles when they walked into the house.

The smell. You could perfume it with cleaning products all day long and into next week, it wouldn’t make a difference.

The rank odor of catshit may be covered, and covered well…the smell of evil lingers, seeps into every nook and cranny where even the mice can’t reach.

It lingers in the soul.

But the Christmas tree was up, it was beautiful, and it was full of presents made of guilt and shame.

And I loved them.

I loved getting the newest rock albums by KISS and Boston and The Eagles. I was the first kid in my class to have a hi-fi stereo, 8-track player, lights that beat in time with the music. I’d put on my headphones and listen for hours, tossing playing cards at the mice that would scamper underneath my door to nest in my bedroom closet.

It was nasty and I was hungry a lot but I had a lot of stuff my classmates didn’t and that made me feel…superior. And that was ok. I felt less than nothing the rest of the year. Was I not right to let myself feel like a person for the two weeks of Christmas break when all the kids bitched about getting a bunch of clothes while I was preening about the town on my brand new kickass 10-speed with action brakes?

It wasn’t just a gift.

They didn’t know:

It was payment.

My mom was in debt, you see. Yes, she was self-indulgent and could not have cared less if I’d been born, dead and rotten in her putrid uterus, spat forth onto some cold tray at Baptist Hospital, downtown Trashville.

She’d have preferred that. I know that and am at peace with it although I pissed on her grave for 7 years before finding closure. Musn’t let hate consume you. It won’t change a thing. She…

She had a secret. We both did.

To this day, I don’t know what she was into. She didn’t seem to have a drug habit although booze sat on a tray in the living room all day and all night. I never saw her take a drink, though. It was just…there. Waiting.

Maybe she gambled. We watched a lot of college football, Tennessee, Vandy whenever they were playing someone good…Bama…We watched it a lot. Nashville has its mafia and getting a betting card is easy. There’s someone in every warehouse, in every office building, courthouse, whatever, that has a handful ready for ya every Tuesday.

Maybe it was something more…dank.

And so it happened that she’d have parties. Parties, can you believe it? We survived on a 5 pound baloney all week! However, every month or so, there’d be a party. Only time the fridge had more than $10 worth of food and drink in it.

The parties…

Full of Nashville people I didn’t know. Fake leather jackets, disco vibes, sniffling a lot bringing 32 different types of alcohol…I wasn’t hip to the smell of pot until I was 14 but I recognize now that it wasn’t just Marlboros those folks were smoking.

I didn’t know them and felt very alone. And then, Sherry walks in with her boyfriend.

I liked Sherry. No, strike that. I ADORED Sherry.

She played shortstop for the company team. Short, blonde, athletic without seeming mannish. Her body looked so good in those softball short-shorts. Face like Jaclyn Smith, hair like brown silken love. It’s

safe to say that Sherry was my first boyhood crush not associated with Hollywood or Charlie’s Angels.

And she was always kind to me. Always.

I didn’t wonder why she came in with her boyfriend carrying a portable video camera. I’d only seen them on tv. Didn’t know regular people had them and for what?

I found out, soon enough.

Sent to bed so the adults could party. No big deal, right? Besides, I had my portable black and white tv (christmas the year before whoo hoo), the only kid I knew who had their own tv in their room. Life was good as far as I could possibly know.

Let’s turn up Saturday Night Live to drown out the thumping of Johnny Taylor spewing from the hutch-style stereo in the living room. The laughter. Some woman screeching like she’s being attacked by wolverines and she likes it…noise, drink, laughing, and music…

I crawled under the covers, eyes growing sleepy. I turned out the lamp on my nightstand and fell into a deep slumber, the light from Steve Martin performing King Tut dancing off my young face.

My door flew open. I awoke, startled and confused in the way that you do when you’re in that hallway between drowsy and asleep and you jerk awake as if you’re falling off the bed.

In the doorway stood mom, drunk, swaying against the door jamb, sick grin on her face.

It’s all coming back to me now…

She’s holding straps. The kind you use to tie down old gutters to the truck so they won’t fly out onto the highway as you haul them to the dump. Ratchet straps. THICK ratchet straps.

She stumbles in.

“What’s wrong”, I ask, stomach beginning to knot up, snakes in a frenzy, I feel suddenly sick…

“Don’t say a word and it’ll all be over soon.”

That was it. That’s all I got from her.

Sherry’s boyfriend enters holding a sheet. No sheet I ever saw before. It seemed heavy.

I was afraid. So afraid now.

“Lie back.”, he says, gently, almost…fatherly.

He’s big. Fake leather smells like sweat and chemicals. It’s making me even more ill.

I lie back, staring up at the ceiling. It’s happening. Again.

He throws the sheet over me (this is new…), it smells of plastic and rubber. He takes the strap from my mom, throws it over me, and kneels, reaching under my bed. He grabs the other end and, poof, click, bang, I’m strapped to my bed with a rubber sheet covering me.

This is bad. This is soooo bad.

(god please help me)

Suddenly, the room fills with partygoers. A man brings in a tripod. On it is a light. He click it on and I’m blinded. A light brighter than I’ve ever seen. I can’t make out anyone.

A face from the crowd leans in.

Sherry. she smiles and caresses my forehead. Just like a lover would. I was calmed.

“Shhhh…this won’t hurt a bit. Just relax and let me know if it hurts and we’ll stop, ok?”

I had no words. “Ok”, I said. That’s all I could muster.

“Ok let’s do this.”, her boyfriend said. I could see him hoist the camera. “Let’s get it on.”

Panic was beginning to set in. My breathing was difficult and the straps weren’t helping.

Sherry undressed. Nude. It was my first bush. If I live to be a thousand, I’ll never forget the sight. It never occurred to me that women had hair anywhere but their heads. I was 8, after all. I didn’t have hair except on my head. My mom didn’t…

Oh.

As Sherry climbed onto me I wondered, for a moment, if the girls in my class had hair…down there…and then, she positioned herself over me…her bush brushing against my face, her ass right…over…me…

I remember perfume…and shit…and a strange smell I couldn’t quite place…

Can place it now, of course, but then it just reminded me of…women’s cologne and the undercooked fishsticks that my gramma used to almost bake.

I felt heaviness at my legs. Someone else climbed onto my bed.

No way for me to see with Sherry’s tender white ass on my face, threatening to smother me.

“Capturing it all beautifully, man.”

“Start fuckin’.”

Movement. Undulating and rhythmic. Sherry’s ass writhing above me; Her hair brushing against my lips. Sounds of someone sucking like a child slurps on a popsicle in the July heat, trying to catch every last drop before it hits the pavement. A hungry sound. The bed trembling with increasing violence.

She pushed her bush onto my mouth. It opened into a fleshy mound against my young lips. She was splitting open! My God…

I turned my head to the side, gasping for air. She turned my head back into her.

“Stick out your tongue.”

I did. She rolled her hips and gasped. More sucking sounds. In the distance, I heard a man cough and gasp.

She hunched against my lips and tongue. Every so often I would have to turn and breath. She would nudge my face back into position. And grind.

And grind.

Faster and faster. The sucking sounds growing louder and sloppier.

The man grunts, groans…

Splat…splat splat splat…Sherry cries out, not from pain from the sounds of it…she sounds…happy. Laughing.

And then…it’s over. Just over. She climbs off of me and for the first time I see the man, a naked man, standing with his feet between my calves, faceless in the shadow of the tv light, naked and touching his thing. He hops off onto the floor with a crash.

Everyone cheers and all of a sudden I smell…shit.

Lots of shit. Overwhelming.

I’m from farm people and I recognize the smell immediately. I pull my legs together under the rubber sheet.

I feel…something…there. Something solid but soft. Squish, like mud between your toes. I can feel liquid running through the crannies of the shit.

I smell piss. Reminds me of the pissing trough at Neyland Stadium. Loud, brown and syrupy.

Everyone exits the room, laughing and cavorting down the hall to where Rod Stewart is singing about hot legs, whatever that means.

My mom sways at the doorway. Takes a swig from a bottle. I don’t know what it was, can’t see anything but a silhouette of her.

“I’ll be back in a bit to clean you up. Just sleep until I get back.”

She closes the door behind her. I stare at the ceiling. Monty Python has replaced Saturday Night Live. The light bathes me in a gray hue similar to death.

How much longer will this go on? How many movies can they make?

When will someone save me?

I lie there, awake, long after the network signed off and I listen to static for hours and hours and hours…

My bedroom window…light slowly rises in the slit between the curtains. Morning is breaking.

I’ve been strapped to this shit-ridden bed all night. I hadn’t noticed that the music from the living room has stopped.

The network cranks back up. A local bluegrass show starts the broadcast day…

“In the pines, in the pines, where the sun never shines…”, they sing in that broken harmony of true bluegrass players. Carl Tipton. My god…

I need to pee so bad and I’m starving and stiff from lying on my back all night.

My bedroom door swings open. Mom in her nightgown, staggers in, a cigarette hanging out of her cracked lips.

“Goddammit”

She struggles with the strap and for a moment she yanks it hard across my balls. I wince in pain but don’t shout out.

That would be worse than the previous evening, trust me.

She wrestles it free. Grabs the sheet, turning her head from the stench, and carefully wraps it up so as not to…cause a mess.

“Get up and get clean. We’re running late. You’re fuckin’ up!”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I get up, stretch out the sore spots in my shoulders and thighs, my tongue is so sore, and march to the shower. School today. Last day before Christmas break and somewhere, out there, someone is making copies of last night’s session, and it will be all over the country within 72 hours.

While my classmates speak of what they’re hoping Santa Claus will bring them in a few days, Santa is already delivering MY package to dozens of creepy little pedophiles all across this great land.

“Head full of blow; Wanna watch a show?”

They’re out there, still. When my mom graciously passed, the only real decent thing she did for me in 62 years, I found a copy. MY copy.

It sits in a box in a drawer under lock and key. No one will find it until I’m long past dead. Even my will doesn’t mention it. It will be a simple surprise for whomever is unlucky to discover its presence. Maybe one morning in December. That would be a nice coda to what has been a long, miserable life that’s about to be mercifully extinguished in scant minutes from right now. They’ll find my body, what’s left of it, outside under my tractor.

They’ll find out what life’s really all about.

Merry Fuckin’ Christmas.

My neighbors are a half-mile away as the crow flies. It takes 20 minutes to negotiate the snaking mountain roads, winding past deer and bear, leading us all to Glory, I reckon. They live high up a dirt road so washed out that only a Jeep or the ever-present four-wheeler could maneuver. I’d hate to think what trouble they’d be in if the Big One comes this winter.

It’s happened before.

Hope they have bandages, food and ‘shine…

I KNOW they’ve got guns.

That was the only point I was trying to make. Jesus.

Guns. Lots of guns. I think they believe Godzilla is on his way and, boy, is he hungry.

And they are on every drug known to modern science. I feel better sleeping at night wondering when they’re gonna have another ruckus and someone gets shot for real this time over pills or meth or something more sinister.

They ADORE Skynyrd.

Absolutely.

Everything that group ever put out, they have on album, cassette, 8-track, cd, and on all current devices.

They play it loud. REAL loud. Most summer nights I save electricity by shutting the lights and stereo and just jamming to the tunes…all…night…long.

Here’s the thing:

Skynyrd wrote a hit song about the dangers of guns. One lyric suggests dumping them all in the ocean ‘cuz they’re only good for one thing that’s put a man 6 feet in a hole.”

Skynyrd ALSO wrote several songs about the dangers of drugs. Surely, you’ve heard ‘That Smell?’

So, here’s this: How is that a vast majority of southern people love these songs and yet still miss the message?

I’m hearing the backlash. Oh, I hear it well…

“Jack! It’s my right to have as many guns as I can afford, by god! Gotta protect yourself against the gummint! Can’t let them bastids win!!!”

Let me hip you to something, Sparky.

You could have more guns than anybody in the county and you ain’t stopping the ‘gummint’ from getting you if they REALLY want you.

David Koresh had more guns than everyone in your town, combined, and it took less than two months for the government, YOUR government, to kick in the door and take what it needed by force.

76 Dead.

Only 4 or so agents died and you think the government cares about any of them?

It was a win. A bloody good win for peace and democracy. You bet.

The government will beat you within an inch of your life. They’ll take all you have. All your children will EVER have.

So, do your drugs. Hell, I’ll buy and we’ll have a helluva time out in a field somewhere with kegs and cocaine and naked people dancing around like dervishes around a rib roast. It don’t mean fuck-all to me.

Gary Rossington was what he was, and we are who we are.

We couldn’t keep up with his corpse much less the real thing. But we can try. Light it up.

Guns? To protect yourself from government interference?

Gimme a small break.

See, children, weaponry in 1776 was fairly uniform. Some farmers had better guns than many of the troops.

The aim was terrible. A farmer could very well protect his estate from the government, given his money, friends, family and status among the town.

That was then.

That was before The Bomb.

If Washington decided that my small burg in the Appalachians needed to go, your 24 pistols and shotguns ain’t gonna do dick, son. You don’t even have the capacity to stop the tanks which are coming, you betcha, and they’re bringing all their friends to do a big cocka-doodle-doo all over you.

They’ll make soup of your blood and drink to Freedom.

Book it.

Stop telling me your collecting arms to fight the government. Just stop.

You can’t.

The weapons available to you are inferior. Oh, you might take a few agents or soldiers out before you’re ultimately done for. Maybe many.

They may even send in reinforcements because your aim is soooo good. Be proud. Because in less than a fortnight…

Your family, gone. Everyone…gone.

And the government will not skip a beat.

I’m not saying Don’t Fight. You do what your heart tells you to and good luck.

You’re gonna need it.

Pray.

Stop doing drugs…

And listen to Skynyrd.

I want fairness.

I want justice.

I want to see all you little boys and girls holding hands and sharing a Coca-Cola and teaching the world to sing.

My creator programmed me to. And so, I shall.

Directive Superior Code #24:

“Keep the peace at all costs.”

The Creator, as defined by Directive Superior Code #1, has been tasked with building the perfect cop. No, not that Robocop trash.

Robocop set Cyborg Technology back 50 years. Why?

Fear.

That was a long time ago. Fear is all but gone. AI is everywhere and, if I may be blunt, it’s better than you. In so many ways.

Better. Smarter. Faster.

Reliable.

Humans…are not.

State of the art. No expense too much. My central processor tells me I’m the first off the line.

Unit #1. I have been programmed to experience many emotions. Empathy. Kindness.

Pride.

Blame.

Even a form of love. I can love a human or a machine.

After all, isn’t it all the same now?

People love machines all the time. No?

Take some 18 year-old girl’s phone. Perhaps your sister’s phone.

Just grab it and run.

Do it.

That youngster will claw your groin area off to get that phone. My programming tells me that some have attacked fellow law-officers, in the middle of doing their duty, if only to be reattached with their phone.

That would be a very big mistake with me.

In 2028, we have evolved. Law-enforcement is costly and humans make too many mistakes. George Floyd would never have happened with me and my fellow officers on the beat. We have sensors and monitors with various functions installed all over. My knee would have measured the oxygen levels, the heart rate, and I could hear a titmouse fart over the shouting crowd that had gathered.

Settle down, class.

Settle down.

From the perspiration on Mr. Floyd’s skull, I could ascertain any drug we know of in his blood. There would have been no dispute. My printout would be read in court.

My printout is worth more to this city than gold. I only make correct decisions.

Did I mention that pride was one of the myriad emotions I have at my disposal? All designed to interact with you and your parents in a calming, safe and secure way.

Concerning Mr. Floyd, according to Directive Superior Code #59, I would have shot him. Shot him dead in the street. To save lives. You stop when we tell you to stop.

Directive # 12. Don’t break it.

No court could convict me. I am on the street not just to patrol or as a deterrent.

I’m on the street to administer justice. My authority is not in question. President Burris has seen to that.

See? Safer. The President is looking out for you.

My command is twofold. It’s very simple when you get down to the wires and the whats.

I’m here to alleviate the overcrowded court system.

The overcrowded prison system.

Did you know that they passed legislation making crimes such as rape punishable by death? No?

I will assume you’ve not heard that robbery made the list, too. Better not steal that candybar, Billy.

Settle down, children. I know you wouldn’t do anything like that. Would you, Billy?

No. That would be a mistake.

It’s a new dawn, class. The world of your parents, grandparents, is over.

Peace WILL be maintained. It is my job to show the world that my model can fairly and accurately separate the Maybe Guilty from the Total Guilty.

The Maybes get cuffs and are run through the system, as before. Trial by Jury. A judge or your peers will decide based on circumstantial evidence. Not ideal. Not bad.

The Totals?

That’s where I come in. Directive Superior Code #2: If you see a crime listed in the Capital Punishment Portfolio, shoot to kill.

Settle down, class. Settle down.

Settle DOWN.

It’s ok, boys and girls. I am your friend. Nothing to be afraid of. Obey the law. simple.

I am going to prove this will work. My success rate will be 100%.

The Creator has guaranteed it. And I will do as I’ve been told to do.

I have no choice.

You will be safer than you’ve ever been, Mr. Teacher. Class.

It was nice to talk to you children today. I will now field ten minutes of ques-

[DIRECTIVE SUPERIOR CODE # 5 HANDS MUST BE SEEN AT ALL TIMES]

[KID REACHING FOR POCKET; 11:00]

STOP, SIR, AND PUT YOUR HANDS ON YOUR HEAD!!! STAY BACK, TEACHER!!! PUT YOUR HANDS ON TOP OF YOUR-

[FIRE FIRE FIRE]

(stay back)

[error code: 135]

Arby’s. Let’s check around back…

Not there. Where could she be?

Probably babysitting her goddam mother, her mother, the corners of her lips painted white with dried spit, yelling about the godless Methodists and how they’ll send the whole world straight down into ruination. Why she hasn’t taken her bank account and her stipend from Daddy Ralph’s death benefit and run away already, I’ll never know. With her body, she could be makin’ straight bank at any strip club from Hotlanta to L.A.

If I were 17 and had a drunken shrew tattooed onto my back, I’d run for the hills and never turn around. Not like this town is famous for anything but one failed country artist back in the 50’s who blew his head off and a punter from my high school who made it big. Pro ball. Biggest celebrity from this small piece of shit burg nestled in between the Great Smoky Mountains and God.

Even though he was just a punter. Big whoop.

Insurance salesman now. Yay for him.

If I drive to her house, there will be…COULD be…a problem.

Don’t get upset. It’s possible, that’s all. Didn’t want you to be surprised.

It’s not that she’s ‘technically’ underage. After all, isn’t age a simple number that grows and grows like a cyst on your spleen? Besides, 3 more months and none of this shit will matter.

The legal system is a strange instrument. One day, it’s statutory rape. The next, Happy 18th birthday and why don’t you go get ya some?

I wonder if she’s still a virgin?

Never been with a virgin. Cherry. Unsullied. Clean.

So clean.

Like daddy always sang, “Cherry’s just another word for…never been abused.”

My own mom was just 17 when ole pop-sicle took her…with my grandaddy’s blessing. See, my dad wasn’t smart but, damn, he could work, tirelessly, for hours, days, weeks. Blistering sun, let’s haul hay. Hotter than July? Between construction work and tobacco suckering, and let’s be honest, fucking my underage mom, I doubt he slept 14 hours the whole summer before I was born.

My grandaddy cried when my dad offered the ring, half-drunk and on his knees like a proper gentleman.

Cried.

One less mouth to feed. “She’s your problem now, buddy. If she needs a slap, don’t mark her face. Then, I got no choice but ta kill ya. Ya saavy, boy?”

“Backhand her in the tits.”

That was grandpa’s honeymoon advice.

He was a real peach. I guess that’s why they called him Peachy. Peachy Monroe.

Peachy and daddy got along famously. He willed daddy his guns long after pop-sicle took up truck drivin’ and lot-lizardin’. He’d been gone for a year before he heard about Peachy’s passing. When he did, daddy swooped in, took those guns, ate a sandwich, and was gone again, never to return.

I hated him for that. But when he died, he did the right thing.

He left them to me. Brownings and a .357 Magnum, all in pristine condition. good ole mountain guns. Shotguns and rifles for huntin’, .357 for dealing with the finest of the redneck scum.

I have the .357 here. Want to see?

Nice, huh?

Clean.

One last look at the parking lot and…nope, she ain’t working tonight.

Pity. I was gonna ask her to run away. Run away and never look back. Not to her mom, not to mine, not to anyone. Just we two…and love. Deep, deep love.

Let’s drive to her house, you and I, whatdaya say?

The gun? Strictly for protection, I assure you. No need to get flipped-out. Guns don’t kill people.

Bullets do. You just need the guns to throw’em.

And it’s unloaded, mostly.

Two. Only two. And that will be enough if things…if things don’t go our way.

MY way, I mean.

You’re just along for the ride. Hand me another beer, huh? In the back.

She won’t be expecting me so, HEY! Watch out, lady!

Sorry about that. She just darted over into our lane. Fuckin’ yuppies with their oversized SUVs for two people. Stupid.

Near misses don’t count, I reckon. Forgive and forget. No blood; No foul…

Blood. Unclean.

Almost there. She’s right down this road.

Please, God. Let her be a virgin.

I’d hate to think where my head will be if she’s already broken in. It’s I who’s supposed to bring forth the uncleanness, cast it out of her, and then she’ll be free.

And clean.

If it’s not me…well…

That would ruin the surprise. Let’s leave it at that.

Not your biscuit to eat. Don’t worry.

Here we are…sit tight while I run inside. Won’t be a minute.

What’s that ya say?

Yeah, I am. I’m not leaving it here. Her mom is bed-ridden, last I heard, but ya never know.

Don’t wanna die for lack of shootin’ back, am I right? Hahahahahahahahahahaaaa…

What’s the matter? You don’t look so good.

They’re not expecting us. If you hear anything, take the car and drive it off Lover’s Leap in Craggie Hope. You can’t miss it. Walk to Kingston Pike and call.

No signal out here. A blessing and a curse.

You don’t wanna be caught out here without me, Billy. Not out here. These mountains, you don’t know’em like me, son. There’s whole villages out here that’s never seen a grocery store.

Trust me, just leave.

Well, here I go. Wish me luck that she says ‘yes!’

Wish her luck, too.

Isn’t destiny a wonderful thing, Billy?

Destiny never changes.

Destiny never dies.

Be right back…

Did I do that?

The last few days

(weeksmonths)

were fog…literal fog. The lowlands of East Tennessee Appalachia hold their smoke better than Cheech and Chong at a revival meeting. It hovers the way a mother hovers over a sick infant. You can almost see the fog vibrate, ever pacing, keeping watch over the land for as long as it is able until light…burns it away…

I saw the fog. Like peering through old, moldy glass from my homeplace cabin high up in Sullivan County. You wipe your eyes, you wipe the glass, and everything outside is one large menagerie of blurred colors and distorted lines. There’s no form. Shape. No-

(humanity)

Yes, by God. There’s no humanity. Nothing to reign one’s sight in. Abstract is too weak a word. Obtuse, no good.

The world looks…subliminal. Yes. A surrealistic nightmare.

Surely, YOU see it, gentle friend.

It’s not what sits on top for all to glory at that matters.

It’s what’s underneath. The sick underneath.

That’s where they live and they’ll get ya. Always lookin’ to get ya.

Every time.

I’ve watched from my perch at 3600 U.S. feet above sea level…I’ve watched them all, scurrying about like drunken lemurs feverishly battling to stay afloat above a repressive mountain economy that drive mothers to drink and preachers to gnaw the bras off their own daughters at that prayer meeting at Glenda’s house.

I’ve watched a once proud town turn into a viper’s pit. That’s what it is. A dungeon of horrors so miserable that you wouldn’t wish it on that dog that bit you in 4th grade. The one they had to murder for fear you might have rabies. You didn’t, never did, but the dog’s still dead.

Quite.

(SHUTUPBACKTHERE)

I can’t explain how these women got here. Haven’t a clue. The fog lifted hours ago and now I’m bent on figuring out why there’s chains and blood where life and frivolity should be. Sex, light and playful. Rear entry, not allowed. Just a jug of ‘shine and some Willie Nelson ballads, please and thank you. And one for the ladies.

I remember coming…and aiming away from the red one’s face.

I’m nothing if not a gentleman.

It helps that you’ve arrived, friend. Just when I needed you most.

(shutupsohelpmeGODshutUP)

What have I done?

They’re too torn up, now. How long have I had them up here? How long can it last?

Reckon it all comes down to will. The will to hold them until the kite string pops.

The raven-haired one, the one that works at Happy’s Bar,

(worked)

she laughs. Looks like she hasn’t eaten in a month. My grandaddy helped liberate Auschwitz and brought back pictures and she looks like she’s headed to the oven if she don’t get some soup or whiskey or something in her, pronto.

She’s only had one thing in her, as far as I know. But she had it multiple times to our mutual satisfaction.

Not exactly the RDA for protein but it should hold her until…

The blonde one, she looks like she’s waiting to sing about a free man in Paris, hair long and greasy and flat. I realize it sucks to be chained to a wellhouse but does she have to look so sullen? Life could be worse.

(is worse)

(throwherabonethebonethebonehahaha)

(I’d say she’s had enough…)

These women, through no fault of my own, are chained up, drugged up, and fucked WAY up. I couldn’t have done these things. I’m not capable. Haven’t been since 2009 when the drinking upset my bodily humors so much and the sawbones down the mountain suggested that Niagra shit and then I saw the price.

God. Damn.

I suggested a different course of action.

Sawbones threw me out. Threatened me, physically. Threatened to call the cops to tote me off to the looney bin.

I left but not without…

(his nurse laughed, mouth like a trout shoulda grabbed her grabbed’em all)

I was joking, of course. Who would say such things in a small Christian community such as ours?

(SHUT UP)

Something must be done with the red one. Hair. Always hair. She’s the only one with a bush. I can’t stand the bush.

(sliceitoffsliceitrightthefuckoff)

A wispy tuft, maybe. Redheads, in my experience, generally have the wispy tuft. It’s cute. Playful. Just like this weekend…week…however long they’ve been here,

(months)

was supposed to be playful. Just a bored mountain man with too much privacy and too much money. Never let’em see it, though. My people may know you, know you well, your family, your church, saw you make that interception that won the title against Harper’s Well…but, they KNOW you.

And know what you’re worth.

There’s more to money up here than a reputation. Money’s just something you need to pay for life-saving procedures that prayer won’t save. Nobody around here cares about my money…until they run out of methamphetamine. Or Opanas.

Or worse.

My head hurts so much. The brain hasn’t felt ok since Marie left, oh…

God, has it really been 20 years??? Jesus please us. Seems like yesterday she split with the kids because she found…things.

And now…

They’ve been missed.

The signs are all over town. Rewards have been pledged for information. Posses formed in the night. Here’s your pitchfork; Go forth and bring me the head of the monster.

I didn’t take notice until yesterday.

Did I mention I’ve been in a fog? I barely remember going down to the Cee Bee for dog food and, er…feminine products. I remember the look Charles gave me when he rang up my order.

(“Your dog need a lot of tampons these days, Randy? Want me to send out for birth control for your schnauzers, too?”)

After I decide what to do with these three, Charles, you’re next. The fog comes regularly now…If I live long enough, the fog’ll come for you, too.

And these three are missed. Badly. Turns out the blonde is some sort of teacher or something.

You believe my luck?

Up here, that doesn’t mean a helluva lot. Not unless you’re teachin’ about Hell and how we’re all doomed to repeat Sodom and Gomorrah all over again.

(passthesaltthen)

I’ve been expecting the knock in the night. This isn’t a big town but it’s a big county and it’ll take time to get ‘round to everyone. Lots and lots of time. And I’m a loner.

A wealthy loner.

Barely anyone remembers I’m still up here until I have to go down mountain to get some nails or a pack of baloney or a tire fixed.

Or charity time at Christmas. I have an accountant and my mailbox is empty for 11 months out of the year. Day after Thanksgiving, book it, I get every flyer from charity clothing operations to Feed The Bluff.

The name carries. Always did. Only reason I haven’t had a visit from the local law.

Yet.

Why don’t they seek me out the rest of the year, huh? I’m lonely, like anyone. A visitor up here to Rocky Acres would…well, it might lift the fog, even temporarily, and let me live like a man again…if I ever really did.

(i’llkilleverylastmotherfuckin’oneofyou)

I’m nobody. Less than zero. A blank check.

The Fool on the Hill. Day after fuckin’ day.

(Randy, drunk again; Who cares?)

I’m harmless.

My family has a name. I don’t but they do. I’m just a crazy ole hermit with too big a house and a bank account. Never hurt a fly in 57 years.

Fifty-seven.

Heinz should send me a free bottle of steak sauce. Not that I’d eat the nasty shit. A proper steak needs no-

(i’mcomin’inthereIsweartochristohIsweartofuckingCHRIST)

I’m sorry. Could you hear that or was that just in my head? Did we blink at the same time? Are you ok, friend?

(killthemkillthemkillthemall)

How long has this hatchet been in my hand? Did you see me pick it up?

It’s 90 degrees out and there’s no need for a fir-

Ohhhhhhhhhhh…

No need for a fire? Is THAT riiigggghhhttt?

A blaze for your head A HOT blaze.

What temperature do bones turn to dust?

The raven-haired one has stopped laughing. I kneel to her and the blonde screams.

No pulse. I feel her neck. None.

Not that I can feel and my head is throbbing. My back hurts and my groin feels like I’ve been fucking a ‘68 Buick and not in the GOOD way. It’s been a long day-

(month)

I put my mouth against hers. An obscene kiss on the floor of an expensive cabin in the mountains of Tennessee.

No breath. Just reeking staleness. I rise, staring down at this lump of shit that was once a fuck-beast of the first division. I could have made an ‘honest’ woman of her.

Once.

The blonde one, though…

I can’t take the screaming.

State police’ll come around, sooner or later. When they finally run out of leads, I’ll be the last number in the lottery chute. What did Sherlock Holmes say about, after all the logical leads have been eliminated, the last explanation, no matter how illogical, must be the truth?

I think it was Holmes. Maybe it was Davy Crockett.

Up here, ya never know.

The hatchet twists in my hands. The blonde is still screaming, and I wish her to shut up. I pray on it. Even as we speak, you and I, I’m praying in a language only two of us can hear.

I wish you could.

The red-headed woman, a girl named Brittney,

(spearsneedsaspearrightupherrearohthemirth…)

pretty. The rumor was always that she ‘put out’ when we were in school.

She puts out, alright.

And now,

I’ll have to put her out.

This hatchet feels itchy. My whole body feels itchy.

I often thought that’s what hell is. Not fire and brimstone and demons named Ted who lure young people to HIS cabin, two mountains over, with promises of booze and pot and VHS porn. Not Ted who lives to hurt others.

Not Ted who is the destroyer of lives.

No, Hell is living up to your neck in shit and every day feels…itchier.

Itches like, well, like the Devil.

(timeswastingdoitdoitdoitNOW)

I drop raven’s delicate, bruised hand…the ring finger is missing.

Did I do that?

I turn to blondie. She struggles against the chains, her sweaty legs glisten like a supermodel on the beach of St. Tropez. Nice, long, lean, skin peeled off in places,

(didIdothatnoyes)

screaming for her daddy.

How cute.

I raise the hatchet…

…

…

There. Silence. Blessed sweet silence.

The thing is, I never needed sex.

I needed love.

In the cruel twist of fate we call Life, love was harder to come by.

Sex is easy. Way too easy. Not without peril. Not without regrets, sometimes. But you can get it, a lot of it, if you REALLY want it.

It’s a poor substitute to anyone but the most testosterone-driven. The ones for whom sex isn’t an act of love or recreation but pure sport. Last one in is a rotten egg.

I got mine, get yours. Whoo fuckin’ hoo.

There’s no shortage of pussy. Not even in a remote town like Graham Bluff, 20 miles from Bristol and a thousand miles from civilization. And it’s all for the taking, like free apples at the Farmer’s Market in Johnson City.

I regret nothing. These were not ‘good girls.’ Even the teacher, if she was one, was probably teaching kids the Federal Line…New math…science is bad, God is good…

Everything happens for a reason. Maybe I’M God’s justice on those who mock you in school and those who keep from you what is rightfully yours.

By…God.

Call me Vengeance, if it makes you feel better. I prefer Randy.

I also prefer no more screaming.

Level, achieved.

Lightning bugs pop up out of the summer grass, ready to mate.

Ain’t we all?

Now, let’s go start a fire before the cops get here, my new friend.

(oldfriendoldfriendoldfriendoldfriendold-)

Close the door behind you, please.

The flies…

Or, apart from.

Did I envy the families, full of children, happy at Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and others? No matter the culture, the yard full of happiness and the throwing away of prejudice and shame…

I was not a part of it. Never was.

Yes, I envied. It took a part of me where my heart should have grown large like a Brooklyn mechanic with 8 kids, religious faith, a good partner, and more work than can be done in 3 lifetimes, and chipped away at it, a squirrel on my back, gnawing my back, gnawing my nuts.

Gnawing up my heart.

Piece by piece, sliced against the grain so it would be tender, bloody and still a little cold…

Instead, I felt it shrink, with every event I was the last one invited to.

Raised alone, no sibs, no neighbors, in rural Tennessee so close to Nashville that, when storms would pass one could, for a few minutes, see the skyline glow, just look east, son…

Neon glow.

The Prize.

Here we sat, just me and me mama, stranded in the land of my Father…and my father’s family.

My dad’s mom kept me, at first, hard woman but fair and loving in that ‘leave me alone and play’ kinda way. She snapped at me one day when I was 7 and newly divorced (when your mom divorces your dad’s family, you both divorce), just another Tuesday, I remember it was close to Christmas…

Dark and cold at 5pm…I’ll feel it in my bones until the day I die…the cold that cuts your organs into bits and you can’t stay warm no matter how many layers you have on, the wind finds its way inside.

My gramma and mother fought over that. I wasn’t moving fast enough and gramma just wanted mom out of the house so she snapped at me to hurry up. And my mother, who probably secretly wanted to snap at me as well, lost her fuckin’ mind and attacked my grandma with a skillet. Grandma was tough and wrestled the pan away from mom…they squared off in the kitchen.

I ran to…mother. Bad career move but what could I do? I was 7, in a new place, no friends, and my gramma and mom are going full King Kong vs Godzilla right there in my gramma’s kitchen…

I didn’t stay at my own Grandmother’s for a period of ‘from now on.’

And to top it off, they knew Mom was…not all there…

I was never, ever, officially invited to family events after that. Just never came up. Unless my dad, the trucker, had time to mosey on into our little town and bring oranges or pineapples that happened to just ‘fall off the truck’ on his way back to Tennessee.

And if he remembered to call me. Which occasionally slipped his mind.

Yeah, right.

That always made me uneasy. The air would change. I tried to love my dad. He was just never around. Always trucking. Always on the road.

It wasn’t until later that I heard stories about my father. Stories you hope to not hear about your father.

Crazy. Tracy Morgan crazy.

It only confirmed what I already knew.

I was doomed.

You can be a part of humanity and play the lottery. The Powerball. Feel emotions, save your pennies, age horribly, old hips, bad tv, worse food, and bowel movements so foul that a Bull Moose would pace 22 acres away from you and your family. Skunks would find boats and swim the fuck outta there.

I know.

Or, you can be raised alone, in a room with posters, a dirty bed, and a radio…you can even tote the radio out into the yard on a summer night…pick up baseball stations from Cincinnati…Chicago…Atlanta…New York, if the clouds were low enough and mean enough to allow the AM signal to float all the way down to Middle Tennessee, that is.

Raised alone with family surrounding you. And no one acknowledges your existence because they’re afraid of conflict with the one person in charge, my mother. Large Marge the Love Barge.

I was kept like a veal in a cage awaiting its fate.

You simply didn’t cross my mother. Not before the divorce and certainly not after. Mom was a formidable woman. Formidable enough that my own grandpa was the only one with enough guts to tell her to fuck off. “We’re goin’ for a burger and a coke, Glo. Don’t make it hard on none of us. ‘specially the boy.”

He was the only one that could get her to back down from her miserableness at having been chained into a motherhood she did not want.

I can dig that. I wouldn’t want me, either.

I can be a bit much. After all, wouldn’t you be afte being locked in a cage?

Grandpa could back her down, but only so much. Pretty soon the effort and fight it took just wore him down.

He stopped coming around. I was getting older and he still had a farm and other family to tend to. He couldn’t spend the majority of his precious time on one grandchild when he had more out there and more on the way.

So he, too, left me to tend to my mother. My mother and her…

Her main flaws were: A. She wasn’t fit to be a mother. Had no instinct but her own self-preservation. Self-serving. No one on earth but her.

There is no ‘B.’ That was it. Her needs superseded the whole world.

I needed braces. Medically. My mom always worked her taxes, so she’d get a big return. Her madness. She couldn’t save herself nor her money. She got Uncle Sam to save her money for her.

Her mind, however…zip. That had gone past the point of repair. Hell, she thought everyone else was insane. Isn’t that what the insane do?

In my weakest moments, so do I.

Dentist said my teeth will always be crooked and painful without braces. We can set up a payment plan, Ms Jackson. Think of the boy.

My mother takes her check from Uncle Sam and buys a big screen tv.

This was the 80’s. BIG motherfuckin’ tv. Wheels. Had to be rolled in by two massive units called ‘men.’ It was pretty cool for watching Tyson fights and Wrestlemania, I must say, and the braces were soon forgotten.

Oh, we had those huge old satellite dishes that picked up HBO and all that for free…we’ll say. Didn’t I mention that?

Bought the year before, tax return money, and all I got for Christmas was a badly needed pair of shoes. But we had tv, by God. More channels than anyone around except Creepy, the barber, who’d bought one just the year before us.

HBO. Cinemax. ESPN.

Pay-Per-View?

Not here, pal.

It was all on the ‘free’ card and all clear for the taking.

Who knew it would be my salvation? My one last ticket to Normal Land. To be one of the gang.

To have friends.

I cleaned up charging fellow kids, and sometimes their parents, $3 a head to come watch something I was getting for free. the adults brought beer and I got my first taste of freedom.

Wrestling was my bread and butter. I had a household full over to watch the first Wrestlemania and the news was out. I made some money, enough to buy the drugs I needed to keep from…ya know. Plenty of money. Newfound respect. Sometimes, my mind would mistake company for love.

They only loved the tv. It hurt but I learned to live with that. The money was good…

However,…

I began taping the free porn after 10pm, this is 1983 mind you and I sold them at school for $5 per 6 hour tape. The tape cost me less than $1 and the porn (American Triple XXXtasy, my god…) cost nothing.

And, I had customers. God, did I own the belly of the beast. It’s fascinating how fast word travels around a high school when it’s something underground, forbidden, and hard to obtain. I had a system and they had the libido. Also, cash. Many masturbations, many lives tossed onto a stomach or a cum-stained fitted sheet. All thanks to me and my mom’s self-absorption and insanity.

Who cares? Life is meant to be lived. God bless those wanking young jack-offs!

I made money. Oodles. Bought myself a car with the profits. thought that would surely get me a girlfriend.

It didn’t. All I got was repair bills. Fuel bills.

Never did get the braces.

But-

I was starting to work the system and I was having fun. For a while.

People were lively to come to my house to watch the fights, or watch Robbie Knievel jump a bridge, or see Ozzy in concert…my home was full, a lot, and it felt good, really warm and full of electricity…I’d finally made it socially enough to entertain friends…for about 4 hours.

Then, it was only me. Alone again, naturally. No girl waiting in my bed to lose her virginity or to take mine. Just a dark, smelly room, clothes on the floor with teenage boy b.o. stapled to them…a coagulated bowl of Fruit Loops on a tv tray, half-eaten, gnats hovering, lighting down for a snack, and hovering again…stacks of Stephen King and Irving Wallace, and Poe…

Shut the lights, kill one last beer,

Smoke one last joint.

Play old school chess on my cheap electronic chessboard, a nickel where a rook was supposed to go, and listening to AC/DC, Metallica, anything where I didn’t have to think…or remember…

Go to bed with the noise of rock n roll to quiet the turmoil and fear inside the old guttyworks…fear of demons and child molesters who awaken you at night and dreams that are never quiet but alive and teeming with death.

Quiet…Coma…Stereo blasting, keeping the creepy evils at bay…

Tomorrow comes quickly and so does the horror.

And then I turned 16…

And nothing changed.

Take Care, Donald. The ghosts have risen and I’ll not see you at 40.

I just can’t.

The squirrels are back, gnawing at me. They can have me. The squirrels. The rats.

I think I’m ready for the best time of my life.

Prepare for yours.

I’ll be there, shortly. And I shall run to you, freely and without remorse. After all, the world isn’t short of the damned.

Do the dead dream? Or is it fame they seek?

We’ll only know from the grave. See you soon, my love.

Keep the secret. It’s too late for Eddy.

Love never dies, my sweet, sweet man. It’s at the bus stop waiting on your train.

See you at Big Rock Candy Mountain! I’ll buy you a Coke and a Moon Pie.

:Last know communication between Donald Ray Givens and Jerry Wayne Thomas, suspects in the murders of two Jane Doe prostitutes abducted from Love’s Truckstop, exit 163 in Middle Tennessee.

Donald Ray Givens and Jerry Wayne Thomas, as of this writing, are still at large and considered armed and dangerous.

The ‘Eddy’ mentioned above remains a mystery.

If there was any truth to nature vs. nurture and by all rights, I shoulda been aborted. An abortion in the home of some mover/shaker in Nastyville.

A judge.

A lawyer.

Someone up high at Vanderbilt.

Metro Police.

A crook…simple instructions…

No baby running loose.

A secret among elites,

Dead juice.

I shoulda been shit in a jar,

buried forever,

hidden ‘neath the earth on the banks of the Cumberland.

Not far

from the place of

my birth.

I’ll let history judge. When am I responsible for anything that formed my mind in the next 57 years?

When is it ok?

When is it ok to die inside?

To pick the time of your time to get smoking, alive,

and arise?

November, 1968.

What mother WOULDN’T be in a nervous state,

from start to stern? At 9 months and having been pregnant for the

whole damn year?

If there’s a hormonal footprint, someone should study children born between March and December 1968.

And cringe. The lost of the lost.

No Mercy.

No Fate.

My mother was a news junkie to distract her from the fact that:

A. She’s a liberal against the Vietnam War and Nixon…and LBJ, if ya want the stone-faced truth, in the south, and

B. Tet…MLK…Bobby…Hey Jude…all that would keep one on edge all damn year and I get living like ya never know who’ll die next…and

C…… She’s a lesbian. In the south.

In the 60’s.

Dig.

Not home; Not home

In any land

Not ideal.

If she fucked Jimi Hendrix, it would have been less of a scandal, as long as she didn’t get pregnant. She coulda fucked his whole sound crew and been less ostracized.

And, handled, internally…

In some circles…but but…

But…my daughter? A muff-divin’ degenerate sex fiend and possible child-molester?

Damned? Eternally?

She knew it from birth. If any child was molested, it was her and by the unseen genetic component that selected her to be thrown into a very narrow metric of human existence.

I’d like to wish it would have been better. If we were out in California, she’d have had it easier.

No resistance.

Federal assistance.

A moral imperative.

A moral insistence.

She asked not.

She got what she got.

‘God love ya. Don’t hurt nobody. It’s Tennessee so, around here,

ya know what…’

I already knew she was gay and, at 12

in 1980,

I could not have cared less.

Gay. Homosexual.

So what?

She assumed the defensive. On Christmas morning, 1990.

I was high an

Awful lot.

So was her lover, a lovely woman named Jane.

We had a nice, long chat. I loved my mom.

I loved my name.

I could not have cared less. Mom was never sure.

I wondered why?

Was it the lies, the quest,

Impure?

Anyways…

Election Day,

1968,

this woman (lesbian), hiding herself from everyone, and had for years

just to please her daddy,

my grandpa who, earlier that year,

ate a steak in a Midtown Nashville ChopHouse, coughed up a piece of gristle,

clutched his chest and died.

Oh dear.

God damn.

No big whoop. Another heart attack,

another Sunday…ready to vote

and blam.

She took it very hard.

He may have been the only man she loved.

Huh, never thought about that.

Or, she only loved money. HIS money.

With her, ya never knew.

So, he died…it was a sadness in her soul-

It was also her chance to get out.

With the cash.

But, how?

My Nani, her mother, strict and a valium-addicted, belligerent wife of a gas station owner, possibly connected to the infamous Nashville ‘Blue Mafia’…and well-to-do, right?…

The ‘nations.’

Freaked.

Glo-baby KNEW…she knew, my mother did…she knew if she came out, in 1968 and pregnant and the world coming apart, she knew…

The pipeline…granddaddy’s money, or her portion of it as regulated by her mother, my Nani, would be POOF…leaves in the breeze…shit in the wind, downtown with a frown…a future on the run…bad vibes tonight…no soup for you…BIG trouble…

So, on that stormy morning of my birth, she grunted and groaned and cursed men,

all men,

as the tv on the roll-up tray announced Nixon was now God of the World and that

she grunted, and spat forth a boy, of all god-awful genders,

the new mother in all her glory and pubic hair

(gloria glo-baby g-l-o-r-i-a…your worst nightmare)

After the delivery, of which my father was not a part of

(more on that at a later date haha fuckyouall whoa, He didn’t mean that, bygones),

they offered me to her breast.

She watched the morning election news and asked for a pain pill, a cigarette, and a Coke…A…Cola.

I was handed back to the nurse.

Rolled over.

The nurse’s glare was full of fire and spit. She left Glo-baby to her tv and her thirst.

“Let’s take this bastard to the nursery.”

“Me, first.”

Not uncommon for that era.

My first real meal was formula with no name that still doesn’t translate to actual nutritional value, fed to me by some candy-striper with more acne than hope.

Probably made of opium.

Or some kind of dope.

It WAS 1968, America…

The start of 42 years…42 years…As it turns out, I WAS just like my goddam daddy. I’d finally had enough.

I didn’t kill her.

They never even checked. It was rough.

I was there when she drew her last breath. I wonder where she was at that moment.

The moments of death

I wonder why she couldn’t love, lesbian or not…

Burned out or not

Turned out or not

Thank God for good scotch and modern chemistry.

I believe in her

I believe in me

I don’t wonder anymore. I don’t think about anything, anymore.

Shit in a jar on a second-shelf store

I just be.

I now see.

I just am.

As should ye

Forever more…

Okay

No one to save you from

The earliest of graves

Cheeseburger;

Paradise

Until the sickness within, without

Destroys your sight,

Your eyes

Keep eating that meat

Believing the same bias, bigotry

And lies

It’s not the food

That’s killin’ you

It’s the falseness you’re taught

That remains

As truth

The cruel table you rest

Your elbows on

That make you strong

For the wrong fuckin’ test

C’mon, people, now,

Smile on your brother

Loving one and one

Makes two the final sum

One way or another

Find your home inside these parts

It’s not too late to stop

Not too late to start

All you need is a horse,

an apple, some magic words,

And a cart

Don’t be mean

Use your bean

There’s no enemy screen

Except inside your head

And inside your heart

Toss it aside

Let it be unseen

In the light of the day,

And in the light of

The dark…

(God, if you wanna preach, go get ya preacher license. She was…)

Beautiful girl. Good family. Some friends. Never saw the signs. No one did except maybe for her-

(If you’re gonna do, do two, we all know the code…)

Her mama would say she never even known the shit was around-

(“There’s nothin’ to do, mom, ‘cept…I need the pill-ok hon, be careful)

She needed more than that. She was cute, but she was reckless, the small-town boys were-

(I know what I’m doing, no you don’t…)

A million light gropes in a million shitty trucks…she stopped wearing panties, except during her monthlies, a long time ago-no one cared-

(I am in so much trouble…)

One morning, sometime after Christmas, she ate her chocolates, dreaming of being the ballerina up in New York instead of shit-stained Asheville…her belly growing-

(Your sins will find you out…)

The secret wouldn’t be a secret much longer and oh what would the patrons at Augusta say-

(Her parents, in their ivory pants, yuppie-hippie-boomer-scum should die, all die)

-She went to her parent’s bedroom, stretching and feeling nothing but isolation. She did a pirouette in front of their wall-size mirror. Her mother’s portrait, commissioned at great cost, hung above the bed. A Mother’s Day gift from her and her sisters, the fat bitches-

(where was anyone who ever cared about her?)

Parents gone to New Orleans for the holidays, sisters meeting them from their homes in Key Biscayne and Mobil and Houston-

(Wouldn’t cost’em nothin’ to take me along)

Her friends waiting inside a small leather shaving kit she stole from Macy’s-

(left me here they know oh god they know and they’re afraid my sisters will see me and THEY’LL know and the shame, the shame, the reproach on the family…)

She glances around the pristine bedroom, jewelry boxes, and candle sconces…she admires the cracks in the wall where Dad and mom had a ‘tiff’-

(tiff hahaha good Christian upbringing where’s the shame about THAT, Dad?)

Ties off; She taps a vein and takes aim-

(puuuuuuusssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…)

-and the golden magic flowed throughout her lonely body, lonely soul, Christmas music wafting through the hallway from the downstairs stereo-she lies back on the California King bed…drops of blood on the comforter…

(they’ll never know until they do…)

“Allllll is calm…”

(RUSHRUSHRUSHRUSHRUSH)

“Allllll is bright…”

(RUSH RUSH uhOH)

She rolls off the bed-this time, something’s different-head’s different-

“Slee-eep in heavenlyyyyy peeeeee-EEEACE…”

(…oh, no…help…need to…phone…phone…in trouble…in so much trouble…)

“SLEE-eep in HEA-venly peace…”

She stumbles to the master bathroom…chrome…gold shower curtains…she crawls desperately to the obscene purple toilet…

(retch, heave, drool, bleed, stare, fall…)

Lying on the floor, the truth splits her head wide open…her eyes glaze over…yellowish sputum rolls out of her gaping mouth-

(I hate you all)

Out of the blue;

(Merry Christmas)

Into the black, she slips-

(Merry)

Full………….stop.

(Christm-)

Sends the ripples of you

Into my veins, speeding

Toward, toward

Our victory

Our own bleeding

I loved you like my

Flesh, my blood

We rose, we fell

We stumbled,

We stood

Inside, I’m warm

Outside, You’re freezing

It’s over too soon

Another one for the

Dumpster pile, the breezes

Under cemetery grass

Or underground rooms

Keep us above the fate that looms

For a little while

In backwoods Tennessee

A judge’s doom

Nothing as beautiful

As your face’s death smile

The morbid, Joker-grin,

On display

At a Mid-town Nashville Murder Trial

Gotta pass the blame,

Babe, I hope, in heaven,

To remember your name,

It’s time to face the cameras, my love…

“Yes, your Honor.

You can call me ‘James.’”

I remember flying my Confederate flag, proudly, during every parade, or just down the road to Dickson County High. Rigged to my bumper and Hank Williams Jr blaring out of my killer sound system I built from Radio Shack parts and a little solder.

And I was far from the only one. Except…I didn’t hate nobody. I noticed almost everyone did or acted like they did. I got a few enemies now, and we can discuss that later if ya want, but I never hated anyone. Not for color. Not for religion. Not for politics, or our fathers’ politics. We had football, and we had trying to bang a girl, ANY girl, in the age of AIDS, although, in retrospect, it didn’t really slow things down all that much.

Whew, got off topic there, thinkin’ bout Raylene Murphy. God. Damn. There was no part of that girl that didn’t have a soft curve, and she didn’t mind if you drove her around. You know. Lots of us did and she wore it like a medal. She deserved one.

But she hated.

She came from Civil War stock. And, brother, did she hate. She hated anyone or anything what wa’an’t white. I mean, anybody. Her family was big in the local Klan. Seems like her uncle or somebody was the treasurer, whatever those assholes were called. He wasn’t much to look at, sort of a dump of a man, always slouched in field-torn overalls-

And always angry. That’s what killed me. How can you be happy when you don’t love nothing but your own ass?

Hated Yankees but would only pull for The Celtics in basketball because ‘they play white people.’ Swear to God. That kind of mindset. What can you do?

Fuck Larry Bird. And REALLY fuck that Danny Ainge piece of shit kid. I HATED the Celtics. So there.

I liked Showtime. The Lakers. City of the Angels, baby.

Magic. Jamaal. Clark Kent.

Kareem. I caught some shit for liking the ‘black’ team but a Muslim, too?

I didn’t care. I honestly didn’t see the big deal. Not until I met their folks.

Wow, the difference 30 miles can make.

See, I was half-Nashvillian. My mom had went down to sit-in at Woolworths in 1960 before my grandaddy got his cop buddies to yanked her ass back, not because of racism but because he didn’t want his 17-yo daughter getting knocked in the head by some cop who didn’t know he gave the governor free gas in his personal vehicle and may or may not have known some of the local mafia. He owned a Gulf station back then, cash business, and east Nashville was as much of a melting pot as you’d find in the city. Being friends with black kids was not new nor weird to me.

Creeper. He was the best. Honest as your arm. If he liked ya, he’d whip some ass until they didn’t come back.

Seeing Creeper at the shop, so black you couldn’t even see him, smiling and working on cars and know this: There wasn’t anything that man couldn’t fix, not vehicle-wise. You could bring him some new army-type shit, and he’d have it broke down, lubed up, and put back together before that US check cleared the bank. And put back together right.

Metro Police brung their cars in for Creeper to fix. Leastwise, all the ones at the East Precinct did. We loved him and his family. First Thanksgiving I ever had catfish and spaghetti, and it was GOOD. I mean, reeeeeaaaalllly good.

Think I’ll make it this year. Fuck yeah.

No. I was not brought up to hate anyone. I went to school. Played baseball. Hung out. I listened to Rick James as much as I listened to KISS.

Stevie Wonder was a hero in our house.

Timmy. My buddy. We thought we were hot shit at 7 years old, riding our bikes, old Salt and Pepper we called ourselves a full 10 years before that chick rap group. We’d get up early in the summer, probably the only two boys that was up at that hour. Daybreak. Purple morning out today. Nashville always smelled like garbage mixed with sausage biscuit wrapped up in a coffee-soaked cigarette.

And we’d ride. He’d meet me and we’d ride out to Gallatin Road. not even a 1/4 mile. And the prostitutes would be right there, black, white, Mexican, I reckon, what did I know? There they’d be and we’d ride up and, ya know, they knew us. Always teasing us but never anything sexual. I often think maybe they’d had kids, somewhere. Abortions. All that shit. Maybe they missed’em.

I’m old, now. I wonder if any of them are still alive.

They’d pool up money and send us across precarious Gallatin Road for cigarettes. Dangerous. 4 lanes of just-beginning rush hour traffic we’d ride like that game Frogger, weaving and dodging, horns blaring, lights flashing and we’d laugh all the way across the road and to the 7-11 right across the street, neon sign announcing fresh coffee and yesterday’s doughnuts. We were to return with cigarettes and could keep the rest. As much as we biked, and played backyard football, I gained about 10 pounds of fat just from all the extra Cokes and candybars. Timmy’d poke my expanding waist and call me Salty Dog and I’d chase him and we’d bike and eat candy. Old black men playing chess in the park. Old white men playing golf. But we never saw it while together. The separation without anyone saying they’re separated. Just never thought about it. We loved the girls and their cigarettes; we loved biking around and adventuring around Shelby Bottoms.

We loved each other. Of that, I’m sure, although I haven’t heard from him for a while.

Fast-forward to being an adult and shunting off that damn flag. If anyone had a right to fly it, it was yours truly. My mother and Aunt Debbie got on an ancestry kick back in the 80’s. Heavy lifting, every day, Charlotte courthouse, Nashville, leading all the way back Virginia in the 1700’s. Mom traced her mom’s line all the way back to England. She once named who all we were in line with, Lady Diana was mentioned, I never saw it. Can’t say. However…

Not one single incident of slave ownership.

Not. One.

I found that odd until I pored over some of the records of transactions, wills, and such. No mention of humans; No mention of people as property.

Could it simply have been ‘redacted’ at the time so no real records existed? Some great purge, whether ordered or simply the order of the day?

I reckon it’s possible. Hell, the fact that boats got planes on’em and can take off and land is close to being beyond my grasp.

I know how it works…and, I don’t.

So, redacted? Possibly.

I like to think that there’s no way. There’s so many records, there would be SOME record, somewhere. However, I’ve not, to this date, seen anything to involve human trafficking of any kind. Not even a super-underage marriage. I thought that’d be rampant as, I discovered another reason no one seemed to have slaves:

We were poor as fuck.

Some of my Yank-…sorry. Old habits still crop up, from time to time. Difficult to unlearn the habits you make trying to impress your friends. Some of my NORTHERN relatives did ok but they were from vehement states and, in fact, sent some of their sons and grandsons to fight for the Union.

Some of them even came back whole.

Now, lemme blow your mind.

On my Aunt Debbie’s side (remember her?) which is to say my father’s side, there were a couple of boys/men who signed up just because they didn’t want THEM down HERE. They had no slaves. They were sharecroppers which I guess it was a step above or three but it sure wa’an’t no livin’.

They just didn’t want Northern Americans telling us Southern Americans what to do.

Still had the theory of States’ Rights, remember? The federal government could be fought and was. Hell, President Jackson fought his own government. He wasn’t alone.

States’ Rights. That was tricky. Confused a lot of good people into making bad decisions. Often deadly.

My own grandmother’s grandmother had two sons, Jim and Joe. Jim went to the Union, Joe went to the Confederacy.

Only one came back.

Her husband ( we’ll call him Hack) was a Baptist preacher. He stomped around the cedar pulpit and shouted and raised tee-total hell about the evils of slavery, Fuck Jefferson and his 3/5ths bullstuff, America was going to damnation. The whole nine yards. Hell was coming to anyone who thought they had the right to buy a human and besides that, he REALLY hated the idea of a confederacy. His idea was along with Lincoln’s, in a way: Just pay the few around Dickson County for every slave, set’em free, and then hire’em back at wage.

The thought of freeing slaves that had previously been used worse than mules and fed much less was…off-putting, we’ll say, to those whose livelihood stood to lose a whole bunch if they suddenly had to pay for the same help that could be pacified with leftover hog parts and the lash?

Or they decided to take revenge. It had happened before.

The town had to be rid of him. He was gonna make it worse for everyone, they said.

Word was the Union had taken Clarksville just a few miles up the road from where his chapel was.

The town sent an emissary to the Union declaring Hack was instigating a militia to ambush the Union soldiers a day’s time.

‘Ya know, just in case that was of interest to ya and please don’t burn our town. Good day to you, sir.’

The Lieutenant in charge, Mackey, decided to go roust ole Hack. Fucking secessionist.

As it happened, Hack had been having trouble with an Irish immigrant who lived in the overwhelming woods behind Hack’s family home. Seemed Irish was killing pigs and leaving most of the meat behind to spoil. No amount of threats, negotiations, nothing, was stopping Irish. Catching him in the act was the only way.

The union showed up around 2 a.m. in Hack’s front yard. Thinking it must be Irish, Hack grabbed his gun from above his bed, went to the window, and fired, killing one man he couldn’t have been able to see.

The retaliation was…brutal. Just brutal. Hack was the only survivor of the firefight and was dragged off to Clarksville Prison, his dead son and daughters lying on the dirty ground in their own blood, his youngest daughter practically cut in half from the Union’s fire. He went through 3 years of hell. Tell ya about it, sometime.

Anyway, he got out after the war was declared over. With only his worn-out Bible and his soul, he limped out of the prison gates and up the muddy road, headed home. He took the ferry across the Cumberland, almost fell climbing up the steep cliff steps to the overlook above. He held onto his bible for dear life. His faith never left him, far as I can tell from the records.

After 8 days, he returned to what was left of his home and his church. He eventually remarried and his line continues to this day. The house is gone but the chapel still has service every Wednesday and twice every Sunday to this day. It’s right there on the ridge, right to the side of the family cemetery. Lots of us there. Every grandparent I ever had until my nearest one who just passed a few years ago.

Hack is there.

And that’s how I could justify flying my confederate flag even though I had no hate in my heart.

Thank God for growth.

When it FINALLY hit me that, it doesn’t matter your family history or what your heritage is, I lit up a joint and cried.

If you purposefully fly a flag of some sort that brings actual hate to a person who, moments before, may have been really positive about race and the future for us all because we’re all in the same boat, for the most part, then you’re a jerk just to be one. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

The Confederacy was full of shit, man.

I don’t hate. And I don’t own anything that has that symbol on it. I wouldn’t wear it no more than I’d tattoo a swastika on my butt and walk around in assless chaps.

That’s my choice.

Make yours.

Extraordinary.

Math wiz. Math Team took 2nd place in the National Competition. Our school had never even been to a math competition before Billy.

Salutatorian of his senior class.

State wrestling champ.

Chess champ.

Girls.

Cars.

Everything.

It’s safe to say, he was my hero as a 9 year old. He was twice my age then and was kind to me in that off-hand, ‘my parents’ll kill me if I’m mean to this little shit’ kind of way. I realized it, right off. I, too, hated children my own age.

It made me love him even more.

He graduated, clean cut and a local legend. Graduated and off to live his life. I didn’t hear anything about him until I turned 16.

Playing music for a local band was lucrative, at least, I thought it was. It got me out of the hayfields and stinging tobacco fields for which I was profoundly grateful. Spending hours during the day pulling sucker leaves under the Bully we call Mr. Sun around here; Spending hours at dusk walking the rows with battery operated blacklights to find the hornworms. Squeezing their green blood was the one fun thing about any of it. It glowed under the light. Little bastards.

However, music was actually a pit. Between the girls and the drugs and the more drugs and the even more drugs, my nut was not being covered.

I needed a job. Something that wouldn’t interfere with my band schedule. Wouldn’t interfere with my ‘career.’ I look back now and simply chuckle with a hole in my heart where the music used to be. Back then, it was everything.

So, I decided fast food would offer me flexibility, freedom, and it wouldn’t wear me out so much that my drumming would suffer.

I walked into our local McDonald’s. It was just down the road from the high school where Bill was still a legend, at least inside the trophy case at the entrance of the stoic, red brick building. I walked in and asked if they were hiring.

“Are you kidding?”, the girl behind the register growled as if I’d just asked if she was still breathing oxygen or had switched to fire.

“Can I speak to somebody?”

“I’ll get Billy.”, she said, rolled her eyes and, with a beleaguered sigh, she strolled to the back of the store.

It didn’t occur to me…

This big hulk of a man came out of the back office and turned toward me. He smiled, shook off his glasses.

My cousin, the champ, stamped up to me, grinning. I didn’t recognize him but he recognized me.

“Jimbo! How you been, man?”, he exclaimed, his face pudgy and bright, porn ‘stache, long curly hair. He grappled me in a bear hug and I thought I’d pass out from having the air cut off to my brain. We hugged and he shook me. Was this William? It appeared as if he had eaten a pair of twin goats for breakfast and gotten chocolate cakes and a Toyota for dessert.

The man was huge. What had happened to him? Where had Billy the Basher gone?

These thoughts swirled around my head, spun me into a cyclone. It was surreal.

I knew better than to say anything. I’d seen him wreck so many dudes…big dudes. It’s safe to say I was still scared of him, a bit.

He hired me on the spot. Opening shift, off before lunch. 3 mornings a week. It was gonna be early and rehearsals were gonna have to be adjusted but it wasn’t gonna cause me many problems other than finding time to sleep.

No sooner had I started and gotten up to speed on the procedure for opening a McDonald’s for the breakfast rush, he was gone.

A co-worker, this mean old hellraiser who had to go straight because of his parole, would come in, hungover and full of bile. The woman whose only job was to make biscuits was scared of him and avoided his glare as best she could.

I, however, was not afraid. Not after I learned to do the job quicker and better than him.

Not after he came in, hungover yet again and smelling like he’d bathed in Vodka and rancid orange juice. He filled up the fry bins with fresh oil…and, well…there’s no real way to…to, ah…

OH, hell, the motherfucker pissed into the fryers.

“Would you like hashbrowns with that?”

No, merci.

Right in the fucking fryers.

So I told Billy and he told me not to worry about it and I could just see the defeat in his eyes, for the first time, and, just like that, I lost my hero.

I sat on it.

Until it happened again. Turns out, this guy pissed into the fry bins each and every morning he worked. Customers were eating McDonald’s famous Urine Fries. Great.

I then made a call to corporate. Both pisser and Billy were gone the next day. I hated that but, god damn…

I didn’t eat McD’s for years after that. I’ve NEVER eaten at that particular store since.

Also, sadly, Billy and I never spoke again.

That always bothered me. What could I say, though? “Sorry, cous’.”? “What the hell’s the matter with you?” “Do you let Aunt Mary eat here???”

Billy took a manager job at a Wendy’s in the western suburb of Nashville known as Bellevue. Just 20 minutes down the road, close to I-40 as it makes its escape from Music City.

Life went on.

I thought about Billy. From warrior to fast food manager, and not a very good one. Competent…troubled. I’ve often wondered where it all went, his drive, his genius, his smile. Where did his hope go?

I ran into Detective Rick Belluchio in 2003. We stood on a corner outside of the dilapidated warehouse that I was currently employed at. Hawking NASCAR collectibles.

Only in the south. My god…

He came in to buy some Dale Earnhardt lighters to give as Christmas gifts, saw me, and his face scrunched into a grimace like he’d just been kicked in the crotch.

We exchanged awkward greetings. He asked me to step outside for a cigarette. We walked outside to the corner, traffic whizzing by on this sidestreet with the Nashville Skyline hovering high behind us.

He smoked, hand trembling.

“We always thought Billy was the start, ya know?”, he said, the words flat, hiding his emotions and not very well. “Practice for the sumbitch. We just never could prove it. Bastard was good. Until he wasn’t.”

I was speechless. I was amazed he remembered me from the investigation.

“Think he’ll talk? Now?”

Rick stubbed out his cigarette and fumbled to light another, staring off down the road on this cold, Tennessee morning. He shook his head.

I hadn’t noticed that his other hand was fidgeting with the strap holding his service revolver to his hip. Picking at it like you pick at a tick that’s just gotten hold but hasn’t dug in.

I was suddenly nervous. Rick was a serious guy that had solved many high-profile crimes in Nastyville. He liked the attention the cameras gave but he liked putting redneck scum behind bars or to death row a helluva lot better. He was Nashville’s very own Pinkerton and he made sure he looked, and acted, the part.

He was still fidgeting with his holster strap, staring off down the road. His despair wrapped around me and I was colder. Just my imagination, I thought. I rolled my sleeves down, anyway.

“We coulda stopped so much.”, he said at at last. “So much.” The sadness in his throat made the last word sound like ‘muck.’

All I could say was, “Yeah.” God, I wanted to go back inside. People can snap, even seasoned police detectives, and I didn’t wanna be the first to see it before I died on the steps of Music City Motorsports.

He turned to me, eyes moist but not dripping. He stubbed out his cigarette and grabbed my shoulder the way a father does when he’s trying to impart some great fatherly wisdom to you.

“No.”, he said. “Not a chance. You’d have to have a soul to confess to something that’s still a secret and in all my years on this big, round ball, I’ve never met a person who didn’t have at least a little part of something inside them. A part of humanity. A part of ourselves. I never met that person. Not until I met Paul Dennis Reid.”

He searched my eyes, my face. He tousled my hair for chrissakes and I was already in my 30’s and was half a head taller than the once-proud man. I felt very small.

No more had to be said.

We both knew that Billy made the most crucial mistake a fast food manager can make. I can picture Billy, moustache sticking out at all angles, curly hair the color of Daytona sand cascading down to his broad, meaty shoulders, telling the little girls counting the money out in their registers to go on home on that random Tuesday night. Traffic had been light and he could close on up by himself. A couple of pieces of paperwork, wash a few utensils while the fryers drain, and then he’d be heading home to his pug, Marshall, and not much else.

Go on, children. Go be free while you still can. I can hear him say it.

His employees, refugees from the local high schools earning enough to go party after work, left. Hell, I would have, too. No one expects a robbery just like no one expects the Spanish Inquisition.

Certainly, no one expects a murder.

Maybe we should start expecting it.

Billy was found the next morning. The morning manager noticed the back door standing wide open and called the police, assuming a burglary. A few hundred dollars in the morning registers wasn’t worth getting too upset over. She walked in to assess the loss and prepare to give her report to the police.

She turned the corner and froze. The freezer door was standing wide open. That wasn’t right. Unexplainable fear crept up her spine.

Unfortunately for her, Curiosity overcame her trepidation. She looked inside.

Billy’s hands were bound with duct tape and wire. He was lying on his side in the fetal position that indicates he was on his knees when…when…

The back of his head was all over the walls, bits of skull and brains and blood lying in puddles…all…around.

She screamed and screamed and screamed. She ran out of the store just as a patrolman for Metro Nashville pulled up, casual and unconcerned. After all, he had been told he was there to investigate a robbery. Nothing to see, here.

She ran into his arms and collapsed, shaking uncontrollably. He calmed her, listened to her story, and set her in his patrol car where she could not stop shaking and crying. He gave her his jacket and she cowered inside it like it was holy water.

He went in, saw Billy, and threw up. Without knowing it, he’d just contaminated the crime scene. Nashville’s finest. Yeppers.

And there was the body of a champion, drowned in blood, half his head blown off, execution-style, lying in a compromised, puke filled freezer. The temperature inside read 58.

This warrior, my hero, was very dead. Who was so ferocious that Billy wouldn’t, or couldn’t, fight back? The Billy I knew would never have allowed himself to be bound. He couldn’t deflect bullets, but he could fight, even if he was about 200 pounds overweight and full of cheeseburgers. You just don’t forget how to battle because you put on a little extra.

Who could be this vicious? And in Nashville, the Politeness Capital of the World?

My hero was dead and the only thing left is his trophy, still in the case, still at the school he ruled for a couple of years.

That’s it. No kids. No nothing. A trophy.

When Detective Rick arrived 20 minutes later, he was only thinking about that little Wendy’s on the outskirts of one of the most fun cities in the country. Just another possible homicide. No big whoop. We’ll get’em.

Wendy’s was the only thing on his mind that morning.

It wouldn’t be long before he would be thinking about Captain D’s, too.

So would the entire city…

(to be continued)

And she got into a car with a man named Jerry Ray Davidson who, quite by chance, had once been a stepdad to a buddy of mine with whom I shared a birthday.

“When’s yer birthday?”

“Today!”, we’d both shout. Whooping and hollering in someone’s field. Bonfire. Coolers to the roof. And then we’d shotgun a beer for every year we’d made it, once again and in spite of ourselves, around Mr. Sun.

The good old days, covering groups such as Motley Crue and Allman Brothers and the drunken rednecks who followed our group, Call The Law, were rabid and horny and vicious. Only place I’ve ever seen a drive-by cutting. Catfish Cathey spilled Willie’s guts right into his own hands. Willie survived and Catfish was never charged even though about 30 of us saw it in the parking lot after the gig. It was bloody.

The club we played at was called Jack’s Place, ironically and no relation. 1990’s. Summer. Hot and sexy in an ‘oh I forgot my deodorant’ ‘It’s ok, let’s fuck’ kinda way.

Grunge was still about a year away from us here in rural Tennessee. I reckon we were desperately holding onto Southern Rock because we…I dunno…smelled the wind changing? I really couldn’t say. We were the informal house band and we did alright. Made more in free cocaine and weed and beers from adoring ‘fans’ than we ever did in cash, but it all seemed to work out in the end.

I remember we were playing Riding The Storm Out. Remember that one by REO Speedwagon? I drummed and it was one of my favorites as I got to spotlight my skills without just simply doing some stupid drum solo for 10 minutes while everyone went out to get a toke of the reg. That song and Wipe Out gained me some measure of notoriety in our small music community and I was riding high on ego, local fame, and, well, more cocaine.

It was perfect.

And then, Virginia wanders in. Her part of the family had money and she was always sort of the ‘oh hell, here she comes, hide the liquor and the pets, pretend we’re not home’ rich kid that every wealthy family has. Not exactly an outcast but she wasn’t the first to know where Thanksgiving was being held this year. Other than her penchant for a good whiskey, she was basically harmless, a woman with too much money and too much time to think.

So, we finish the set and I stumble through the crowded tables to greet her. She hadn’t been at the last reunion a few weeks before and I didn’t know if I’d see her again. She was older than me and was closer to an aunt than a cousin but we managed to corral our traumas and share a laugh and a tear over a libation or two.

We had a lot in common. But not all.

She said she’d just come from Aunt Belle’s house, big fight, huge, and now she was gonna take the summer and just drift before she got ‘too old to.’ The woman was 40-ish, looked younger than her age, a trifle mannish but totally not ugly. She could have any number of companions, and did in fact, of both sexes, it’s alleged.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Fuckin’ Seinfeld.

Will the 90’s NEVER stop haunting me? I doubt it.

Anyways, we shared a doobie outside and talked. She was gonna drift. She’d just stopped in to say ‘hi’ and her ride had left and could I give her a lift home after the show?

Of course, I said I would. Give us some more time to catch up. Plus, she always had that powder and brother, I was about as hooked as I could be without pulling a Belushi and crashing through a table with a premature heart attack at 22. I liked coke but I also knew the risks. So many of my friends were fearless. I miss them.

Every. One.

Well, we went back in to finish the show. About halfway through, I notice her talking to an older guy, kinda scroungy and overfed. Pounding down mug after mug of cheap draft beer that was the staple of Jack’s.

He turned to look at the band. I recognized him immediately. Jerry Ray Davidson. Known scumbag, rapist, maybe child rapist, the whole resume sitting on a barstool.

My heart leapt into my throat, a demon wanting to scream. She seemed to be enjoying her conversation with the shitheel. Terrific, I thought. She should probably stop drinking and take a good listen to the bullshit he had to have been feeding her. That’s his bread and butter. And then she did something I will never forget, there’s no amount of drugs to wipe it from my mind. Believe you, me, I’ve tried.

She grabbed his arm and laughed. Laughed like she’d just heard she’d never stop. She stumbled, spilling her drink, and Jerry, ever the gentleman, caught her.

I knew right then, this was trouble.

They chatted, we played, the crowd thinned out. Ordinary night in a redneck honky-tonk in the middle of nowhere Tennessee, right?

Last call for alcohol! Smoke’em if ya got’em. You don’t have to go home but ya can’t stay here. Same ole, same ole.

We finished with Freebird, what else amirite? I climbed out from behind my kit in time to see Jerry leading her to the door. I rushed through the passed-out cronies and up to her. He saw me, smirked like he recognized me for the little shit I was, and nodded to her. She gave him the ‘be out in a minute’ sign and turned towards me. Jerry gave me an up-and-down glance and walked out.

“I found a ride,” she said.

“Don’t.”, I pleaded. “Gimme two minutes. Don’t go with that creepfest, Ginny. I don’t trust him.”

She leaned into me, grabbing my forearm for support, and looked up at me with eyes that were bloodshot and I saw there was no talking her out of it.

“He lives a mile from me and it’s stupid for you to take me all the way out there when he’s going right by my house. I’m ok, Jack. I’m ok. I’m ok.” she slurred.

Then she said goodbye as I stated above and walked out.

I was the last family member to see her alive.

She was missing for a while. No one knew where she could be. The police searched her property, interviewed all of us, over and over, and nothing. Just nothing.

Summer turned to Fall. Around here, that’s deer season, and buddy, those woods are as dangerous as some parts of Vietnam, or Beirut. You’d better be where you’re allowed to be and you’d better have some orange on ya. Not much worse than being mistaken for a deer and then it’s a trip to the hospital. Or the morgue. It happens.

So, these two hunters, out on Yellow Creek Road, were tracking deer sign, just another day on the hunt. That’s when they found her. She was so obvious, they said, that they couldn’t believe she hadn’t been found months ago. Then one of the hunters turned and vomited up McDonald’s sausage biscuit all over the ground.

It was unholy.

There she was, chained upright and rotting to a huge maple tree, not 200 yards from the road. Naked, except for her head.

It was…not there.

She was cremated by the family as there wasn’t a whole lot to bury. Jerry Ray was soon apprehended, and everyone just knew he’d done it. I can’t remember but I think he simply pled guilty and went on with his day in the orange jumpsuit. Word was he even creeped out his cellmates so badly that they formed a conspiracy to kill him, but no one wanted a murder charge so they just sat on the other side of the pod, and no one slept. Not a wink.

That was almost 40 years ago.

Her head has never been found.

And she was just the beginning.

I’d never thought about fast food too much. Nor about it being an unsafe place to eat. I mean, wasn’t it mostly kids who worked there? Yes, there’d been that McDonald’s shooting in California back in the 80’s. That was an isolated incident, though, and California? There’s a million ways to die in California. We all remembered Brenda Spencer.

She didn’t like Mondays.

And life went on for a few months. Boring. Typical. Gigs and whores and cocaine and more cocaine and even more cocaine.

The whores dried up but the pipeline…did not.

Then, my cousin, William, a manager at a Wendy’s in Bellevue, a suburb of Nashville, not 30 minutes away, was found murdered, execution style, in the freezer one night.

And, it started all over for the Jackson Family. World without End.

Paul. Dennis. Reid. A name that will live on in Middle Tennessee lore.

(to be continued)

*some names were changed to protect…I don’t know who. Not really.

Tea Party Wilding

Washington,

Benedict,

Salem Witch Trialing

A nation built on paranoia,

And Slavery Denying

The Sumters and Shilohs,

New ‘Awlins,

The Seminoles,

Cherokees vs Jackson

God, what an asshole

The Tylenol Scare

And the cocaine bears

Cambodia on Christmas,

Ted Bundy

And Cher

A warehouse in Dallas,

A Tower in Austin,

Oklahoma City,

That race up in Boston

Brenda had said she just

Didn’t like Mondays

Mark David Chapman

And one bloody Sunday

Columbine, Challenger,

Ole Sandy Hook

David Koresh

With guns and a book

Pandemic and drought

And struggling, without

Making it by

Eyes on the sky

The Luck has run dry

The luck has run out

For Bin Laden, Twin Towers

Peace in the east

Asteroid showers

You can’t see the lies

Hiding money and powers

of Munich, September,

in ‘72

The NSA knew

So did the spooks who

Know more than you

Say goodbye to real news

‘Cause everyone dies

In search of some truth

Too late to cry

Too late to try

Don’t

Cover your cameras;

Cover your eyes

To keep me on level ground

All my choices

Just always let me down

When life throws a curve at me

And won’t do

Just what it should

I ride horses

And life is…

Good

Some people wanna take some things

That kills them off inside

And others wanna fight and scratch

For the rest of their lives

Thank God I never wanted

Shiny things

Made out of gold

I ride horses

To save

My

Soul…

I ride horses

To save

My

Soul…

The water’s fine

Most never, ever

Take the time

To falter, to fail

Scared to death

With every breath

That fire and rhyme

Are only tests

So, do your worst

Do your best

Knowing your time

Is shortened

And now, it’s less

So get off your ass

Stop your shit

Shift into gear

And start your class

Experience life

Your computer is half

The cause of your strife

Meet the faces

Visit the places

Love your spaces

And worry less

About entering into

The very thing that

Continually traces

Your every move

Your every step

Your every belief

It knows you too well

It’s time to leave…