Ants are crawling across a chiseled concrete facing.

I brush them away so I can

read the writing on the embedded sign of red brick. It reads -Bixby.

Like the ants, we humans seek to engage and enter the impenetrable surface. The
miracle of our lives can be complex, profound, or deceptively simple. Do we
struggle to fashion a foundation of light out of the crumbling facade and reside in
the effulgence of just being, or do we descend into dark murky shadow?

Some search for the light their entire life, never fearing the truth's searing heat
or the occasional bruise- often weathering loss without complaint. Others sit
quietly in the shadows of doubt, seeking a brief respite in its shade. Some have a
firm belief in God and a place beyond time where they will live forever with their
savior in communion with the light. Most of us live our lives in between light and
shadow.

The evening sun softens the deep lines of my face dulling my reflection in the
derelict store window. I see a face and a town changed by time, and in the grip of
its own obsolescence, a flower springs from a crack in the dusty sidewalk. The wind
howling down the empty street releases a deep mournful echo of solitude and
loneliness that stir in the formless dust of memory, each bestrewn particle crying
for each year of degeneration in small-town America.

This story poses the eternal query, Can you go home again? If you find solace and
affirmation in your memories, then yes, you can, but if you seek to reanimate and
inhabit the past, you are doomed to failure.

Edna Chapter 1

Edna was established in 1882 when the New York, Texas and Mexican Railway line was
built between Rosenberg and Victoria.

The first train pulled into town, at first light on July 2, 1882. People gathered
from miles around to witness the event. The town celebrated all day with women
dressed in their finest flowing polonaise and basques and men in their topcoats.
When the train pulled into the depot, it's dark black metal reflecting through
black billows of steam, it was as a silent ghost whose bluster and puffing was
silenced by the roar of the crowd! The masses were treated to a basket dinner. An
auction sold town lots to the highest bidder, Edna was founded exactly two years
later on July 2, 1884, Edna was an insular patriotic flag-waving constituent of the
deep south.

In Edna, the murder of a local man by a migrant worker wound up as a test case for
the supreme court in the landmark case of Hernandez vs. Texas. The court held that
the fourteenth amendment rights extend beyond the two classes of white and negro,
to other racial groups, specifically Mexican Americans. This was the first and only
civil-rights case involving Mexican Americans post World War II.

I lived in a small non-descript wood-frame house with slate gray siding on Buffalo
Street. The Slushers lived close by with their daughter Juanita, alias Candy Barr.
I believe at that time she was serving time in a Huntsville prison. Candy was a
stripper at The Carousel Club owned by Jack Ruby, the assassin of Lee Harvey
Oswald. Many believed she held secrets that could implicate the mob in the death of
John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

My father was distant and unapproachable, hardened by his strict and abstemious
youth, and jaded by his experiences in World War II. His face was sallow, his eyes
nearsighted, and his bearing and manner projected a lingering malaise intensified
by a case of rheumatic fever as a child. There was always an unspoken bond between
my mother, father, and oldest brother Robert. In my teenage years, I often felt
like an outsider.

My mother was beautiful, cold, controlling, and uncompromising. There was a

simmering rage behind her bright green eyes. My father had been a compromise, her
real love was Sonny, who had the rugged good looks and wild spirit she was drawn
to, but he had been rejected by her father as an unsuitable choice, a rounder, and
rough-edged cowboy who would never settle down.

My brother's given name was Robert, but everyone called him Bobby. Robert was small
in stature, reserved and disquieted by his acne scarring, he bore a striking
resemblance to our father, slim, tow-headed, he was pensive, introspective and
methodical. Robert was the peacemaker. Gordon was calculating, and volatile. When I
was Three or four Gordon would push me in the bathroom, hold the door shut, and
scream, "The toilets gonna overflow and drown you." When we were teenagers, on
those rare occasions our family took vacations, he would force my head underwater
at motel swimming pools until I sucked water into my lungs, then he would laugh as
I struggled to catch my breath. Years later when we were alone, he would pick up
large objects and threaten to kill me. One cold January afternoon the next-door
neighbor and I were walking the train tracks and gathering the sulfur chunks that
fell from boxcars. I began stuffing them in my coat jacket. When I got home I threw
the jacket on my brother's bed and forgot about it. Later that night, after supper,
I went to my room and sat on the edge of my bed listening to my transistor radio.
Gordon picked up the jacket I had inadvertently thrown on his bed, "Get your shit
off my bed!" and began whipping me about the head with it. I screamed in agony,
"There are rocks in the pockets- Stop." When he saw droplets of blood running down
my cheek, he screamed. I was disoriented and dizzy, but okay. My mother would scoff
and dismiss my stories, and my plea for help, as childhood fiction. Gordon liked to
drop ice cubes into the paper sacks of trick or treaters on Halloween and lit
firecrackers into children's stashes of fireworks on the Fourth of July.

I was born a few miles down the road in Ganado Texas in a hospital, long since
demolished and replaced with retail space.

One bright summer morning I was startled awake by loud and insistent voices outside
the house. I ran from my bedroom down the hall and through the kitchen and opened
the door to the garage. The smell of smoke filtered into the doorway. The high
shrill squawk of our chickens in the back yard coop sounded an alert. I could tell
by the flustered look on my mother and brother's faces that something was wrong.
The momentary distraction caused my mother to stumble backward against a shelf full
of canning jars, falling back, she balanced herself on the Studabaker snugged in
the garage. Some of the jars fell and bounced off the car's hard metal body. They
shattered with a clang like a loud reverberating rain on the hard concrete. My
mother glanced at me peering through the door, then turned sharply, "Bobby wet some
of those feed sacks!" Gordon was standing in the middle of the road. His eyes were
wide with fear. He and a friend, who lived further down the street had been
dropping lit matches from high in the bough of an old tall oak in the center of an
empty grass filled pasture, then scrambling down to put them out. Now the field was
ablaze!

The plaintive and urgent sound of firetrucks wailed ever louder in the distance as
my mother and Bobby tried to beat the flames into submission with wet burlap feed
sacks, but instead, they seemed to be whipping the fire into a virulent frenzy. The
distant wails of fire engines become more strident until the fire department
finally arrived and the strident whistle evaporated. The fire department quickly
brought the fire under control.
Until I was five my life was confined to a two hundred square foot living room. I
was entertained, informed, and defined by the black and white pixilated images
flickering on the television set, where the window to the world was reduced to
simple and non-threatening milk toast. Every morning began with a fuzzy fluctuating
test pattern illuminating the dim-lit room, then in the rising sun's glare, my
mother and I did calisthenics with Jack Lalane, then on to the soaps culminating in
the highlight of my day-The Gail Storm Show. Sometimes when my mother was working
in another room I would make a run for the door, usually, my mother was hot on my
trail. Sometimes I eluded capture following my brothers to the Rickaway house to
have a look at their baby sitter. Judy Chase was an old lady of fifteen and the
woman of any four-year-olds dream, always ready with a hug and kiss on the cheek.

Judy and her would-be rescuer drowned in the Lavaca River, In my imaginary world,
she became a personal guardian angel turning from mortal skin and bones to myth.
Every caterwaul and dog growling in the dark spoke her name. every fog-filled
morning and misty rain called out to me!

The only reprieve from routine and isolation for my mother and me were trips to the
grocery store. Once my mother stepped outside that house and opened the door to
that old sedan and sat in that hot sticky vinyl seat, she transformed. She would
brush back her hair, roll down the driver window and drink in the light breeze,
that in retrospect, must have stirred some primal cathartic release from the
stifling claustrophobic air in our small house. When we had driven about a block
from the house, my usually staid and conservative mother would turn up the volume
on the radio and tap her foot on the floorboard in rhythm to some spirited folk
song! For a moment she cast aside her inhibitions and authoritarian manner and
became a girl again.

Chapter 2 Warner

In early 1959, my father's job transferred him to Warner, a small town less than an
hour's drive north of Edna, but measured in terms of its antebellum mores, and slow
pace, it was a place suspended in time.

It was a town of landowners, cattlemen, farmers, doctors, and store owners, A

community that sprang from the seed of pioneer stock, hard men and women who
planted their fortunes in the soil and their futures in their venerated names.
Names carved and hewn by their very survival.

We moved into a small tattered rent house along a tree-shaded gravel road while our
new house was being built on the far side of town. The siding was stained by years
of neglect, and the roof was covered with acorns that fell from a hovering tree
when the wind blew, with a sharp pop on the rusty tin. The grass in the back yard
was overgrown and filled with piles of rotting lumber held prisoner by grass
jailors and handcuffed with sprigs of twisting weeds. An old refrigerator listed at
a right angle in the backyard, its door open, as if to say hello, this is home.

Nineteen fifty-nine would be my first year of school. The day before school, I
could see my mother in her bedroom setting out the clothes that I would wear. The
sight of her unfolding and ironing my clothes reminded me of another school morning
in Edna.
I remember hearing the sounds of strained conversation mingled with the smell of
fresh coffee and toast in the kitchen as my brothers ate their breakfast. I could
hear mother admonish, "Your gonna be late for school, better hurry!" I would rush
from my bedroom to see them off, only to be too late, Where was this alien land
called school? What was it like? Pulling back the curtain and pushing my face
against the living room window, I watched wistfully as my brothers boarded the
bright yellow bus that stopped with a strange hissing sound, I strained my neck
against the glass hoping to see the bus slowly turn the corner and disappear down
the next street.

Now I was going to find out for myself what school was like. I could hear the alarm
clock buzzing in my mother's room, butterflies in the pit of my stomach replaced
the sense of wonder I felt the night before. My mother had spread my clothes on the
chair next to my bed. I dressed by the light of the morning sun shining through my
curtains slowly painting the walls in soft effusing rays. I picked nervously at my
cereal. My brothers had already boarded the bus and gone.

My mother tried to smile, "Are you ready for your first day of school?" My mother
drank the last drop of Sanka and placed the lipstick-stained cup on the kitchen
table.

My mother and I drove in silence along the narrow tree-lined streets leading to the
school; I noticed the glisten of a single tear forming in the corner of my mother's
eye as she tied to tame a wild sprig of hair that sprang from my head. I held tight
to my sack lunch. The school was off the beaten track, nestled in a sleepy old
neighborhood of wood-framed houses. A narrow gravel drive made a short circle in
front of the school. My mother pulled up into one of the few parking places. She
grabbed my damp hand and we began to walk toward the large stucco structure that
loomed like some malevolent giant. The cold limestone exterior didn't feel
inviting, nor did the large concrete steps that lead to massive doors that creaked
as we entered. The smell of sweat and old concrete mixed with the smell of unwashed
children and hot Texas air.

A kindly older woman with blue-tinged hair motioned to my mother. She tried to
subtly steer my mother to an empty classroom so I wouldn't notice. "You can wait
there if you like! A younger woman walked up to me and smiled, "What's your name?"
" Michael?" "Follow me!'

I followed, and as I did, the muffled sound of music grew from a faint echo to a
lively crescendo. The teacher opened the door to a large auditorium and the
deafening sound of a sea of children singing, 'Wait For The Wagon.' I can still see
the faces of those children frozen in time, their lives full of promise, their
faces young, vibrant, and unlined, their spirit unmoved by the march of time.

In those days no one thought to spare the rod and spoil the child was a tired
cliche, it was a modus operandi. In the home of my german parents, singing or
humming at the kitchen table might get you a quick rap on the cheek. They were firm
believers that children should be seen, not heard. Many times in my childhood my
father would say. "This is my home, I just let you live here." My father would show
me how to do something once, then he would decry and denounce my simplicity if I
failed. To this day if someone stares at me too long, I automatically blush from
the perceived judgment.

Now, I am not above cliche or a quick pun if the message is apt, as in the phrase
'The roots of my raisin.' I was the product of my raising. I became the clown if I
needed a cloak, an aggressor if it hid my timidity or a runner when cornered!

Out on the playground, I circled the periphery, where the grass was untrampled by
the feet of children, passed the dirt-worn home of dust devils, to hide from and
escape the Anzudura sisters. If I carelessly wandered back to where most of the
children played, and the sisters spotted me, they would chase me. "We love you,
Michael!" Suzy Anzudura would declare with such urgency that I would run back to
the limits of the playground.

Charles Breedlove, like myself, hugged the boundary beyond the dirt patched
schoolyard. I assumed him to be a kindred spirit. Instead, I found him a venom
spitting boy with a chip on his shoulder that lunged at me for speaking to him. He
began flailing his arms and stomping his legs, like some doe alerting its young to
a nameless danger. I kicked his knee in self-defense. He screamed in pain crumpling
to the dirt in a fetal position. His cries of pain vicariously filled me. I was
smothered by overarching empathy and guilt. He was a hemophiliac and I the
traducer.

Charles's leg troubled him all his life as a result of the incident. He walked with
a pronounced limp. He was never able to forgive or forget, nor I able to forgive
myself.

My next-door neighbors, the Doles, had two sons and a daughter. Gerald, David, and
Mary. Gerald and David loved sports, and basketball pickup games were common. I was
impressed by their level of fitness.

Gayle Coulter lived across the street and Laila Eppie at the very end of the street
bordering the highway. They were my playmates through Intermediate school. I was
too young to understand what depression was, or its sever implications. Laila's
father was a pioneer oil rigger, wildcatter, whose skills were in demand in the
oilfields of Saudi Arabia. He left his wife Missy alone for months at a time. The
solitude exacerbated her emotional state, and in the grip of despair, she took her
own life. Gayle's father owned and operated a small lumberyard.

Gayle, Laila, and I spent many hot summer days together. Laila and I shared cokes
at Mr. Walkers Gulf Service station, which was across from Laila's house while
David Glen harangued us. "You two sure are cute," he would tease. Gayle's mother
made gallons of cold kool-aid, sometimes we would place an egg on Gayles concrete
drive and watch the whites fry. During school, all the kids would gather on the
stools inside Mr. Walkers station waiting for the bus. One day we noticed small
cobweb-like holes in the window and inside walls. They were left in the aftermath
of a robbery, and the subsequent shootout and chase by Sheriff Flours, which left a
couple of unlucky and foolhardy criminals dead. J.B. Flours came from a family of
lawmen of note. Warner had a history of no-nonsense and legendary peacekeepers.
Their exploits are covered in books, town histories, and movies.

One hot day, in the waning weeks of summer, Gayle announced that her father sold
his Lumberyard in town, and she and her family were moving to Lake City. It hit me
like a sudden chill from an unexpected cold front- Laila started spending time with
a boyfriend.

At Thirteen, I was a baby faced teenager with time on my hands. I decided I needed
a job, and because I liked movies, I put on my Sunday slacks and white shirt and
pedaled twelve grueling, sweaty miles to the Rio Theatre.

Mae Jensen was a white-haired, stern-faced lady in her late sixties. She took one
look at my sweat-stained shirt and baby face and sneered, "You're too young!

I repeated my long bicycle ride the remainder of the week, pestering Mrs. Jensen
daily. Frustrated by my persistent visits, she rolled her eyes, sighed in quiet
resignation, and spoke. "Come in, let's talk!"

At Thirteen I had a job and a free pass to any movie, Heaven!

3.The Theatre

The blue terrazzo tile sparkled under the marques glaring light. The synchronized
flashing lights moved like a line of chorus girls casting a soft blue haze on the
ticket box. From across the street, strains of Tejano music from the bars beat in
rhythm.

Sometimes the drunk patrons could be heard spouting profanities. Occasionally the
ruckus spilled out into the street in a profanity ridden mix of fists, kicking, and
gouging.

The west end of town, that the Rio Theatre bordered, was a hotbed of speeding
police cars on Saturday nights. The smell of grease and fried chicken blew in with
the breeze from George's Restaurant, further down the street in the downtown area.
The loud sputtering backfire of an ill-tuned engine provided harmony to the
cacophony of unintelligible voices, laughter, and murmuring of the crowd in front
of the theatre, that gathered as people eagerly, and sometimes impatiently, waited
for the next showing.

There was a strict code of segregation, and a mixture of blatant and unspoken
racism pervading Warner. The theatre was a microcosm of the town and the country as
a whole. The black patrons were relegated to the balcony and had their entrance.

There were no blacks in white neighborhoods and there were separate schools for
black students.

If Saturday nights at the theatre were irreverent loud and fluid, Sunday afternoons
were numinous and sedate,

When the theatre opened early Sunday afternoon the tiles had been swept and
cleaned, the bottles in the parking lot picked up.

As I wheeled the Plymouth into the gravel lot of the theatre, I could see Jane Berg
pensively waiting under the marque. Jane held a book in one hand, her purse in the
other. I sometimes sat in the car waiting, listening to the radio until Mrs. Jensen
arrived, but today a little conversation seemed inviting. After a bit of small
talk, I observed, 'Mister pool is late. I hope he gets here before Mrs, Jensen.'
Mr. pool had a bad leg that made it hard for him to get around. We didn't want to
hear him abused for being late. Mrs. Jensen ate her lunch at Georges, so that was
the direction she would come.

I sneered, 'Look here comes the old battle-ax.' Jane put the back of her hand to
her mouth trying not to laugh. Mrs, Jensen didn't even acknowledge our friendly
hello as she placed the key into the lock. Ten minutes later Gary Ellman pushed
through the door with one hand, while his other straightened his tie. Mrs. Jensen
stepped from her office, her eyes on fire. 'You're fired!'

The turn over was constant. Mrs. Jensen was intolerant and held grudges. Once a
young man named Johhny Buff quit after a few weeks to enlist in the army. This was
at the height of the cold war and the Vietnam conflict.

A few months had passed, I was changing the towels in the bathroom when a pair of
uniformed men stepped through the door to speak to me. The army had sent a pair of
investigators to interview anyone who knew Johnny Buff. Mrs. Jensen bashed Johnny,
telling the uniformed men he was weak and disrespected by his co-workers. The men
asked me to comment on what she said. I said teasing a fellow worker was a sure
sign he was liked.

4.Teenage Angst

One street over from Margo Street was where Cory Jane's lived. Sometimes the
monotonous boring days of summer found me there. Cory's temper was as fiery as his
red hair. One minute you could be playing peaceful, the next dodging hatchets,
literally! One Saturday Cory and I decided to break into the VFW hall. The door in
the back was unlocked, so we walked in. Once inside we broke the lock to the cooler
and found a couple of dollars inside. Before we left we emptied an extinguisher in
the hall. We peddled our bicycles to the skating rink and paid for a couple of
hours of skating. Inside, roped off in a corner, was a Honda 50. Each entry ticket
to skate offered a chance to win.

One day as I sat on the flower bed, I could see Cory peddling excitedly towards me.
He flung his bicycle to the ground, almost tripping on his handlebars in the
process. ''Did you hear it?'' ''Hear what?'' I asked. He fought to catch his
breath, ''A man was killed about thirty minutes ago, didn't you hear the train?''

A train had come through about 30 minutes before, but it did not slow down. "Want
one?" he asked, as he tried to hand me a cigarette. He seemed proud of himself. "I
found these beside him," The idea repulsed me, "No thanks!" Cory stuck the
cigarette in his mouth and explained, "His brains were on the track." "This stuff
was just laying there." I could never look at him the same after that.

That summer, before high school, Walter Milner won that Honda 50 they were giving
away at the roller rink. Walter lived a mile down the highway behind our street. We
had a cream-colored Allstate moped, he had a blue one. He stopped a few times to
talk to my dad about the coincidence. He and his buddy Andy Woz were constantly
riding up and down the street, first on that blue moped, then on that Honda.
Everyone was envious until we woke to the news one early Sunday that Walter and
Andy were killed riding back from Gulf Town late on a Saturday night. They were
both just Thirteen years old. The first time someone you know dies, it changes your
world forever. The death scene was brutal. Every bone in both their bodies had been
shattered. In the early morning hours, a drunk driver plowed into the rear of
Walters Motorcycle at a very high speed. The driver, whose identity was never
divulged, claimed that the motorcycle's lights were out. The rumor was that it was
a prominent high school teacher, driving drunk. The details remain sketchy, but one
time in a records search I saw their death certificates, they were both married,
which was surprising. The details of those marriages were never revealed. The
funeral overflowed with classmates and friends. There wasn't a dry eye in that
place! The incident left lingering scars on many. Stories circulated that Andy had
cried for his mother with his final breath, which would have been impossible given
the devastating nature of his injuries.

The summer brought a mixture of change and carnage, in addition to the steady
stream of graphic images on television related to the Vietnam war- events played
out in Warner that rivaled the most dramatic diegesis one could devise.

Habit and routine were bedfellows on Saturday evenings at our house, like the
familiar bunkum springing from the television character, Eddy Haskell's mouth on
Leave It To Beaver, routine gave the night a constancy. I was taking a bath, eager
to finish and catch the last bit of fatherly wisdom of Ward Cleaver. I splashed my
face with one last bit of soapy water and pulled the bathtub plug when my mother
walked in. "Michael, daddies having chest pain," I called Doctor Black. In the
sixties, it wasn't unusual for a doctor to make a house call. The kind of trauma
room setups of today did not exist then, and very little could be done for a person
having a heart attack other than extended bed rest. I walked sheepishly into the
den afraid of what I might see. I saw my father lying under a sheet on the couch, a
thermometer in his mouth. Doctor Black looked at me softly reassuring me, "Your
dad's going to be okay." His manner of speech was thoughtful. Doctor Black suffered
from an involuntary tick that caused his eyes to close and flutter momentarily.
Even though my father's life hung in the balance for weeks there were no
ambulances, or dramatic invasive procedures, only my mother driving him to the
hospital in the family car and lots of bed rest and prayer. A classmate had
recently lost his mother, and I worried that I might lose my father. My father's
never fully recovered his health, but many months of bed rest saw my father back to
a familiar, slightly changed normal.

The first time I saw a Dodge Charger, I was hooked on Muscle cars. The first one I
saw belonged To Jerry Bond. He had just pulled in to Miska's Drive-In. We were
returning from church and pulled into the same convenience store to pick up a loaf
of bread. As we pulled beside the bright blue charger with a white racing stripe,
my father observed my reaction and smiled. We got out and took a closer look as it
sat there in its bright blue glory. The town soon flooded with souped-up cars of
every description. Blowers and superchargers abounded.

One afternoon on the highway to Gulf Town approaching the community of burr, An old
farmer pulling a trailer behind a tractor, pulled unhurriedly on to the road. The
road had a slight crest that obscured his visibility from oncoming traffic. About a
mile away Tommy Barns And his friend Dale Martinez were approaching from Warner.
Dale was celebrating his last day as a free man with a thrill ride in Tommys 1968
Dodge Charger R/T running a 440 Six-pack. They had been traveling at a mild pace
when Tommy decided to open her up. The car was estimated to be traveling at 140 MPH
at the crest of that hill. There had been no time to react, and the dark green
Charger impaled itself beneath that trailer so violently that Tommy and Dale were
killed instantly. Tommy had been decapitated. The remains of that car are still
sitting in the yard of a body shop in Warner as a reminder of that day, to the few
who remember.

5. Slowly Going Crazy

In that summer of 1968, the hippies still occupied Height Asbury, even though the
so-called summer of love was history, the decadence continued, but no revolution
stirred in the puritanical town of Warner. A true story circulated about San
Fransisco that summer, It was that George Harrison was so enamored of this hip and
happening revolutionary event that he went to see for himself. After a brief walk
through the dirty, smelly, hastily formed commune, he was ready to leave.

Every kid in the tight-laced town of Warner that felt drugs, music, love, and
freedom was the ultimate revolutionary communion made their way to Allens Landing
In Houston. The Convers twins, Jeff, and Bill were participants in the drug scene,
but on one of their trips, Jeff was struck and killed after venturing too close to
the highway. Another casualty of that summer of love was Randy Watson, a promising
athlete that drowned in Matagorda Bay. When they found the body his eyes had been
eaten out.

That summer The Rogers moved into the vacant Coulter house. They had two sons and
two daughters. Danny was a year older than Morrow. Danny suffered renal failure as
a child and Morrow donated a kidney. Danny's recovery was long and arduous and as a
result of his long convalescence, they were in the same grade in school. At first,
Morrow seemed a know-it-all, but soon we became fast friends. We discovered girls
and motorcycles together. Many a Friday night we sat outside the Popham girl's
bedroom window.

Victor Jones, No relation to Lennon was a friend during those days and for many
years after. Victor, Morrow, and I Drank beer together through high school and
after. Victor's family was originally from Houston where his dad Bill worked for a
lighting and power company. The pace of the city proved too hectic for him and his
wife Edna so they moved to Warner to start a family, where they had two sons Victor
and John. His father purchased a small stucco house on a tract of land in the
country. Victor's dad worked for the City of Warner many years before deciding to
listen to his heart. He had long dreamed of running a small convenience store that
his family could run together so in the late summer of nineteen seventy-one Bill
bought some land on the highway to Northton and built his dream. It was in the
summer after I had graduated from high school. I was working for the City Of
Richland, about twenty-five miles from Warner. On the drive back from work I was
looking forward to a night of back road drinking with Victor. I sensed something
was wrong as I pulled into the driveway. My mother was waiting in the driveway.
"They killed Victor's daddy" She blurted out. Sometime earlier that day a young
black man brandishing a shotgun forced Victor and his dad into the store's cooler.
He shot Victor's dad without mercy or hesitation. Some of the pellets pierced
Victor's eye, startled by his violence the killer fled leaving Victor alive.

From talking to pretty girls outside bedroom windows, and experimenting with
cigarettes, Roger and I enjoyed an irresponsible summer.

In my freshman year at high school, my case of painful shyness began to turn to

something else. The thought of being in the same school as my brother Gordon and
the fear of a confrontation turned in to a neurosis. School wasn't a natural
inclination to my brother Gordon. Every day after getting off the bus and eating
his supper around five-thirty he began his ritual of studying until well after
midnight.

My older brother Bobby was a natural. He had a fine mind and natural mechanical
aptitude. The teachers expected me to follow in their footsteps and I couldn't. I
think my head had taken too many hits, including a twenty-foot fall from a ditch
onto the hard ground below near Lovers Leap. I never told anyone. Whatever I would
do in the future, I knew I wouldn't be a Rhodes scholar. By summers end in 1967, my
oldest brother Bobby had left home for college and Gordon the following summer.
Cory Janes still found ways to complicate my life. It was a rare occasion when I
rode the school bus home but one afternoon after failing to find a ride, I found
myself sitting in the very last seat of one. A voice broke through the loud
rumbling sing-song chatter in the bus "Mike, The shrill mind-numbing grate of his
voice was unmistakable, "Hey Cory." I said. Cory didn't answer, he was trying to
catch the eye of Mr. Martin who was driving the bus directly behind us.

Cory had this smirky smart-alec smile plastered on his face, his right elbow was
propped on the rear seat, and his hand was waving like some off-kilter pendulum at
Mr. Martin like some fond lost friend, while his other hidden hand was shooting the
bird. Mr. Martin's face scrunched in indignant anger. He walked angrily to the back
of the bus we were sitting in. He motioned toward Cory, "Come with me!" I turned my
head to the window. "You too!" he said. He walked us to the principal's office and
for twenty minutes Mr. Martin tried to get us to admit what our hidden hands were
doing. It was pointless to argue that my hand wasn't hidden.

For me, 1969 year played like the black keys on a piano, I was continually striving
to be natural but everything fell flat and empty. I developed agoraphobia and my
shyness became paranoia. I would blush if someone glanced at me. In a room, I felt
I was the center of attention. I wanted to hide. My panic attacks escalated. I
became a hypochondriac obsessed with death. My teachers wanted me out of their
classes, I did too, and acted up to accomplish that end. I hid behind the mask of a
jokester. I convinced myself to be a rebel and a trouble maker played better than
crazy. I loved the isolation of the house with my brothers gone, and even more when
my parents went out of town on weekends. when Gordon came home on the occasional
weekend, he was no longer the malevolent tormentor. He would often bring me a
bottle of Bacardi Rum.

Gordon got the drinking bug early. My grandfather ran a trailer park and a beer
joint, and when my mother visited her father, Gordon and I were quick to head
straight to the kitchen for the large selection of Visky and Vine, as my German
grandfather, who had trouble with his W's called them. For the better part of a
year, we never ventured beyond a sip or two of wine, but this particular day was
different. My brother took a jigger from the cabinet and poured some whiskey in it.
He giggled as he drank that. "Come on Mike, take a drink with me." I watched him
begin to pour another. "You better stop, You're going to get sick" I cautioned.

When I looked into his eyes, I saw panic. " Mike I feel Numb." He began to teeter,
falling against the refrigerator. He walked out the back door and into
Grandfather's garage. He braced himself against the old yellow Plymouth in the
garage and lamented. "I'm Drunk. "I can't feel anything," and as he slammed his
hand against the body of the car, he looked accusingly at me. "Why did you let me
drink?" I ran inside and told my father what happened. I kept thinking that my
father should have taken him to the hospital, instead, my father leads him to the
back seat of the car, and as my brother sat, his eyes crossed and he rolled to the
left, his head suspended at his waist. "What the hell were you thinking?" Every few
weeks, my mom and dad went to see their parents. First my moms, then Dad's. My
grandfather, Emil lived out a little further along the highway. My dad's sister
lived across from my grandfather, so we usually stopped there first. When my mom
went in they asked for an old blanket. Aunt Dorina looked perplexed, "why?"

"Gordons drunk." dad explained. I can't imagine what she must have thought as they
lead Gordon from the car and to that blanket, on the hard ground. They helped him
down and he immediately began vomiting a thick brown froth. By the time we headed
back for Warner later that day, he was beginning to stir. by the time we rolled
into the driveway on Margo Street he had regained most of his faculties.

Some nights a secret demon called out to me like a vexing siren, "Come!" it said. I
started waking in the middle of the night, startled by figures of light standing
beside my bed brandishing swords and making menacing comments. When one offered his
hand to me I grabbed it. "Are you taking me to heaven?" The figure laughed
menacingly, "No!" In school, my goal was to make it through the day without running
out the door from the stress. I had no energy left for learning after wresting
control from the devouring shadows.

On weekends Morrow and I often rode our motorcycles to Caney Creek to see Lennon
Jones. Lennon was a young bohemian in a hurry to grow up, motorcycles and minibikes
littered his parent's garage. At a young age, his parents gave him the keys to his
freedom with an ever-changing string of family cars, his affluent family could
easily afford. Sometimes he would flip the air cleaner cover to achieve a heavy
breathed growl as the car accelerated through town. In high school, Lennon ran away
with Margaret James, eluding their parents and the law a week before being cornered
on some obscure country road. Lennon in a final act of defiance before being
brought home lit a fire between them and the police.

Lennon's grandfather had a powder blue Chevrolet pickup that Lennon often drove,
and he loved to bust through the security fence at the high school stadium,
screaming defiant obscenities through the window while doing dust raising doughnuts
on the stadium grass. Soon after high school, Lennon married an older woman, had a
child and moved to California.

In Nineteen and Eighty-Two I was staying in a motel in a small town about fifty
miles from Bixby after a grueling sales call. I saw Lennon for the last time in a
Walmart parking lot across the highway from where I was staying. He pulled up
beside me as I walked through the parking lot in that same blue Chevrolet pickup.
"Mike!" I looked up, shocked to see him. There was a young man seated beside him
that I assumed was his son, "Lennon, What the fuck!" "Good to see you, man!" It was
a great, but brief reunion. There was no long conversation or rehashing of
memories, or even an accounting of life after Warner. I unceremoniously said
goodbye and continued into the store. After purchasing some snacks I started
walking back to my motel. Midway through the parking lot, I saw that Lennon's truck
had broadsided another vehicle and the passenger's side of the windshield had been
shattered where his son's body had been violently thrown. His son was walking
around and appeared unhurt, I asked Lennon if he would like me to stay until the
ambulance came. He thanked me but declined.

6. Sharon and beyond

Late August, that same summer as I was riding near the junior high school on my
Motorcycle, I saw a beautiful Venus astride a toolbox pedestal, in the bed of an
old pickup. She was running a comb through her long auburn hair with a look of
supreme confidence. I prayed that I would see her at the theatre and I was
determined to ask her out. One Saturday Matinee, there she was in all her beautiful
glory. I asked for her phone number and like some mythical story in a schoolboy's
dream, she gave it to me.

It took another couple of weeks to find the courage to talk to her. We learned a
little about each other over a burger and later, shared our common love, a movie.
We dated if you could call it that for a couple of years, but I never let her view
the mental demons that slowly sought to rob me of my sanity, dignity, and ambition.
In later years it became apparent that many of my problems stemmed from food
allergies and hyperthyroidism. Unfortunately, after a certain amount of time you
cannot escape the phycological imprint. Sharon was the first casualty in my secret
war. Long after she was gone, the memory of her lingered like some cancer that
wouldn't heal, leaving a stain of regret, a bloody shadow on my soul that blocked
the healing light of reason.

There was a quiet gossip around town, and for many years I worried that I had a
love child that I would never know or see, Thankfully a private investigation,
initiated by me revealed the truth that no such child existed. the lifting of that
torment was a blessing.

7. THE DECLINE

High school proved a stressful blur. It was nineteen Seventy-one, my graduation

year. I was seventeen and decided to seek psychiatric help. In retrospect seeking
that help proved a debilitating and costly mistake.
As I sat in that private area away from the outer clinic, it was a portent of
isolation, a specter of what was to come. Waiting outside Doctor Joseph Gee's
office, I tried to focus the flashing parade of unruly thoughts flitting and
dancing through my head. Was I making a mistake? Was this just a case of intense
shyness?

I didn't know it then but the choice I made that day and the events of the next few
years bid a slow and painful goodbye to my straw-like anchors of childhood friends
and the shield of innocence. Like some mystical mirror, I saw my life uncloaked and
revealed. There are no hidden secrets in a small town, and no reconciliation with
decisions made.

Dr. Gee was an intense bespectacled middle-aged man, who spoke in slow and halting
serious words, that is the few words he did speak. His gaze was penetrating. Behind
his large oak desk, a mirror revealed a thinning patch of hair. I nervously rattled
in answer to his silent gaze.

The answer to my problems it seems was to be found in the ravaging effects of

Thorazine and Haldol. The mild short-lived stress-induced visions of the past were
replaced with unimaginable and protracted night terrors. One pill-induced a coma-
like sleep that froze you where you lay. If the house were to catch fire you would
burn. The other gave you hellish visions replete with devilish symbolism and self-
revelation that my simplistic nativity could not understand. My visions turned
inward, I was submerged in a consciousness below the surface floundering in deep
sleep paralysis. The cells and blood coursing through my body were now controlled
by psychotropic odysseys of perpetual horror.

If nights were soul trying, mornings were a blessed and welcome reprieve. An
illuminating and transcendent light shining through my window dispersing the
darkness. My gait became increasingly unsteady, my thoughts foggy and confused. The
pallor of my skin changed in hue to shiny paste-like alabaster. I developed
tremors, my mouth hung open and I sometimes drooled. The pharmacist cautioned the
use of these drugs. By the end of summer what was left of my friendship with Sharon
was over. Her aunt Joan worked as a nurse in the hospital. A dear john letter
arrived forever drowning out the last light of summer. I sought answers to my
problems using confrontational clinging, I threw my words around carelessly, like a
blunt force on the nails that hammered out my epitaph, but Sharon's aunt had
hammered the final nail.

The nausea was debilitating, the retching dry heaves incessantly found me doubled
over in torment, so I increased the dosage hoping self-medication would improve my
condition. My friends and their parents could not suffer my changed appearance and
diminished capacity, or the cruel gossip. I was a man with a shadowy future.

Victor Jones, No relation to Lennon was a friend for many years. Victor, Morrow,
and I Drank beer together through high school and after. Victor's family was
originally from Houston where his dad Bill worked for a lighting and power company.
The pace of the city proved too hectic for him and his wife Edna so they moved to
Warner to start a family, where they had two sons Victor and John. His father
purchased a small stucco house on a tract of land in the country. Victor's dad
worked for the City of Warner many years before deciding to listen to his heart. He
had long dreamed of running a small convenience store that his family could run
together so in the late summer of nineteen seventy-one Bill bought some land on the
highway to Northton and built his dream. It was in the summer after I had graduated
from high school. I was working for the City Of Richland, about twenty-five miles
from Warner. On the drive back from work I was looking forward to a night of back
road drinking with Victor. I sensed something was wrong as I pulled into the
driveway. My mother was waiting in the driveway. "They killed Victor's daddy" She
blurted out. Sometime earlier that day a young black man brandishing a shotgun
forced Victor and his dad into the store's cooler. He shot Victor's dad without
mercy or hesitation. Some of the pellets pierced Victor's eye, startled by his
violence the killer fled leaving Victor alive.

Going back to in memory to the summer of nineteen seventy-one Roger and I had just
finished our senior year at high school and he would sometimes meet me in the Rio
parking lot after my shift with a couple of beers. That old oversized handpainted
red and white scooter that he drove everywhere always announced him. One night
about seven-thirty, after his familiar peace gesture greeting, which consisted of
raising his two fingers comically in a v, like some secret salute, he opined,
"Prepare yourself for the ultimate cool!" There in the parking lot, It's powerful
V-8 Deeply gurgling, A Young man's dream was flashing its Metalic smile, no, not
beautiful Jean Orsak, cute beyond belief in her shimmering braces, this was the one
thing boys prize beyond a hot high school girl, a hot thoroughbred, the kind of
unattainable dream hidden inside the middle of a working man's magazine, a secret
picture a boy hides under a bed or between the mattress. a Shelby Mustang GT350.
You could see Glen Brodrick's teeth flashing under the glare of the parking lot
lights, fifty feet away, one arm holding tight to the custom steering wheel, the
other around Lydia Thorton. "Get in!' Glen instructed. Morrow and I stuffed
ourselves in the small space behind the glorious two-seater like a pair of
sardines. Every eye, which included the spoiled Bill Hass, were on that bright
shiny piece of Detroit metal as the Mustang left the parking lot, speaking volumes
in a deep guttural baritone muttering all could understand. But, alas it was a one
night stand, for pleasures are always few and fleeting.

The long hot summer days turned to fall, and when Junior college started Morrow
Rogers and I began to see less of each other.

I lost my job at the theatre after Mae Jensen moved on. Issac Dickenson, the new
manager promised work in exchange for a handjob. I declined. My mind was clear
enough to attend Junior College, and Morrow and Victor still hung to the last
vestiges of our increasingly tattered friendship. The children in the neighborhood
hurled insults and vulgarities through my bedroom window.

I began to cling in desperation to bits and pieces of personal hope and my failing
friendships with Morrow and Victor. Morrow was ambitious and goal-oriented and
followed a plan. He began dating the girl next door, and both Victor and Morrow
were off to College. Some weekends the three of us would drive to Houston and see a
movie, but a drug-induced restlessness stifled my comfort and peace.

As their lives moved forward, I began to cling like some crazy girlfriend, trying
to sabotage Morrow's relationship with the girl next door, but he had already met
another girl who was attending the local college and they were married later that
year. Victor married soon after. I was asked to be at Morrow's wedding but my
mental condition prevented that.

For the next several years the back bedroom at 215 Margo street was my world and
the stereo my altar of worship. Pierre, my mother's miniature poodle was my
confidant and confessor. To make money I would Fill empty pill capsules with sugar
and sell them at the Dairy Mart, passing them off as narcotics. Sometimes I would
get complaints about their lack of effectiveness, but I would just give them more
free sugar pills, and all was well. The son of my psychiatrist's nurse reported
that he saw me selling my medication for cash, Even though I could not use
innocence as a defense, I protested that I was not selling my medication. A few
weeks later my psychiatrist died, the story was that he chocked on a piece of meat.
I guess there was an element of truth in that story. One morning as Doctor Gee sat
calmly at his desk fumbling cautiously through his briefcase he pulled out a
nickel-plated revolver placed it under his chin, and unceremoniously pulled the
trigger.

One of the more prominent family names in Warner was Hughes. Parker Hughes was a
highly regarded Doctor and gifted amateur photographer. The local Hospital and
clinic bore his name. Parker Hughes died in 1957, leaving a widow and two boys,
Terry and Charlie. Charlie and Terry had both inherited their fathers' intellect
and drive. Charlie earned his honors early, and by eighth grade, he was voted most
likely to succeed. He was the class favorite and president of his class during his
freshman year in high school. He was blessed with a photographic memory and was an
honor student all four years. Terry was a bit more independent-minded, but still
academically driven. I worked with Terry at The Rio in the summer of Nineteen-
seventy- one and we clicked. I was just weeks into my mind-altering, reputation
shattering, mental healthcare period, so I must have appeared to be an illicit drug
user.

The first few months after treatment started, I spent adapting to the dramatic
changes in my system. I began a cycle of eating and sleeping. I was retaining fluid
which exacerbated my depression. One weekday morning the doorbell rang. I pulled
the dead weight of my flaccid body from the bed and stumbled to the living room. I
squinted through the keyhole trying to see who was there. I recognized that 1970
red Challenger as Charlie Hughes's car, but I couldn't quite make out the distorted
face staring back at me through the peephole. A faint voice from outside filtered
through, "Mike," It's Terry!" Terry was athletically built, but it was the
aesthetics of heredity. I thought it strange that he was carrying a paperback book.
"What's the deal with the book?" I asked. Terry smiled and lifted the book so I
could read the title, 'A Clockwork Orange' With a very strange sheepish grin he
began to read the opening monologue introducing the Characters,

***What's it going to be then, eh? There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs,
that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim, Dim being really dim, and we sat in the Korova
Milkbar making up rassoodocks what to do with the evening, a flip dark chill winter
bastard though dry.***

I certainly wasn't the book reading type, but I had to admit they were clever lines
and a perfect introduction. Terry's car smelled like leftover pizza and alfalfa. On
the dash was a plastic bag containing what I knew to be marijuana. Morrow and I had
smoked a joint once just to see what it was all about. Terry looked like a pro
peppering the marijuana into the rolling paper and sliding his tongue across to
seal it. "Suck it in deep," he explained. "Hold it in your lungs as long as you
can!" We did the requisite giggling. "I don't feel anything."I protested, " What's
it supposed to do?" After a couple of deep tokes, the confusion evaporated and the
high hit me.

Terry came around like clockwork, we visited head shops, bootleg record stores in
Houston, and late-night rides were spent driving down dark country roads with bong
filled rope. I was an invisible cohort, a safety outside judgment, Terry's idea of
white trash. Terry had a friend, Bob, who wore his hair dutch boy style. Bob's
father was Warner's city manager. Bob's style was tie-dye shirts and bell-bottom
trousers. We rode the backroads many a Saturday night, Bill, Terry, and I blowing
smoke laced charges into the snorting nostrils of the bovine and equine population.
When you are the weakest link of the chain in the trinity of affluence,
entitlement, and privilege, the dope is free and the questions few. One day late in
the evening I saw Terry and that red Challenger one final time.

My mother's sudden loud rap on the door startled me to attention, "Mike, Terry's
here. I went outside, my eyes involuntarily squinted in the piercing brightness.
The heat of the sun burned sharply on my colorless skin. Taking a good look, I
realized how cocky Terry was, standing there waving his hand, like some autocratic
ruler commanding respect. "Come On Mike!" As I pulled on the handle slowly, opening
the door, smoke billowed from the inside. When I sat down the drink stained seat
pulled at my moist skin, I began chocking on that cloud of pungent smoke. Terry
laughed, "I want to show you something!" We drove to one of the many backroads
behind my house. Terry pulled into a neglected driveway and got out. He then opened
the trunk. The trunk was full of Marijuana, more than I had ever seen, or would
see.

I never saw Terry again, but I do know of his accomplishments. When I see him in
videos of lectures he has done, I recognize the eye roll, the self cognizant look
of superiority that reveals its self in his manner. His brilliant brother, arguably
the smarter of the two, met a different fate.

Somewhere in the deep backwoods of Colorado on a snowy night, nested in a grove of

evergreens, illuminated in a fiery red glow, a cabin burns beneath a blood moon, A
spine curdling scream echos through the forest of trees, followed by a shotgun
blast. The figure of Charlie Hughes stumbles in the snow as he runs erratically
away. His figure disappears into the night, the swishing sound of his shuffling
feet in the snow is soon silenced by the bright flash of a second shotgun blast.

I am reminded of a song about the solace of hiding safely within the protected
confines of one's room, but that fantasy exacts a high price. It is a currency
replete with the loss of ambition and clarity, It buys a window to watch the
outside world fade into shadow. A chimera that covers the empty places obscuring
the future. Months turned to years. I snuck into the kitchen at night after my
parents went to bed and ate my meals in solitude, then returned to my room and the
music that became the soundtrack of my existence. At night I covered my head with a
sheet, Pierre, the dog snuggling at my feet, and fantasized about Sharon and the
life I was missing and my friends who had long since moved on.

Bixby had one more story, one final lasting impression. Robert Stowe, At thirteen
Robert was a child prodigy, a musical virtuoso.

My parents did not socialize very often, but they felt close to Bill and Jean
Stowe. Bill was an oil company executive who worked in South America and was often
absent from Robert's life, but he did indulge his son's musical talents by
installing a pipe organ in the living area. It was a thing of beauty, its pipes
grouped on the wall by size. Robert played and composed original pieces with
precise and exacting expertise on that instrument.

Bill and Jean had been childless for many years when Robert came into their lives.
Robert's adoption brought a closer bond than mere genetics. He was wanted, loved,
and cherished. I was still working at the Rio during that time and Jean asked me to
take Robert under my wing. Somewhere in the background, it must have been decided
that this would be mutually beneficial. I was withdrawing from life and Robert
intelligence singled him out negatively. Robert played the organ in many of the
churches in Warner, so I often went to the Baptist church to hear him practice.
Music and drama deeply influenced Robert. He loved the musical group Kiss for the
theatrics, movies for the art and symbolism, and poetry for its aesthetics. I was
able to sneak him in to see R rated movies. He took note of everything related to
the experience and how the pieces came together to tell a story.

After watching the movie Lenny Bruce, he turned to me and said, "I want to be a
director!' Van Ramy lived up the street and was slowly making a name for himself as
a costume designer. Robert wanted to be a part of the glitz and glamour. If will
and intellect were enough, he was destined to succeed.

Robert majored in architecture and eventually went to film school. He apprenticed

for both in New York City. He had often explained to me the point system that
allows the opportunity to write and direct, Years later when my parents had been
living in Bryan for some time, the Stowes came to visit. Although it was never
voiced, Jean had come to say goodbye. Jean was a heavy smoker and could no longer
speak, her cancer had advanced to stage four. Bill tried to hide his concern behind
smiles and small talk. Jean died shortly after that visit and Bill went to New York
City to live with Robert. Robert had been living in New York for several years
without achieving his dreams, and at Forty his opportunities were narrowing. Bill
endured a few cold New York winters before joining Jean. The music that Robert
played at his father's funeral was heartbreaking. One summer on a gloomy rainy New
York morning, Robert died mysteriously in his apartment never achieving his elusive
goals.

The date was June Nineteen seventy-seven, My father had decided that after thirty
years and two heart attacks it was time to move to the quiet Bryan countryside, so
my parents sold that house on Margo street. As I lay on that swing in the backyard
at 215 Margo street, saying my goodbyes to the past, I pondered the year Two
Thousand. Where would I be? Would I make it to the new Century?

My eyes caught David Dole next door incessantly dribbling and setting up basketball
shots, his body in constant motion. I sadly resigned myself to the fact that he and
all my other friends would be around long after I had gone. Mental and physical
health and healthy relationships would sustain them. I was convinced that Morrows
Rogers, Danny Rodgers, Victor Jones, Lennon Jones, Duncan Heath, and all my friends
at work would all experience satisfying sunsets with their families and wake to
years of glorious life-affirming sunrises. Roger died in 2012, Danny died in 2010,
Victor died in 2019. Lennon and Fred succumbed to cancer. Jane Berg died in 2019.
Glenn Brodrick committed suicide. One night as David Dole enjoyed a baseball game
on Television, his heart became erratic and he slipped away.

Two weeks before the move to Bryan I found myself drinking tallboys at Addicks Ice
House in Herford, a small community Six miles down Highway 59. Bill Keyton, who
serviced vending machines in the county was playing pool with another man when the
talk became heated. The man pulled a knife from his pocket and waved it menacingly
at Keyton.

The combination of drugs, alcohol, and fear gnawed at my stomach. I began to

wretch. I rushed outside, barely containing the flow of vomit long enough to get to
the alley. A pack of dogs followed behind me lapping up the warm wet stream. The
visual symbol of my degradation filled me with shame. I stopped everything that
night, cold turkey, and for two weeks frothed, convulsed and screamed at my life,
and the phantom bugs covering my body and the various other delirium tremens.

8. BRYAN

It was July 1978. I moved to Bryan with my parents.

My parents were building a new house just off the old Madisonville highway,
directly across from my dad's sister.

While the house was being built they were living in my grandfather's old house. He
had recently turned ninety. A heart attack hampered by metastasizing skin cancer
and continued frailty made it necessary for him to live with his daughter across
the highway.
Grandfathers house stood at the end of an old dirt road. It was late evening when
we arrived.

A smattering of wood pieces and a broken-down gate five feet in front of the house
offered the only barrier between the house and field. Grazing cows had pushed the
remnants of the fence into a pile of weather-worn rubble strewn about the yard. The
smell of fresh manure permeated the house in its stale perfume.

The hall was empty except for an old wooden hand-crank style wall phone. Inside the
living room, hanging in the corner by a single electrical cord, was a single bulb.

Underneath, on a battered wood table was a tiny television capable of receiving one
channel. A blue couch set beneath bare windows, springs protruded through the light
blue fabric in a couple of places. Beside the door to the kitchen, sat the old
recliner where my grandfather smoked his pipe. I sniffed at the air trying to
breathe in the memory of its smell.

In the kitchen, an old wood-fired stove sat beside an old washbasin and modern
refrigerator.

Handmade wire shelves stretched across the dining room area, a cool place for
produce to be stored. A modern bath and toilet had just been added to the back of
the house. In the backyard the old outhouse still stood, silhouetted against the
moon filled evening sky. Even in the early seventies the bright beauty of the night
sky shown brilliantly above the tin roof, unhampered by light pollution. The quiet
of the night spoiled only by the occasional passing car and the sound of the
windmill churning slowly outside.

The early morning sun revealed the final picture. Dried manure scattered about the
back yard and brown earth hardened by the hooves of cattle. All surrounded by tall
castor beans.

September found me working the late shift for the circulation department at the
local newspaper. We had a couple of breaks that everyone spent behind a line of
trees getting high. Even though I had sworn to remain substance-free, I found
myself smoking the occasional joint with the guys. After work, we walked to a
complex of apartments off 29th street and played penny-ante poker to the music of
Fleetwood Mac while the liquor flowed. The new thing was marijuana laced with
ketamine. I would put on a pair of roller skates and the newspaper floor became my
rink.

There was a young couple. Burr and Kathy Hayman who had taken out a personal loan
used to buy 100 pounds of pot, so we had plenty for many months to come.

In 1981 My father began having shaking spells, becoming more and more disoriented
over time.

One day in the late afternoon my father began feeling pressure in his chest. My mom
and I rushed him to the hospital. This was before the days of modern trauma units,
After arriving at the emergency entrance, he waited an hour before his doctor
arrived, by that time it was too late.

I had no tears, less than ten thousand words had passed between my dad and me in
twenty-eight years. When I was a teenager, I remember going to my room after supper
listening to music, patiently waiting to hear my fathers voice at my door, I
imagined him saying "Mike, Come join us in the living room." I never learned how to
ask for his love or to speak about the emptiness I felt in a way he would
understand,
My father had to deal with heartaches and sorrow of his own growing up. He had a
best friend Lonnie Comar, but his cousin Arthur was like a brother. They had an
unbreakable bond that he did not share with his brother or sister. They would pile
into my dad's Model A, stuffing cousins and friends into the rumble seat, exploring
the world, sharing confidences and adventures.

My dad, Lonnie, and Arthur remained close through college and the war. My mother's
father Henry owned the property adjoining my grandfather Emil's land, where he
operated a store. That is where my father met my mother Louise. After the war in
the summer of 1945 my father married Louise in a beautiful ceremony in a small
wood-framed church in Kurten Texas, a stone's throw from the school he attended as
a child. No one noticed Sonny pulling into the packed parking lot just before the
service or his disconsolate figure staring through the stained glass.

Adice Joyce Brocksmith was one of my mother's bridesmaid. When Arthur saw Adice, he
was smitten. Adice was Contentious, clever, witty, and outgoing. Arthur was
introspective and sullen. They were different in every way, Their pairing seemed
unlikely, awkward. Ten years later, Adice Ignoring Arthurs protests, they divorced.
For weeks Arthur rehashed, lamented, and cursed Adice, until my father quit taking
his calls. Dad's guilt ate at him, so he took one final cryptic call. "Robert,
goodbye, I'll see you in clay county," with that the line fell silent. on January
31st, 1955, Arthur shot himself. Early in 1956 Adice and her mother were driving
just outside Huntsville in Walker County when a drunk driver crossed the center
line, killing Adice and her mother. She was just Thirty-one. Heartache killed her
father, one short month later.

I wiped the sleep from my eyes, and after a long arm stretching yawn, groggily made
my way from the parking lot to the warehouse door. I could barely contain my dread.
Another long week at Bolinger Freight. I looked out into the yard, David Smalls,
the freight driver was barely visible through the dew-covered window. The roar of
the diesel coming to life and that kerosene smell carried by the wind assaulted my
senses. The boss's voice boomed in the quiet morning air. "Mike, you're going with
David this morning! I climbed into the cozy cabin and closed my eyes. The next hour
or so would be uneventful, as we made our way towards our first freight drop. As we
slowed at the first traffic light, the irritating sound of air brakes hissed in my
ear. David turned to me. "Well, how did it go?" Puzzled, I asked, "How did what
go?" ''Your date with Cindy" he said. I was perturbed by the question. "How did you
know I had a date?" David let out an insincere laugh. "Everyone knows," he said
smirking. Surprised, I answered, "It was okay, but I'm not interested in her."
David's grating voice kept insisting. "Tell me what happened, I'm a minister, so
it's just between us." I would never divulge anything you tell me in private." I
looked him squarely in the eye and shrugged. The constant questions were annoying
me. "Nothing happened I said, I just don't want another date." He continued to
press me for details. In exasperation, I relented "I'm gonna hold you to your
promise that this stays between me and you, "We just didn't hit it off, plus I
spent about an hour after our date scrubbing her pee out of the car seat!" He
looked down at me as if peering over a pair of invisible glasses and fell silent.

The next morning a couple of drivers and I were unloading freight and sliding it
down the metal chute for the other drivers to sort, a few of the drivers began
giggling among themselves, I noticed that Bernie was scowling and intently staring
at me. "I heard what you said about Cindy." I blushed bright red at the betrayal by
David Smalls.

9. John And Joann

I began a new job at a linen company. Afram Linens employees were predominately
male. I never knew a group of men who talked so foul, before or since. The talk
frustrated and embarrassed the women in the office. Ted Barns was the company
Manager, Frank Hale was the sales manager, and Joann Marden was the office manager.
Barbara Ben and Viola Vicks were the secretaries.

I found the initial interview very troubling. Mr. Barker asked a series of
questions as his hand roamed deep inside his pocket. He moved it about as if
searching for some hidden object. At the conclusion, I interviewed with Mister
Hale. He leads me to the company breakroom motioning for me to sit at a table. He
gave me the strangest smirk that opened to a smile. 'Did Mr. Barns embarrass you by
playing pocket pool again,' he asked. I nodded.

In the salesroom, a loud voice interrupted the momentary silence. 'What you need is
a good fucking to get rid of that nasty attitude! It was obvious that one of the
men was screaming at a secretary. It startled me and I searched Mr. Hale's face for
a reaction to the profane outburst, not even a twitch of cognizance.

The discussions on the sales floor ran from, ' If your dick is big enough will it
come out her butt, to Mrs, Vick did you get some last night?

The room was thick with smoke and profanity.

My trainer was a heavy-set black man with thick nappy hair and abiding hatred for
razors and all things white. If I stared at a sales sheet too long, he would
bluster, 'You think that shit's gonna change if you look at it long enough? I bit
my tongue and muttered to myself, 'Fuck You!'

'What's that?' I bit my tongue, 'Nothing.' Preston looked at me with contempt,

'Pack your bags with enough clothes for two weeks and meet me here early tomorrow.'
We are hitting the road!'

The road was twelve hours a day of fast food and sweat in a loud hot truck made
hotter by the suffocating Texas heat, and headaches intensified by listening to a
foul mouth that spewed endless vitriol and blew billows of foul-smelling smoke, and
nights spent in unvented, loud smoke-filled Motel rooms.

The salesmen seemed to like Joann Marden and spoke to her softly and respectfully.
Joanns long hours were made longer, waiting for her ride. Most days we chatted as
she waited. I about work, She about the nature of men. I didn't realize that her
ride was also her former husband. After the divorce, John had flatly refused to
leave her house and taken up residence on the couch. He had spent his money and
Joann's on lawyers and gifts for his new girlfriend. ' I can't afford to move,' he
whined as he ate the food he still expected her to cook. Finally, when his sons
couldn't stand his blatant abuse, they threw him out. But as a condition of the
court, John agreed to pick her up until he could buy her the car that the court
mandated.

10. John Marden

John Joseph Marden was a mama's boy. It was a truth stated without disrespectful
intent, It was an incontrovertible fact.

John was born in a house near four Mile run in a neighborhood across the Fairfax
county line. John's father Richard was a painter by trade when he worked. His
mother Sasha ran the household with a somewhat melancholic perturbation.

John's mother's voice quivered in the cold drafty air. "John get up," Joeys
crying." John tucked in his shirt and put on his bush jacket, tucking his glove
under his arm. John didn't answer her as he walked purposefully to Joey's room.
John was the oldest at eighteen, then came Jim at seventeen, and Beth sixteen, and
finally there was the youngest, Joey, who was only seven. Joey had become
increasingly frail in the last few weeks. Joey was under the covers whimpering
softly as John entered the room. John addressed Joey in a quiet sing-song manner.
"You sick Joey?" "I Don't Feel Good!" he cried. Another voice boomed from the
bedroom, It was Johns dad, " I'm trying to sleep!' Keep it quiet!"

John Touched the back of his hand to Joey's forehead. "he's okay ma!"

Jim was studious and serious and although he was only Seventeen, He knew that he
would marry the girl next door, Kay. He and kay eventually married, both went to
work for Dupont, raised a family, and bred champion German Shepards.

Beth did not like to wake up early and was usually testy if forced to. She liked
her clothes and makeup just so, and her sleep undisturbed. Everyone had been
abruptly awakened that morning by Joeys cries, Aggravated Beth lashed out, " Why is
Joey Crying?"

When Jim stuck his head in the Joeys room, he saw that Joey's face was ashen. and
he was retching violently. For months Joey had been eating chips of lead-based
paint from the window sill in his room. The lead built up to toxic levels and Joey
died.

Sasha was never the same, She became addicted to laudanum, calling it her medicine.
Jim and Beth could not bear the guilt or pain that permeated the house like an
invisible weight. Sasha clung to Joey's memory like an anchor. The after school
softball games and subs at Sarantees Sub Shop became nights sitting with his mother
trying to cheer her up. Trips to the grocery store were often routed past the
cemetery. " Joey's sleeping there John", she lamented. John's dad spent his days at
the local bar, dreading going home sober to the thick air of sadness that filled
the house. "John I'm Dying!" his mother would cry, her head on his shoulder. John,
instead of going out with friends, would console her with hugs and stories.

Joann was born January the eighteenth, my birthdate, to Mildred and Irwin Zimmerman
in Bryan Texas. Joann once related a vivid memory of her father. When she was
three, she had a fear of the dark. She remembers her father making her walk around
the house three times in the dead of night. Joann was a small chubby-faced girl
with olive-colored skin and an infectious smile.

Her father Irwin was a truck driver. In the early part of nineteen thirty-seven, he
began to tire easily, often falling asleep in his chair during a conversation. He
became overwhelmed with an unquenchable thirst, drinking four of five glasses of
tea at a time. One late night on a trip to San Antonio, Irwin found himself unable
to stay awake. His uncontrollable urge to sleep turned to a persistent fading of
awareness. He resolved to inch forward to some protected shoulder or roadside truck
stop. A passing motorist who noticed his erratic driving followed him to a rest
stop, finding him slipping in and out of consciousness.

Irwin managed to give the man his wife's number. Mildred and her brother in law
found him and brought him home. By the time a Doctor was called, Irwin was
comatose. Irwin died of Diabetes early the next morning. Life irrevocably changed
for Joann. Her mother would have to work leaving Joann in the care of her
grandmother. Her grandmother was a sour, bitter woman who favored Joann's sister
Jean in a modern rendition of Cinderella, with Joann cast as the forlorn Ella.
Mildred worked the fountain at Woolworth until just after the war, In Nineteen
forty-seven a position opened at the Bryan Air Base. Mildred was a secretary for a
base officer Alvin Demato for a few years. What had begun as a working relationship
turned into a romantic one. Alvin had been a member of The Strategic bombing
command in World War Two. After the war, he took up his duty post at Bolling Field
in Washington D.C. Alvin and Mildred set up housekeeping in Alexandria, leaving
Joann in Bryan with her grandmother, promising to send for her. Joann began to feel
resentment for the situation she found herself in, In letters to her mother she
complained about her grandmother's mistreatment. Joann tried, but could never
completely purge herself of those feelings of animosity between her grandmother and
sister. Eventually, Joann did reunite with her mother in Alexandria. At first,
Alvin was the perfect Stepdad, taking Joann and Jean to all the tourist spots in
Washington D.C., trying to create a normal family atmosphere. He regularly was away
days at a time on what he claimed was government business, but in reality, it was a
secret life filled with affairs and women he set up housekeeping with. When it all
came to light, Mildred forced him into counseling. The psychologist told Mildred
that he couldn't survive a divorce despite the thoughtless, careless affairs. The
betrayal had hardened Joann's heart. Joann lashed out occasionally, but mostly hid
her feelings in quiet rebellion,

Joann went to George Washington High School, now a middle school. She shared an
English class and a friendship with a famous weatherman.

John played baseball at 4-Mile Run Field about three and one-half miles down
Potomac Avenue, from Joann's school. Joann and her mother sometimes shopped in The
Village At Shirlington. Joann noticed John hanging out with friends outside
Lansburgh's. When John saw Joann standing there, he walked on over and said hello,
as she coyly looked down at the sidewalk. He nervously Juggled a baseball between
his right hand and glove. They began to see each other more often. John would drive
his dad's old work truck to pick up Joann at her parent's apartment. There was
something about John's demeanor that disturbed Joann's mother, she couldn't put her
finger on it. Only a few months had passed during this whirlwind courtship when
John asked Joann to marry him.

Alvin found John's manner crude and distasteful and forbade her to marry him, "If
you marry him don't come back!" he said with scorn. John and Joann were married in
early 1953. Alvin relented and did attend the wedding.

The young couple moved into his parent's house, Johns mother never quite approved
of Joann, who she felt took her son away from her, even though they shared the same
house. A son Rowen was born in late 1953, and Wyatt two years later. Rowan suffered
from crying bouts. " Don't let that baby cry!" Sasha admonished. To pacify Sasha
and the crying baby. Joann gently rocked him to sleep, getting very little for
herself in the process. Nights were spent rocking the baby and soothing Sashas
Laudenam induced fears, "I'm dying John, please stay with me!"

John worked at a refinery for a year before passing the civil service exam at The
Post Office. When Joann could not stand it anymore she demanded John buy one of the
new tract homes they were building in the Arlington suburbs. Even after the move,
the phone rang incessantly, " John I'm Dying, Please come over!" Family time ceased
to exist, as John was at her beck and call. In this twisted relationship, John's
father's place was usurped, Joanns wants and needs were ignored as well as those of
his children. Joann remembered her parent's reservations about John and questioned
her choices.

Day and night, like some record stuck in a groove playing the same note, again and
again. The sick symphony played like untoward music in Joanns ear "John, I'm scared
come home!" Sasha begged. Joann couldn't count the number of meals left heating in
the oven after Sasha would call, The cycle repeated night after night. John grabbed
the car keys and steered Rowan and Wyatt to the door. "Keep it warm Joann." "We
will be right back."

Sometime after Wyatt's second birthday, Joann began suffering debilitating

migraines. She no longer sat in the vigilant quiescence of stone silence beside
John and his mother on his nightly trips after work, as he regaled his mother with
the same old repetitive and stale stories. She resented the quiet solitude and
timbre of her voice echoing through the empty spaces in her house as she tried to
manage the children, her fervid emotions, and never seeing her mother, who only
lived a short distance away, while John offered endless sympathy to Sasha, who
sucked it up into a bereft void, so she quit going. John grew irascible resenting
Joann not trailing endlessly abaft. In anger at these perceived slights, he started
calling her fat and unreasonable, even though she wasn't. He didn't see that his
weakness was driving a wedge between him and his family.

In the late fifties, Duty called Alvin Demato back to The Bryan Airbase. Joann, who
saw very little of her mother thanks to Sasha, could at least count on her mother
for a bit of nurturing advice now and then to mitigate the lonely silence. Now she
would be losing that little bit of sustaining strength that she held in reserve.
Along with migraines, she now contended with depression and the effects of
amphetamines prescribed for weight gain and to please John. Joann's migraines were
exacerbated by diet pill-fueled anxiety. She suffered through another year of
sleepless nights before begging John to move to Bryan, so she could be with her
mother. She hoped the separation of John and Sasha would diminish the stranglehold
Sasha had on her husband. The arguments between John and Joann turned more
combative as time wore on. Stoplights and casual glances at a male motorist might
unleash Johns's vitreum, "Wanna fuck him?" John's complaint about pot pie two
nights in a row could result In a dripping hot pot pie hat for him wear. Jim,
John's brother had begun breeding German Shepards and gave one from the first
litters to Joann. As the dog grew so did his bond as her protector and companion.
If someone ventured to close to her car, the dog would growl out a low guttural
warning. If John raised his voice at Joann the dog's fur would bristle and he would
lock his eyes intently on him, his ears would prick up and he would bark a sharp
warning!

John saw the dog's innate intelligence and trained him to follow basic commands and
to attack on command. He added another command as a safety measure, watch! Although
John trained the dog his loyalties were to Joann. If John became belligerent with
Joann the dog barked out a warning to him, and when the tables turned, he still
took her part. John had to be careful to keep tension in the house to a minimum
because the dog was a vigilant sentinel. Joann told this story multiple times, so I
know it impacted her life in a significant way. John took his kids to the park on a
warm breezy fall afternoon. As he walked with the children, the dog in tow, the dog
let out a sharp yelp and fell dead at the feet of his horrified children, John
examined the body, There were no visible wounds. After running his fingers
carefully through the fur, he found a spot of dark red blood. Someone had fired a
shot from the distance.

I have always questioned this story. Any prudent person would have called the
police. A shot in a crowded public park that endangered himself, his children, and
others would have brought more scrutiny. I believe in a fit of jealousy, he had the
dog put to sleep.

When John finally made the break from his mother, his relationship with Joann had
been permanently damaged. They would ride the emotional rollercoaster for years
beyond the viability of its circular course, but the structure loosely bound by the
precept of its being for the good of the children was beyond repair.

They quietly sold their house, loaded their meager belongings into an old station
wagon, and snuck off into the silent night, without a word of goodbye to John's
mother, like thieves afraid of apprehension.

They stayed with Joanns parents in Bryan and bought property on the outskirts of
town. John promised Rowan and Wyatt roots and the solid foundation of a new home
filled with love, but what was intended to be a temporary 10 by 20 camp style
travel trailer became their home for the next ten years. John became an invisible
stranger, often absent, taciturn, and distant. The walls of that small space closed
in on Joann like a suffocating air and her sons like a prison.

When Rowan and Wyatt were ten and eight respectively they rode their bicycles down
the undeveloped back roads behind their property. The pair were laughing at some
secret joke when Rowan spotted John's rusty red work truck parked under a tree at
the end of a rutted makeshift trail.

Wyatt giggled as he snuck from behind to surprise his father, picking the burrs
sticking to his socks he waded silently through the tall grass. He stopped just
short of the truck bed, lifting his right hand to shield his eyes from the Sun's
bright glare. He noticed someone else in the truck. It had taken a second to make
out the image hidden in the light reflecting off the window. John was passionately
kissing a woman, oblivious to Wyatt staring in wide-eyed shock through the driver's
window. By that time Rowan was rapping his hand violently against the passenger
window. His lips curled in anger, his cheeks flushed red against his ashen skin.
John startled in embarrassment at the sight of his young sons. Wyatt ran to his
bicycle, stumbling in confused horror. He picked up his bike in adrenaline-fueled
emotion and began peddling and crying as he raced homeward. Rowans tear-filled
shouts at his father echoed across the empty pasture. At home Joann gently parted
the curtain, watching Wyatt pumping furiously on the pedals of his bicycle as he
flew down the driveway. Wyatt struggled to catch his breath as he fell through the
door of his trailer crying hysterically. Rowan soon followed, his anger disguising
the hurt. Joann tried to soothe Wyatt. "What's happened?" she asked. Wyatt ran to
his room and loudly slammed the door. Joann looked at Rowan quizzically, "What did
you do to your brother?". John turned away from his mothers questioning gaze, "
Nothing," he said as he disappeared into his own small space.

Arrington Lane was a wind-blown rutted gravel road, meandering like a dry river bed
past houses in various degrees of dilapidation. It blew billows of dust into open
windows and coated the sidings of homes on its path. Joe Beals was Joann's neighbor
on Arrington Lane, he lived a few houses down from her tiny travel trailer. They
never met, but she was familiar with the neighborhood gossip. It was said that Joe
and his brother Bill had violent, explosive tempers that flared suddenly like
thunderstorms on a clear day. This propensity coupled with a violent knife fight
outside a night club proved fatal for Bill, but Joe seemed friendly enough...
Whenever he passed her drive he would wave gregariously through a cloud of dust
flashing his infectious grin.

One day a violent argument erupted between John and Joann on the roadway. They were
standing by their mailbox speaking in hushed subdued voices, that slowly graduated
to an insistent sharp volume. Their bodies became animated; their faces flashed
with fire. Joann's body language was defensive. John stood a full twelve inches
taller than Joann. There was a wild look on his face, and his arms were
gesticulating menacingly. Joann stepped backward falling with a dusty thud on the
driveway. Joe Beals, heading home from somewhere, saw Joann fall as he approached
her drive. He slammed his foot on the brake, spewing gravel and fine powder into
the afternoon air, spinning slightly sideways to a sudden stop. He flew from the
driver seat, his face scrunched in anger. His hand grabbed purposefully at the
scruff of John's collar, lifting him suddenly, then pulling him back a few feet.
John's body shuddered at the sudden attack. Joe's voice boomed in John's ear. "You
don't hit a woman!" John threatened to call the Sheriff, "Please do that!" Joe
bellowed.

John walked back to the trailer humiliated by the encounter. Joe looked Joann
straight in the eye. "You call me if that ever happens again" Joann started walking
tearfully back to the trailer, Her thoughts were racing, fearing the repercussions
that would follow. Her reverie was suddenly interrupted by the familiar metallic
screeching of school bus brakes. Wyatt quickly noticed something was wrong

Inside the trailer, angry voices echoed against the thin metal walls. Rowan walked
in followed by Wyatt, Joann was seated on the couch and John was pressing his body
against Joann pinning her to the frayed vinyl cushion. Joanns arms were up and
crossed in a defensive position. Rowen grabbed John's collar and pulled him
violently backward. They both stumbled backward's towards the metal wall. John hit
the wall with a loud thud and slid to the floor. Rowan looked down at John and
screamed "Tell her' "tell her, or I will! Joann lowered her head as Wyatt sat
beside his mother stroking her shoulder. Wyatt shook as he blurted out. "Tell her
you piece of shit!" Joann could barely catch her breath long enough to ask what was
going on. John sat up, his back propped against the wall, and defiantly blurted out
his confession. Rowan's face hardened, his eyes glistened in anger "Get out!" "Just
get the fuck out!" John hesitated momentarily, then he left.

Many months passed, neither son wanting to explain their sharp tongues and taciturn
demeanor. Their childhood was filled with the endless disappointment of an absent
father, and they had witnessed too many nights watching their mother suffer in
silence waiting for John to come home, finally crawling into an empty bed for
another sleepless night. When John did come home in the middle of the night he
would silently stretch his large frame on the too-small couch in the living area
oblivious to his mental carnage. Divorce was the inevitable result of John's
caustic "behavior.

There was a natural lake on the property. After torrential rain, a small waterfall
formed creating a rushing stream of water that fed into the lake. After a heavy
rain, Joann liked to set her chair beside the lake and watch her ducks play a game
of following the leader down the frothy stream. When they tired of entertaining
themselves, they would waddle towards her, tails wagging, and sit at Her feet
making rasping two-tone greetings. Joann was determined to find peace in her new
truth.

Joanns face lightened when I walked through the door and into her office to settle
accounts. Wading through the thick cigarette smoke and trying to dodge the barrage
of filth flying through the office, I stood in front of her desk. Joann's soft
smile erased the unpleasant memories of the day. The trailing streams of sweat
running down my face began to dry in the air-conditioned room. "Hello," she said.
Hello, a simple word rendered meaningless when spoken by anyone else, turned my
grimace to a grin.

One late afternoon, after work, as I meandered slowly through the company gate,
into the parking lot, I noticed Joann trailing behind. "Mike, can you give me a
ride home?" Without a word, I opened the passenger door. Joann lowered herself down
into the hot seat, fidgeting a little from the heat burning through her clothes. I
picked up a paper towel stuffed into my console and dabbed at the sweat beads on my
face.

"Tell me where to go!"

It was about a twenty-minute ride to Rock Prarie drive. "Turn here," she said
pointing to the road sign. Almost immediately, she motioned to turn left down
Arrington lane. Rutted gravel stretched as far as the eye could see. Dust hung in
the air, raised by recent traffic, settling on the window glass. We passed a sea of
mangled fence and weeds, past a concrete place, and a substation. "That's my
house!"

Out in the field, on the other side of a deep gulley that cut a natural boundary
through her property sat a rusted tiny travel trailer. Some tires on the roof were
being used to stabilize its ramshackle tin roof.

Joann looked at me "Let's do something!" I thought about how many problems this
could create at work and our age difference. "Okay."

I was living in a small portable building on my mother's property. It had running

water and a shower and a deep red carpet throughout. It was connected to a
satellite dish. There was a microwave, chair, couch, and small bed.

I co-signed a car loan so Joann never had to depend on John's whims again. Joann
spent most nights there in that small cramped building. Neither Joann nor I felt
completely comfortable about our age difference, but we loved each other and tried
to make it work. John would call her on the phone and laugh at her, " He's just
using you." You're a fool!"

We married on June 6th, 1985 by a Justice Of The Peace.

We purchased a small manufactured home furnished with furniture and moved it to

Joann's property on Arrington Lane. I bought two televisions, one for us the other
for Wyatt. We moved the old travel trailer further back to the tree line and Wyatt
lived there. Rowan had married a lady he met at work, and they lived on the other
side of the small lake. I built a bridge over the gulch, so we could drive straight
to our home.

Wyatt and Rowan took an instant disliking to me.

if Rowan saw me in the yard he gave me a stone-faced glare. Once, When I was
standing near the lake, I heard him shout, "that's our lake, go back to your
fucking trailer!"

One Saturday afternoon, I saw Wyatt running toward me, his arm raised high in the
air, his fist clenched. His intent was clear, and as he swung, I was lucky enough
to catch his arm and swing it behind his back. He screamed at me, "Let me go, you
asshole!"

I shouted for Joann, she didn't answer. I looked Wyatt squarely in the eye, "If I
let you go, is this over?" He growled, "Yes!"

Wyatt stormed off across the field towards his trailer. About an hour later there
was a loud rapping on our door. When I opened the door, there stood Wyatt
Television in hand. "Take your shit back!"