Many times in my life, I've stood at the very edge of the precipice and anxiously stared off into the void. When I was a lot younger, I would sometimes maniacally laugh or scream the lyrics to Savoy Brown's Hellbound Train. I don't really know if I just wanted to hear an echo, or just a disembodied voice yelling back, "Enough already! I get the point."

       In my later life, I've went back and stood there with the likes Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Christopher Hitchens, and Soren Kierkegaard. We didn't talk a whole lot, but it was nice to have a little company. Most of my friends and loved ones were too busy to make the trip, either making a living, supporting a family, doing their own thing, or just screaming and complaining about shit.

         I never stood there with Jesus though, a fact that has bothered me no end. 

          Recently my daughter and one of her friends  created a podcast that specifically deals with issues related to grief.  One day, while I was listening, I heard them both make what seemed to me an all too perfunctory dismissal of Christianity.

         I wasn't offended. I was saddened. I understood where they were coming from though. Over the course of my life, I have wrestled mightily with both angels and  demons to try to wrest some kind of firm belief system from this crazy thing that we know of as life.

          I was saddened though because such a comment seems almost obligatory, and is now such a part of modern culture that it is as almost common as annoying television commercials.

       More importantly, it reminds me just how negligent I was in providing my children with any kind of spiritual guidance. I love my girls, and I hate to think about how badly that I failed in this regard.

         And I don't mean that it was my job to tell them what life means; they have to discover that one for themselves. I just want to spare them as much as possible from time spent standing on the ledge and staring off into nothingness.

       And if that don't work, at least be close enough to wrap my arms around them and say, "Ain't it a pretty sight though? Look over there at that cloud. It looks kind of like a beautiful princess riding a unicorn." Like I used to when they were small.

     The problem was that I struggled so much with trying to extricate my own self from despair that I have a very deep-seated need to go stand there with my own dad, so he that he could tell me, "Shit, son. That void ain't nothing. Me, you, and Jesus, we'll build a damned bridge cross that sumbitch." But, my Pop died a good while back, and mom is in a wheelchair and  needs all the faith that she has to stare across that void herself.

        I was only around ten or eleven years old when my Sunday School teacher told our class that we would all burn in hell unless we had accepted Christ and repented of our sins. I had a bit of a problem wrapping my head around the concept that I was going to be barbequed in perpetuity for a preadolescent lust for my elementary teacher and stealing penny candy. 

        Jesus gets a bad rap nowadays. And it ain't so much his own fault as it is ours and those evil sons of bitches who throughout the centuries have tried, with some success, to use his life and words to feather their own nests or gain notoriety and power.

         It is our fault because we would rather watch stupid people doing stupid things or complain about how bad we got it than look for answers in the void. We flee from funerals as fast as our legs and automobiles can carry us and run to the nearest barroom or television set to wash the taste of clarity out of our mouths and the image of our own mortality out of our minds.

        Most of us spend so little time getting to know ourselves that we depend on actors/politicians, professional athletes, and celebrities to tell us who we are. This statement utterly encapsulates  our current world. Modern culture aims no so much as to point the way toward transcendence but serves to distract and entertain us, so we don't notice the obvious madness in the eyes of all the performers, the slime trail they leave behind them,  or the grease stains and the ripped seams on their costumes.

           In the year 325 A.D., The Roman Emperor Constantine convened the council of Nicea to get a grip on the religious situation that was causing a lot of argument throughout the Empire. The Council ended up placing the political needs of the state ahead of the spiritual needs of the citizens. At the time, the Church also betrayed its own stated mission by placing itself into the yoke of political necessity. Nicea was also where Jesus was deemed to be divine. 

             A lot of the religious dogma and doctrines that have emerged after that fateful council has been at times somewhat tainted both by the idea that man's spiritual needs are secondary to his material needs, and by those who occupy religious authority's need to support and justify the decision to place itself into the secondary position of the political hierarchy and thereby creating the inference that they rule over spiritual seekers rather than serve as true servants to their spiritual needs.

          There has to be a fundamental truth that underlies all existence. In mythological sense Jesus is that truth (And I'm talking in terms of essential meaning and not as a children's tale as they have us believe about myth.) In Christ's trial and crucifixion, the two principal power players were Pontius Pilate (the State) and the Religious leadership of Jerusalem (also the State).

         Pontius Pilate made a great show of finding no fault in Jesus. Still, it was he who made the fateful political decision to let the religious leaders handle it. The religious leaders, in turn, acting on the belief that Jesus threatened their own authority, appealed to the mob for justice. The crowd chose the criminal Barabbas over Jesus. If that's not an event displaying great mythic import, I don't what is.

        Both political players displayed little hesitation in their willingness to suppress and even murder the truth in order to preserve political authority and then brilliantly manipulating events so that the ultimate blame fell upon the ignorance of the mob. 

        And there's the rub. People who ignore Jesus's words about forgiveness and loving their fellow man, or his admonitions against storing up treasure in the material world, might as well be standing in that courtyard picking their nose, flicking the boogers on their buddy, and screaming their fool head off for the release of Barabbas.

       Too many people nowadays would scream their heads off at political rally or at a church meeting thinking that their chosen God of the moment will solve all of their problems. And far too few understand that our problems will never be solved without some knowledge of the fundamental truth that underlies existence.

       Next time, I go to stand at the edge of the world to stare off into the void with Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Hitchens, I'm going to invite Jesus along and see if I can get them to strike up a conversation. He don't say a whole lot, but what he does say is truthful, and I think they'd be impressed by his demeanor.

              

       

       
​       Thurman and I both had a rare day off from work. I was standing at the kitchen sink looking out the window and putting water in the coffee pot when I saw Mr. Jenks, our neighbor walking by and yelling something.

        Mr. Jenks was a retired school teacher. He was my aunt's old English teacher back in Oklahoma. He was tall, skinny and weakened by age. He also had a habit of skipping meals to save money and that concerned us. I put the half-filled blue coffee pot down on the green counter and stepped out the back door to hear what he was yelling. When, I stepped outside, Thurman was coming back from the store.

             "You hear that?" he asked.

             "I saw him go by. What was he saying?

             "Something bout verb tenses. He yelled, 'There's no such thing as verb tenses!' He was yelling it as loud as his old man voice could get. He is down at the main road right now yelling it at the cars driving by."
He turned and looked back and pointed toward the road. Then he turned back around and asked, " What's a verb tense?"

              "We learned it in school. don't you remember?"

              Thurman shrugged, " Musta been the year I was gone."

            "Verbs are words that talk about doing stuff like to kill, to think, to walk, or  to work. Tenses are things you do to those words to make tell time like if you put an e-d ending on walk you get walked which means you already did it, and if you put will in front of the word you get will walk which means you will do it in the future."

                "There's three of 'em, the past, right now and tomorra?"

                "Yeah. There's a lot more, but those are the three main ones."

                "What's old man Jenks got agin em?

             It was my turn to shrug my shoulders. "I don't know. Must be not eating again. I'm going to go fetch him and we'll find out."

              Our little cabin was off of the main road, we were in the back of the camp. There was little footpath that led out to the main road. I walked quickly out the front and saw Mr. Jenks and sure enough, he was walking back and forth on the side of the road yelling at cars.

               There was a store on the corner and the camp we lived in was just south of the store. Mr. Jenks was dressed in ruffled khaki pants and  and an old green button up sweater over a white shirt buttoned up to his neck. Instead of a regular tie, he was wearing a bolo tie with a big chunk of turquoise set into a New Mexican silver clasp. He was walking back and forth and whenever a car or truck drove by he would straighten up raise his right hand and yell, " There are no such things as TENSES! Verb TENSES aren't real!"

         I walked slowly up to him. When he saw me coming, he sheepishly lowered his right arm and gave me an embarrassed wave with his left.

             I went up to him, put my left arm on his shoulder and shook his hand with my right, "Hey, Mr. Jenks. I was looking for you. Me and Thurman wanted to invite you over for some breakfast."

           His eyes went from sheepish to to outright sadness. His shoulders slumped and he lost about three inches in height, "I ain't one for charity, BJ, sides I have something I need to do."

          I just smiled gently, "Why would you call it charity, Mr. Jenks. Me and Thurman ain't got no daddy. The one grandpa that we knew was pretty much off his rocker. We both look up to you like a mentor. We want to know what it is that you're talking about here. The people in these here cars ain't listening to you. We'd at least listen."

          He straightened back up a little and lifted his shoulders and regained most of his height. As we started walking, he spoke, " Well, put like that I'd be a fool not to take you up on your offer." He stopped after a few steps and looked me square in the eyes and  spoke real low like he was confiding the biggest secret in the world, "I like you boys, and I appreciate all you do for me."

              I sat him down at the table and went and got him a plate of eggs, bacon, and biscuits covered with gravy. Thurman had finished making the coffee and brought us both a steaming cup of fresh brewed. I added cream to mine; Mr. Jenks took his black.

               As he ate, I studied his face. His head was kind of big and round like my dads, and he had the same combed over hair covering a large bald spot. I saw that his eyes were damned near as blue as the turquoise clasp on his bolo tie. His forehead was as a large and as wrinkled as Pop's, but his cheeks were sunken and bottom half of his face was narrow and finished off by a small rounded chin.

             He also had a lot of white hair sticking out of his ears and nose, and you could tell he rushed his shaving because there was hair coming out of the creases on his cheeks and around certain spots of his neck.

          I let him finish up his biscuits and wash it down with some coffee before I finally spoke, "Tell me Mr. Jenks, what is this you were saying about there being no verb tenses."

           He put his cup down and wiped his lips with a napkin. "I realized this morning that there ain't so such thing as time. It was made by man." He looked right at me as he said it as if to monitor my reaction. When I didn't respond, he went on," I was reading something about it in Hindu scripture and suddenly had myself a momentous moment. It then dawned on me with some considerable force and power  that I'd been wrong to teach kids about them verb tenses all these years."

          "By Hindu, you mean them people over in India?"

      "For the most part yes. The Buddhists in China have similar beliefs."

           "Well, what caused you to take off on it all a sudden?"
                 
          He tilted his head back and to the side and looked at me strangely, " I don't reckon I hardly know. I just something I suddenly understood . I mean the power of it shook me to my bones it was so powerful. Then it forced me to realize that I had inadvertently been teaching kids a outright falsehood for an awful long time. I lost control of myself. Figured I had to get out and tell somebody before about it was too late."

            Thurman chimed in at this point, "How can it be too late if there ain't no such thing as time?"

           I sent him a dirty look, but Mr. Jenks just laughed. "I don't rightly understand that part, Thurman,  just that I knew that it, time, as to be an illusion. That's what them Asian people think about it too. They think that life is just part of dream."

               "And we're just asleep?" I was curious to know.

               Mr. Jenks nodded. "All life is an illusion, just a dream."

               "Mr. Jenks, have you been eating?"

               "It ain't that. It's the truth."

              "That ain't why I'm asking. Stuff like what you talking about is way over my head, and that's why I don't normally think about it a lot. I don't doubt that there ain't some good reasons why you came up with all that. I'm just worried about your response. I mean standing on the side of the road yelling at cars is a damn inefficient way of spreading the truth wouldn't you say."

          There was a pause as the words sank in, then he smiled sadly and starting laughing. "Well, I have been trying to save up so I can go back home and see my daughter before I die, so I might have skipped a meal or two."

              Thurman asked him, "Why don't your daughter help you out?"

             Mr. Jenks quit smiling and lowered his head, "Hell, she married a drunk; they ain't got no money, not a pot to piss in."

         "Well, Me and Thurman have been talking on it, and we'd consider it an honor if you'd come and eat with dinner with us."

              "Breakfast is always open too if you wanta get up that early," Thurman added.

           The old man started to say something about not taking charity but couldn't finish his words. Instead, he broke down and started in to crying. Thurman looked a question at me as what we should do. I shrugged. So, we waited till he cried himself out.

           He finished crying and fished out a handkerchief and wiped his eyes. Then he started speaking in a very low, but very emotional voice, " Sorry for the water works boys, but life ain't been very nice to me lately. First, Beulah died......," His voice broke at that point, and he had to muffle a sob, "Then my boy Rob got in the wreck," another sob, "In fact, if it weren't for your aunt and uncle and you boys nobody'd even know I was still around. I think that that understanding might have had something to do with me shouting at cars."

        I thought that Mr. Jenks's losses were a lot like mine, only I had Thurman around for support. It made me shudder to think for a second what it'd been like without him.

           "It's settled then. You'll come over and have dinner with us ever evening." I reached out to shake his hand on the deal.

       He hesitated at first and wrestled with the language trying to say something appropriate. Finally, he just gave up, heaved a big sigh of relief, and reached up and took my hand. Thurman got up and shook his hand too.

           While still holding the hand, Thurman kind of choked up his own damn self and spoke, "I don't know if I ever told ya, Mr. Jenks how much I enjoy our conversations. I never could talk to my own daddy and the only grandpa was always fishing in his mind. All Pa ever did was criticize and yell at me. I really enjoy talking to you."

           That much was true. Ever bit of it. Thurman would clean up after work and go sit outside with Mr. Jenks and drink tea on the porch. He'd usually come home with some new bit of learning. One night, Thurman came home and told me that Mr. Jenks knew Pretty Boy Floyd. Another, night he came home talking about Mr. Jenk's pa being at San Juan Hill.

           As he stood up to leave, Mr. Jenks was almost crying again, " You boys don't how much I appreciate this. I was starting to think I'd never get the money saved. I've got almost a hundred dollars in a box in my closet. If I ever get it up to three hundred maybe I can go back and make do for a while till something else happens."

              When Mr. Jenks was leaving out the front door, I turned around and only then noticed that our cousin Colton Welles was standing at the back screen door listening. I nodded at him, and he opened the screen door and came in.

               He was wearing the same clothes that he had on the night at Uncle Billy's house down the same cynical expression on his cruel face. He saw Mr. Jenks leaving and said, "Who's that old fool."

                "Just a friend of ours."

              "I heard you invitin him to having vittles with you. Why you ain't invitin me over? I'm your damn cousin."    

                I didn't even respond to the question.

               Colton then asked another question, "He crazy or what. I heard him goin on bout some shit about verbs and what not?"

             He didn't realize it, but he had revealed that he'd been at the back door listening for longer than a minute. "He ain't crazy. Least not yet. He might be headed down that road if somebody don't help him. He just old and don't don't have a family out here and wants to go back east."

              Colton just sneered, "Well, that ain't no concern of yours is it? It's his own damn fault he ain't got no family."

               At that point, Thurman camc back from walking Mr. Jenks home. He entered and saw Colton standing there and his hackles went up right away. It made me kind of nervous cause it looked like cat sensing danger. "What brings you out so bright and early. I thought you only come outside in the afternoon."

         Colton laughed and withdrew his outstretched hand after Thurman ignored it, "Just out and about and visitin folks. I talked to my daddy this morning and thought I'd stopped by and talk to you while I was in these parts."

          Colton made the gesture asking if he could sit down and Thurman nodded. "What you want a talk about, Colton?"

            The words came out slowly at first, "I wanted to ask you boys if your daddy ever said anything about the money my daddy stole from my mama?"

          The flesh around Thurman's eyes tightened up a bit. "I don't know what you talking about. What money is that?"

              "My Uncle Rudy first told me about it. He said that my mama inherited the money from my grandpa's farm. She got sick and Daddy put her away, and she died. Rudy told me that Daddy took all the money, married your aunt, and used Mama's money to set up shop out here. Said Daddy left Oklahoma so no one would think bad of him."

                "Thurman went and poured himself a cup of coffee, and he poured one for Colton too. He handed it Colton and then answered, "How don't know tell you this other than telling you the unvarnished truth.  Your Uncle Rudy was the sorriest motherfucker in Salina. He was the town drunk and put out more shit than a whole herd of dairy cows. Your grandpa never had no money that he didn't drink up. He lost the farm. Bank took it from him, and he was the cause of all your mama's problems. Uncle Billy said she was a real sweet, lovely person, but she was always hurtin and had mental breakdown; he had to put her in a hospital to protect her from herself. She hung herself in there. There was no money."

             I watched Colton's face carefully for a reaction. When Thurman said that his mama was sweet it brightened and looked for a moment like a ray of sunshine trying to breakthrough some storm clouds, but it instantly darkened again when Thurman mentioned how she had died."

           He was angry but controlled it. "That's what you say. I remember one day I was taking a shit in our outhouse. and I overheard Daddy with your daddy talking bout that money and what he was going to with it. It was your daddy that put him onto Californie."

            Thurman had had enough by this point and jerked up out of his seat with his eyes flashing and fists clenched at his side. "You're a damned liar, Colton. That never happened."

             I could tell that Colton had deliberately said that to get a rise out of Thurman. He looked over at me with a smug grin that vanished the moment he saw that was I smiling. "What the hell you smiling about. This is man talk, boy! Ain't no laughin matter here!"

         I stood up still smiling, "I had to smile cos of the idea of you remembering a shit that you took. Thurman's right. That never happened."

              "Why you say that? You can call my mama crazy, and I can't say shit about your Pa?"

               "No, you can talk about my Pa all you want. He was a mean old buzzard. It's your daddy we defending. He ain't never been like that. He wouldn't have done that."

                 Colton didn't react, but I could sense the tension in his body and could see the fires burning behind his eyes. He stood up slowly and started backing his way out the door. He left but fired a parting shot, "I get it now, boys. You figure since my daddy ain't got little to do with me that'll you'll horn your way into his good graces and be there to get the money at the end."

               He scooted out the door before Thurman could get to him, the screen door slamming behind him.



            



               

                           

    I got up bright and early the next morning and went to Jill Booth's house. I parked right in front of her house and walked up her sidewalk, up the front steps and knocked loudly upon her door. She answered on the third knock.

     She looked even more beautiful than usual. Her honey blond hair was slightly tousled, and she was still wearing light blue flannel pajamas. When she saw it was me, her green eyes widened with fear and surprise. Her words came out sharp and angular, "What do you want?"

      "I came to get a tear back." I replied. A day before and I would stood before her  mumbling and making a fool out of myself. The conversation with my mother had woken something inside of me.

       "What?" she asked, her face revealing her state of disbelief and curiosity.

        "That one fucking tear I cried the night you dumped me! I want it back," I spoke boldly.

          "Are you drunk? I don't know what the hell you are talking about, Danny Wilson; what tear?"

           "I almost had myself under control that night despite how much it hurt me. But I was betrayed by one, single, damned tear slipping out of eye and running down my check. I know you saw it. I saw your reaction."

            "Are you crazy. This is all about one tear? You're not the only boy who ever cried in front of me. In fact, Mickey does it all the time."

             "I don't give a damn about Mickey does or doesn't do. I'm talking about me. It was only one, and you didn't deserve it in the least. I didn't do anything wrong for me to cry in front of you like a little baby. You're the one who played me for a fool remember. I should have been the one dumping your ass."

              She was stunned and surprised. I could tell by her expression. There was a look of doubt in her eyes, but she was still there and hadn't slammed the door in my face. I watched her eyes carefully as she composed her thoughts before answering, "I told you I was sorry, Danny. I used you to make Mickey jealous, and I was wrong for doing it, and I'm really sorry. I don't know why I keep doing it, I can't seem to control myself."

           I waited patiently until my words were lined up before I answered her with a question, "Do you remember when you were in the ninth grade and some letters started appearing in your locker telling how beautiful you were?"

          It was an old memory but a powerful one. When she remembered it, her eyes suddenly softened. I had stood off in the distance and watched her open one of the letters once and the smile on her face as she read it was etched permanently into my own memory.

              “My heart always timidly hides itself behind my mind. I set out to bring down stars from the sky, then, for fear of ridicule, I stop and pick little flowers of eloquence.”

            Whatever resistance and anger she had when she opened the door and first saw me melted away. 

              "It was you. Damn, I feel so stupid. I should have guessed right away. Was that why you started talking about Cyrano the first time you came over?" She paused to hear my reply, but I didn't give her one. So, she went on, " I was in sitting in Lit class and the teacher read those lines reminding me of those letters. They were so sweet. They made me feel special at a time I was having a lot of trouble with my step-father. I still have them in a box in my closet. Tell me, why did you stop writing them?"

               "You started going out with Mickey. He had the nice car, the perfect teeth, perfect tan, money, football star, every fucking thing that a high school girl looks for in boyfriend. I figured I didn't have a chance in hell."

               "But why didn't you tell me?"

               "Same reason, and I was a coward. I had a lot of self-esteem issues back then. I couldn't help myself. I felt such love for you I had to do something to let it out. So, I wrote the letters, and I would come early and help Mr. Jenkins clean classrooms so that I could put the letters in your locker unnoticed.
              
              " I once went through the day thinking of all the guys in school who could it could be. You remember Lisa, my best friend? We made lists of names. Your name came up as someone who would know the reference to Cyrano De Bergerac. Lisa said you'd be too shy to be the one."

              "Is this the same Lisa who told you that Micky was wrong for you?

           She nodded yes and then looked down at her feet and didn't say anything. After a long pause, she finally mumbled, "He treats me like shit, you know that don't you?"

                "I know, and it's lot, lot worse than you think. He's been with a lot more girls than you know of, and he talks bad about you in front of every one of them and in front of all of his friends. He's told people that the only reason he goes out with you is that his Mom and Dad like you. He doesn't deserve you in the least, and that's why you think that you love him. If he ever stayed faithful long enough for you to see him as he really is and how totally vacuous and stupid he is, you'd drop him in a heartbeat."

                She winced as I spoke, the words slammed hard into her false view of reality. She raised her head slowly and looked me in the eyes before she spoke again, "And what about you, Danny? What's going to happen to you." I watched as a single tear collected at the corner of her left eye and slid slowly down her cheek.

                "Me? I'll be better. I had to wake-up from a dream reality myself and had to realize that anyone who would place Mickey above me doesn't deserve me. Way, I figure, it's the height of stupidity to love someone incapable of loving you." I reached out and gently wiped the tear off of her face with my finger. Holding it up for her to see, I said, "There you go. Debt paid in full."

                 I left her like that, I turned, and I walked away down the sidewalk back to my car. I fumbled in my pocket for the keys, got in the car, started it up and drove away without looking back. It was the  hardest fucking thing I ever did.

                 

      

        The next morning, I crawled out of the back of my dad's truck in the morning to find Pop standing there unshaven in his blue and white spotted pajamas and orange bathrobe holding two cups of hot coffee. I could see the steam rising up out of the coffee.  I jumped down from the bed  to the ground, and he handed me one of the cups. It had a small crack and featured a picture of Fred Flintstone on it.

          I was more than a little bit puzzled. My dad wasn't at work. He was always at work. I handed him back the cup and turned to let down the tailgate, and we sat down on it and I took back the coffee. "What's this all about, Pop? Why ain't you at work?"

           He sat down beside me, took a sip of coffee, then answered , " I called in this morning. I got some business I need to take care of today."

           "You never call in. And you never brought me coffee before. What's up with that?"

             "Well, Danny, it ain't every day that your boy returns home from a trip to outer space.'

              I shrugged, " I don't know about that; I've done it every night this week." I paused and took a drink of coffee myself, "I know it looks kind of crazy, Pop, but I just need some time to think right now. I'm dealing with some issues that kinda got me all jammed up."

               He probed, " And pretending you are sleeping in a spaceship helps you think? That strikes me as a more than a little bit strange."

                 " Like I said, I know it looks weird, Pop, but the back of the truck has always been my place to go in times of trouble. I've always felt more at home there in anywhere else in the world. I used to have such a fun time imagining I was flying through space. I know it's stupid but..." I couldn't find words to finish.

                  Pop laughed, " I used to look out the window and watch you. It made me laugh to see you pretending you were a rocket ship captain, but now it worries me, you are a bit too old to be pretending you are a rocketship pilot."

                 " I ain't pretending anything anymore. I just feel more relaxed sleeping back there. It helps me think I'm in still control of things."

                 Still smiling he poured out the bottom of his coffee cup on the ground, " This here about that Booth girl?"

               I thought about lying to him but didn't, " Yeah, somewhat. How did you know about her?"

               "I'm your dad. I'm supposed to know about such things. I take it you having girl problems."

                "Yeah; she dumped me and went back to her old boyfriend."

                "That Porcine kid?"

                 I nodded.

             " Shit, girl ain't too bright then. All them damn Porcine's are  crazy. I had to punch his grandaddy in the head once because he owed me some money and thought because he was a hotshot that he didn't have to pay me back.  Tell me, this girl know about her step-daddy and her boyfriend's mom?"   

               "Wha..?"    

               "Hell yeah. Them two been carrying on twenty years at least. Rumor has it that her mom was diddling Mr. Porcine too."

            I was dumbfounded and overwhelmed by the news. " Damn, Pop! How do you know all this stuff."

               "Well, your Uncle Thurman used to be real friendly with Mrs. Booth before he met your Aunt Linda. She broke things off with him when that Booth fool started sniffing around her. Booth always been a slippery little weasel. Hell, I was there the night she told Thurman she was going to see him anymore. We were all inside of Chicks Bar and that fool Booth was out in the car waiting for her to get off her shift. Thurman sauntered out the door and Booth took off peeling tires and left her there. Thurman had to give her a ride home."

           " Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle. Wait a minute; when was this?"

          " You don't got no worry. Thurman ain't her daddy. Her real daddy took off before Thurman and her Mama started seeing each other."

           Pop and I sat there and seriously talked for the first time in a real long time. I told him what had happened between Jill and I and about the problems I was having with Mickey and his friends. I was surprised that he didn't try to smother me with advice. He only told me one thing in that regard. He told me not to do anything that would cause me to lose my self-respect.  He also told me to leave my pistol in my drawer at home. Actually, he was kind of strong on that point.

             "Might be too late on that self-respect thing. I cried a single tear the night she broke up with me."

            He looked at me and shook his head sadly, " Got to be honest, Son. That was a damned dumbass thing to do. Women don't like to  see weakness in a man."

                 " I know, Pop. Couldn't be helped."

             "Strange creatures these females. My experience tell me that as a general rule they'd jump over ten men who sincerely loved them to get to the one asshole that'll treat em like shit."

              I laughed ruefully, "Me and you started to see some things the same way."

                " Well, it's about damn time. I was beginning to think that you was going be stupid the rest of your life." He laughed an poked me on the arm after he said it.

                Pop picked up my coffee cup and was going to carry it into the house, but he suddenly stopped after a couple of steps and turned around. "Son, the reason I'm not at work this morning is that I got a cancer tumor on the end of my pecker. I going to have it taken off this afternoon at the hospital in Hartford."

               The news knocked all the wind out of me. I apologized to him for not be around enough to know what was going on. He waved it off and said, " Guess I shouldn't have played with it so much when I was a kid."

               It took me a second to register what he had said, "Ew, Pop, I don't want to hear shit like that.  That's gross."

                 "Just joking, boy. I was trying keep things light. I always had enough girls around that I didn't have to resort to abusing myself. Your Uncle Thurman though....."

                 I held up a hand and cut him off before he could finish. "Enough. I don't want to hear about your and Thurman's adolescent sex life. Sides, Uncle Thurman ain't here to defend himself.... Do I need to worry about this?"

                 "Doc said I should be okay." He was trying to put on a brave face, but I could see he was worried a bit. I stepped toward him and hugged him.

                  " I love you, Pop."

              "Love you too, Son." He hugged me back. We stood like that for over a minute before he broke away saying, "What you say you let me borrow this here rocket ship for a minute so I can go to the store and get me some shaving cream and razor blades? I'll have to spend a night or two in the hospital."

              I took both the coffee cups from him and carried them into the house. Mom was at the kitchen sink washing dishes. She was wearing a blue flowered dress and a white apron. She smiled at me and took the cups from me and dropped them into the soapy water.  She gestured for me to sit down and got out a green tupperware bowl from the opened cupboard and tossed it to me. Then she went to the fridge and got out a carton of milk. Lastly, she brought a box of Kellogg's Corn Flakes and set it down  on the table in front of me.


            "If you want a hot breakfast, you are going to have to get up earlier in the day, Son."

                "This is good, Ma. Thanks."

                Mom poured herself a cup of coffee and came and set down with me. "Danny, did your dad talk to you about things?"

                  "Yeah. He told me. Do I need to worry?"

               "You always need to worry about things. Life isn't so easy that most people ever have time to go flying imaginary spaceships across time and space."

                I frowned, "We talked about that too. I told him I just needed a place to think about things. No pretending about imaginary stuff taking place at all.

                 She looked at me long and hard. I could see that she was worried. She was trying hard not to show it, but I knew that if I said the wrong thing she would start crying. What she said next surprised me, " Danny, do you remember the day you went to school and I threw out all of your stuffed animals?"

                     I hadn't thought about that in years. I was in first grade when it happened. I came home and all my imaginary friends were all gone. She told me that Pop had ordered her to do it. I just nodded.

                       "Your dad made me do that."

                       "I know, Mom, you told me."

                  "I didn't want to do it, but he was adamant. I hid them in our closet for the longest time then gave them to Mrs. Gomez and her twins."

                    "I have to say that it hurt, Mom. I remember that I didn't sleep for about three nights. That sock-monkey was named Ben, and I told Ben all my damn secrets. It bothered me that he might have thought that I was in on it."

                    I saw her getting ready to cry, so I added. " You don't think that Ben mighta told Brenda Gomez about where I hid the money I stole out of Glen's piggy bank?" She looked at me, and I pretended to be thinking about the possibility, "I noticed it was gone right after that."

                    It took her mind off from  crying. I noticed that she was thinking about something. Then she spoke, " Danny, you hid the money in your sock drawer. I put it back in Glen's bank." 

                  "Good. I never did like Brenda Gomez."

              Mom busted out laughing at the thought, and it made me laugh too. After about a minute she tried to stop, and I would something like, "That damn monkey," and she would start rolling again.

                Before I left to go back home and shower, I asked her a question, "Mom, you read the story about Cyrano de Bergerac didn't you?"

                 "About the fella with the big nose?"

                  I nodded.

                  " Yeah, I read it in high school. It was a good story."

                  "Did you think he was a coward?"

                 "If I remember right he was brave warrior. What would make you think he was a coward?"

                  "He never told Roxanne it was him who wrote the letters."

            She thought about it before answering, " That's just men being men, Danny.  Your daddy once beat up three men who got rude with me one night. One of them said something. Your Dad told him to shut up, and the others let it be known that they were all in together. Didn't stop your dad. He lit into all of them.  But, I'll tell ya, I would have a easier time pulling a five carat diamond out of a pig's ass then getting your dad to say he loved me."

             "Pop also said that given a choice a woman would always choose the man that treated her the worse."

               She had to think about that too, but finally said, "There's some truth to that I guess. Your dad was semi-bad boy when I met him, and I had to pull him out of a bar or two at first, but I always knew he had a got heart from the first time I met him, and that's why I chose him."

                  I gave her a long hug then started to leave, but she called me back right before I walked through the doorway.

                 "You want to know what I think about that Booth girl?"

                 I raised my hands in a questioning gesture.

                 "Fuck her."

             I was shocked. I didn't even know that mothers knew that word much less used it, "Damn, Mom! I was kind of harsh, don't you think?"

             She laughed and was wearing the biggest shit-eating grin on I'd ever seen on a human being. " It's your fault, Daniel. You made me remember sitting in Mr. Highwater's Lit  class wanting to tell Cyrano to tell Roxane those very words."

       

     If you can't appreciate the beauty of Miles Davis'a classic album Kind of Blue, then we talk different languages. It is the coolest,  cleanest, most expressive effort to catch God's attention ever. It was released in August of 1959 and was and is the best collection of music ever released.

​

       
​      Thurman and I had lived in Corcoran for a little over year and a half and had done pretty well for ourselves. We both were working steady and were pretty much staying busy building a new life for ourselves. Thurman had already gotten his first raise, and I wasn't thinking too much about Stewie and Guinnie which, truth be told, was probably the reason I was out here in the first place

         I suppose with things going that well that something had to change; I was kind of expecting it to tell the truth. I guess it was the just a big ol dose of backwoods suspicion in me. Way I figured it was that God doesn't want any of us to get to smug or certain about things. Lot of people would say that it was some kind of flaw in the ways of God, but not me. I had seen it happen too many times to think that failure and mischief of fate wasn't all part of the plan. 

              I remember growing up that whenever something good happened, I always waited for something bad to happen to level things out. I know I overdid it at times but that stubborn doubt I always felt, I could lay on my upbringing and my Pa.

          I figured that sometimes things have to change for things to grow. I don't know where I got ahold of that notion, but it made some kind of sense to me. One night I was sittin in a tent revival listening to a  fire and brimstone preacher talk about the mess that Adam and Eve got themselves into in the Garden of Eden, and he said something to the effect that all us humans are just trying to make our way back to the Garden. There was something in the way he said it that rubbed me raw.

            Adam and Eve didn't put that apple tree in the Garden, the snake neither. And if it was God who laid out the plans for the place, then he must have had a reason, and the only thing I could think of was that he didn't want people sitting on their ass all the time living on nuts and fruits. Why else would he put the best fruit tree right smack dab in the middle of the place and then tell people not to eat the fruit. If he really wanted them not to eat it, he could've hid it in the darkest corner of the Garden providing it had one.

         Ever one was calling Oklahoma the Dust Bowl and were always going on about how bad the situation was there. It wasn't always that way though. It was good country most of the time, a little humid at times, but still a good place.

          It seemed to me that the dust, the dirt and the dark gray skies were like a thick membrane that separated the past from the future. Oklahoma was always hard country; don't get me wrong, but it was green and beautiful at the same time. There were lots of animals to hunt and raise, lots of water, and the ground was rich and bountiful.

          There were plenty of rosy cheeked girls and lots of good people too, funny people with weird traits and strange ways of thinking. That's the way it's supposed to be, otherwise life would be boring.

        Then the weather turned bad, the winds started to blow, and the bankers started clamoring for their money, and all the bad habits of the farmers were exposed for all the world to see. Ever body else saw it as a disaster of Biblical proportions. I did too at first, but once I got out on the road I started to to believe that it was God's way of saying, "Quit worrying about Oklahoma; the place is in good hands. It'll eventually make out fine, but I really need some of you folks to head out west."

          If Guinnie and Stewie hadn't died, I woulda  growed into a old fat-assed  farmer and one day woulda died in the same bed and room as my Pa. Way I saw it, God wanted other things for me. I don't know if I had crafted this way of thinking to justify leaving my past behind me, or the bitterness of the loss and the pain had crafted it to justify me.

             The one thing I knew was that I wasn't hankering to go back to the Garden anytime real soon. I had just left and there were way too many damned snakes there at the moment and way too many bad memories of Pa. I talked to Thurman about it later, and he said, "Hell no, why would I want to go back there. Remember, I played the Prodigal Son there once, and all I got out of it was watching Mama die of a broken heart."

         "Well, you made her last years a lot easier, and you got your  dumb-assed brother out of Oklahoma. You should be some satisfied on both accounts." 

            He thought it over some before saying, " Yes, I guess I did. I learned a big lesson too. Most folks spend they whole life trying to be happy, and I understand that smiles and laughter are kind of rare in this world. Those kind of memories need to be treasured and stored, but the satisfaction that comes from doing what you needed to be doing is the real object of life not eating grapes and sitting on your ass being happy all the time. "

             I was amazed, "Damn, Thurm, that shit was profound. Maybe you ought to take that preacher's place. .... back to the Garden my ass. Something tells me that lil sumbitch never worked in dirt or had a Pa like ours."

              "I dunno, the way he talks about his God, sounds a lot like Pa."

            My way of thinking meant I kept my eyes on the ground looking for snakes. I read somewhere that was how us humans developed. It meant that I kept eyes off the skies and distant horizons a lot, probably too much, but it was necessary for the time being I guess.

           Them snakes showed up too. They always do. At first, they were hard to see because these here were California snakes and were well adapted to their surroundings.

            The first one was named Colton Welles, Uncle Bill's ne'er-do-well son by his first wife. He had spent the last five years in the state penitentiary for armed robbery. He had just finished his sentence and returned to Corcoran expecting to be welcomed home with open arms. He wasn't. Uncle Bill didn't even show up at the bus station to pick him up. Colton just showed up at their doorstep one day.

             Colton was tall and gaunt looking. He had a hard look and two dark eyes that look like smoldering shotgun pellets. His head was shaved, and he had couple days dark growth of it coming back. His rumpled, blue work shirt was sleeveless, and he had a tattoo of a rattlesnake wrapped around a tree limb on his left bicep and word MOM written in blue ink on his right forearm. He was also missing a couple of teeth on the top right side of his mouth.
​
        Aunt Jean told me later that Colton had it all worked out in his head that he was going to live in the house where Thurman and I were staying. She said he got angry when Uncle Bill put the kibosh to that plans. She did call around and got him a small cabin in a labor camp on the other side of town, and Uncle Bill called in a favor and got him a job a loading sacks  on seed drilling crew.

             They had us over to dinner that night and Colton was there. We was eating chicken and mashed taters when he up and asked Uncle Bill what Thurman was doing for a living, and Uncle Bill told him. Then he asked what I was doing, and Uncle Bill told him.

        His eyes flashed with anger, his face turned bright red and he threw down his fork, "What the hell, Pa. I'm a mechanic too. I learned how to work on engines on the inside. I'm a damn good mechanic too. Why I gotta load seed for? And this here dude, he'a cutting meat! Why I got to  live in a one shack when my daddy owns a two bedroom house that ain't even being used." 

       My Uncle Bill didn't bat an eye. His face didn't get red or nothing. He calmly stated, " Colton, you better mind your damned manners in this house. The house I own is being used. My nephews are living there. These boys came by their jobs honest. You think I would just hand over property to you after what you stole from me. You even took money out of Jean's purse remember. And how you expect me to set you up in a good job after all the stuff you done. Hell, most the people in this town are related to or know all the people you done wrong to. You got two choices. One, you can work it off in time and learn that there's a price to pay for everything bad that you do in this world. Or, two, you can go back doing what you were doing fore you got locked up. I don't suspect the state'd mind putting you up for a few more years."

             You could tell at first his daddy's answer made him angrier, but Colton quickly sized up the situation and calmed down, or at least, pretended to. He sat back down in his chair, "Sure Pop, you're right. I knowed I got some rehabilitating to do. Sorry, boys. No offense. I guess I just dreamed about the way things were going to be so long, I fooled myself into thinking everything would be just waiting for me where I left off . . . . Mama Jean this here gravy is the best thing I et in five years, can I have some more."

         He wasn't fooling no one at the table, not even himself. To a person we knew that Colton Welles was going to cause trouble.

            Strangely enough, Thurman didn't even talk about what happened at dinner. We'd been around too many people like Colton to let his shit bother us. Thurman had told a lot of stories about all the carnies he had met when he ran away. Some of them, he held up as the cream of the crop, but some of them were the worse dregs that society had to offer.

               That night he wanted to talk about Sersie, so I let him. I asked him though, "It's plain to me that you loved that girl. I saw how happy you was that night in Reno when you finally met up with her. The question I got to ask is why the fuck didn't you marry her when you had the chance?"

            He looked at me and laughed, "Damned, Billy John, I thought you knew. I asked her, begged her actually, and she wouldn't have me."

           "You never said nothing about that, how was I supposed to know. I thought you never asked her. Hell, I thought she was crazy about you."

        He winced a little at the question and sighed before answering, "She loved me as much as she was capable of loving another human being, that's why she said no. She knew that she'd hurt me bad sooner or later, so, in a way, she was trying to protect me."

           That got my curiosity up, but I was puzzled too, "Protect you? By breaking your damn heart?"

              He laughed again, "I knowed it sounds crazy, but it was true. Hell, Junior, Sersie wasn't human, she was more like a force of nature. You just don't up and put a wedding ring on a storm wind or try to domesticate a lighting bolt. I woulda died in the trying." He paused and thought about what he had said, then chuckled, " Tell me you didn't have lustful thoughts about her too."

                 I tried to lie, "Naw.."

                "Quit lying."

                "Well, maybe once or twice.."

            Thurman's laughter sounded crazier this time, " Man, she had those green eyes, and those ruby lips...." He eyes rolled back, and he went back in time to find some more words to explain her, " She told me once that her own daddy started messin with her when she was twelve years old, and that when she was fifteen her daddy, her Uncle John, and her cousin Fred got in a damn knock down brawl fighting over who was gonna sleep with  her  that night. Said they used to use her like that for quite a spell till she ran away..

              Sersie was real sweet though once you got by all the needles and the thorns. Trouble was they kept growing right back. I think she loved  me more anyone in the whole damn world but  never  trusted me completely. If God hisself had come down and promised her happiness, she would have gave him the side-eye."

               "I don't understand how come her mom didn't put a stop to that kind of stuff."

                  "Hell, her daddy had beat her mama to frazzle a time or two. She killed herself if you remember. Told Sersie she was gonna do it too. Swallowed a bunch of rat poison."

              I thought about it a while, "You know, iffn I was Sersie, I think I would have killed her dad."

          Thurman laughed that strange laugh again, "What makes you think she didn't?"
                

         "Sersie Miller's dead! And it's my fault."

      Thurman arrived home from his job as a mechanic for Wellbos Farms and blurted the words out as soon as he walked through the front door. His eyes were crazy looking and his hair was  ever where as if he'd been pulling it out with his fingers.

     He normally cleaned up good after work and usually came home looking kind of neat despite the hours of working up to his elbows in grease and oil. His blue work shirt was untucked and his sleeves were still rolled up. There was a grease mark still on his forehead, something that wouldn't a happened normally.

        "What happened?" I asked him. I had just gotten home myself. I was working at Anderson's Grocery Store as a butcher. My Aunt Jean's cousin Joe was head butcher there and took me on as a trainee as a favor. I half expected Thurman to say that her ex-husband had killed her because of her dalliance with Thurman in Reno.

         " A drunk ran a stop sign and hit the car she was in. Sersie and her Uncle Dave died just outside of Ft. Sumner, New Mexico."

         "Well, I don't see how you fit in considering she was heading back to Oklahoma to get back with her husband."

           He repeated, "She was killed just outside of Fort Sumner. I told her all about our trip to Fort Sumner to see where Billy the Kid was killed. She must have told her Uncle about it, and he must have decided he wanted to see it too."

           " And you know this how? Hell, Thurman it could just have been some random event that put them there."

          "Seems unlikely. I just saw her in Reno 'member. There was no other reason for her to be near Fort Sumner."

          I had just opened a cold beer. To give myself time to think, I went and got Thurman one out of the icebox, opened it with the opener  mounted on the side of the counter, and handed it to him. He looked a question at it then took it.

         " Thurm there's a lot of shit that life throws out at a person in a normal lifetime. Wouldn't you agree?"

      He drank a big gulp of beer, " What's that got to do with anything?"

                "It just seems strange to me, that a person would go out of his way to lay claim to all the random shit that's doesn't even seem to be aimed in his direction."

             "How else would you explain it?"

            "I'd say they went to visit someone they knew and got in a wreck and died."

          Why he was so disappointed in me, I didn't understand. He looked at me strangely, finished his beer and went a sat outside on the porch. He took the empty beer bottle  and placed it down next to him.

       "You don't understand squat about the way the world works, Junior."

       "I know that if you took the credit for ever sumbitch that died after coming in contact with you, you'd have to be the  Grim Reaper his on damn self."

         "Still, if I hadn't said nothing, she might still be alive."

       "Maybe so, but I do got a grip on the fact that you didn't have nothing to do with her getting in that car wreck. Now, if she had come with us and got into a wreck, then maybe your driving skills, or lack thereof, might have had something to do with it. . . .. She made her own decisions, Thurm. She always did."

         That final statement seem to give him some peace; he calmed down some, but it wasn't complete. After a moment of thinking, he said, " What Daddy did to her that day in Church might have led to her being on that road."

          I knowed he had a serious soft spot for Sersie, but this shit was getting out of hand and was starting to annoy me, "You mean the day Pa try to sacrifice you to Jesus? Damn, Thurm. Ever one in that church knew that girl was snaky wild;  that's how she came to be naked in that barn with you that day.  No one  needed Pa pointing it out to them. Hell, did you forget the rumor that she had the Preacher stealing money out of the collection plates trying to get her to elope with him?"

         After a while thinking about it, he muttered, "Maybe, it wuhna my fault after all."

        I just nodded and answered, "Prolly not," and went and got him another beer.

        We had gotten our own place. It was a small two bedroom house owned by Aunt Jean and Uncle Bill. It was something of a luxury because so many families coming west were doubling up in small shacks or even living in tents on the outskirts of town.

       We got lucky with our jobs too. Aunt Jean and Uncle Bill had came out to California early and were pretty well established by the time we followed. They'd helped a lot of our family and friends relocate and knew a lot of people. It sure paid off for Thurman and me.

           Thurman was a good mechanic, another skill he had picked up as a carnie. It just so happened that the man who had lived in Aunt Jean's rental house was the butcher that I replaced. His wife's father had passed away back in Arkansas and owned a small farm near Mountain View. They went back to take possession of it.

          We had it pretty good all things considered. We both knew a lot of people who didn't. Working at the grocery I would see them come in and count their pennies in front of the meat counter trying to figure out how much bologna or ground beef they could buy. I'd see some of them in the early morning when I arrived to get things ready for the day.

         Groups of men and women would cluster in the parking lot next door hoping to pick up rides to the fields, or wait to see if anyone would come by needing someone for a day's work or two. A lot of time, they would be standing there hours for nothing watching as truck after truck drove out of the lot and  turned south on Dairy Avenue and headed south towards the farms that surrounded Corcoran. Mr. Anderson put fresh pots of coffee out for them ever morning. He didn't have to do that. Sometimes his wife would bake bread all night and put it out there too.

       One day, I went outside to dump the trash cans and saw a guy we knew as Elbert Lawson slumped down against a telephone pole. People were so busy attending to their own business that they hadn't even noticed he had died.

       Elbert was about six feet two and weighed near four hunnerd pounds. He'd be out there ever morning trying to hustle up a ride. A lot of people wouldn't take him because he was so big. A lot of us felt sorry him because he was a lot older and all alone. Mr. Anderson not only gave me time off to attend the funeral, he went with me. There were only four of us there. Mr. Anderson asked me if I knew a hymn that we could sing. The only one I could think of was "This World is Not My Home".  He knew it too, so we sang it and a couple of the others joined in.

          While I sang, I thought of Guinnie's hasty burial. I had sang the hymn then, or tried to, but Thurman didn't join in though. He was too impatient to get the hell out of Oklahoma.  I felt real bad for Elbert. We couldn't notify anyone of his passing cos none of us knew anything about him except he hung round the store in the morning trying to hustle up a ride. Mrs. Jennings, his landlady, said there wasn't nothing in his room but some clothes, a hairbrush, and picture of him wearing prison clothes. She was a habitual liar though.

           After eating dinner at Mrs. Jones's Cafe on main street, Thurman and I mosied next door to get a drink at Chickadee's Poker Emporium. We nodded to my Uncle Bill who was sitting at a table in the corner when we walked in.

         We was three beers into the night when Thurman proposed a toast to Sersie Miller. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't expecting it. I fished in my pocket, drew out fifty cents and paid the barkeep for a couple of shots of Three Roses bourbon, you would never would mistake it for the shit they made in Kentucky, but it was what they had, so we did what our kinfolks had done for untold generations and made do.

        Thurman hoisted his glass, muttered," The wildest, sexiest, craziest woman I ever knew," tossed it back, and placed his glass down gently on the bar.

        I followed suit after saying, "May she find more peace in heaven then she ever found in this here world."

        After a minute Thurman asked me, "You think that God would have mercy on someone like Sersie, Junior? I mean knowing ever thing she done and all."

       I thought about it some before I answered, "You know, Thurm, I do. I really do. He'd know the root causes of why she acted the way she did. Sides, if he up and barred ever woman who tempted a preacher to short change a collection plate,  the place'd be kinda boring."

         That brought out a hint of a smile.

       "Tell me. You honestly think she found her own way to that road outside of Fort Sumner?"

          This time I didn't hesitate, "I do, Thurman. I  do."
                 

            

       
        

      I woke up early in the morning because I had a crick in my neck. I sat up and rubbed on it a while. I held the top of my head with one hand and turned my neck ever which way tryna get it loose.

       When I laid back down, I lay on my back and was surprised at how much better it felt. It was then I remembered that I had been sleeping on my side ever since Mama died four years ago. For some reason, after she died, I couldn't sleep on my back without thinking I couldn't breathe.

       I lost a lot sleep because of it and eventually had to go to see Doc Anderson who gave me some sleeping medicine and told me to sleep on my side. I was still taking the medicine whenever I got worried although Guinnie kept telling me not too. She even got Thurman on me about it. I took the last of it before I got in the truck to leave. Thurman tossed the empty brown bottle in the flames of the cabin.

        Laying on my back for a change felt damn good. I took the bottom of my left foot and placed it on the calf muscle of my right leg. It was something I had done in childhood whenever I felt anxious about sleeping. I forgotten all about that I even done it.

       Something relaxed in me. I thought it might be all the pent up energy in my body finally getting the freedom to flow. On the way to California, Thurman had been telling me about some of the stuff that them people over on China side of the world thought about things. He said that sometimes they would sit on the ground and try to control their breathing in order to let the energy flow freely around their body.

         I told him that if most of the people I knew had to think about their breathing, they would probably forget how and die.  He was on a roll talking about it though and didn't much like my stab at humor. When he ignored it, I repeated it.

          "I said if most of the people I know had to think about their breathing, they would die."

         "I heard you the first time; I didn't think it was particularly funny."

              "You a lie. You know that shit was funny. You just mad cause I made a joke while you was talking serious."

              "As usual you was making light of a serious subject."

             "Well tell me, what's so damn hard about breathing? Every idiot I know can do it."

         " Then why you still side sleeping for; think I done forgot that? Sides, it wasn't just about just breathing. It was about figuring out how control your breathing in order to free your mind up of all the clutter ."

             "Now ya saying my mind is cluttered?"

           "Naw, what I'm saying is you full of shit." He clammed up after saying that and didn't say nothing else for an hour or two.

         I had to admit though, that turning over flat on my back in the bed did something good. And if I had to admit that, then I had to admit that maybe Thurman and them Asian people were on to something. I thought it could have been the energy getting loose inside me and maybe taking out some of that clutter that Thurman had been talking about.

         I also had to admit that I had been moping around in a storm cloud ever since Mama took sick. After she died, Papa didn't have much use for this here world no how. Hell, he didn't have any friends to speak of, never did, and I suspect he was pretty lonely. Giving Mama and us boys hell had been his whole life for the better part of forty years. With Mama gone, and Thurman and I grown too big to take his sass, he might just have ran out of a reason to live.

        He died barely a year later. Then Stewie, and then Guinnie. The once beautiful land of Oklahoma suddenly turned Egyptian with plague after plague being visited upon my family. I most surely learned to understand all the anger, hopelessness, sorrow, and rage of them Bible times when dead frogs, blood, locusts, and the Angel of Death swept across the Nile lands. 

         After we had stayed in Sacramento a couple of days and thought that we had saw whatever we need to see there, Thurman and I had driven over toward the coast to get ourselves a look-see at the Pacific Ocean. We had heard so much about it when we were young we really didn't know what to expect. Aunt Jean had even written Mama once telling her that the sunsets over the ocean must have been the reason that God had created the world and everything in it.

         We found our self a place to park on cliff overlooking the ocean near a spot named Half Moon Bay. While we were looking at it,  Thurman couldn't contain hisself and started prattling on about this feller named Francis Drake. Oh yeah, make that, SIR Francis Drake. Thurm sure did put a lot of faith in that Sir at the beginning of his name. Said it was given to him by Queen Elizabeth herself. 

          But the news only made me mad, "Goddamn it Thurman. We are standing here looking at the most awe inspiring thing I probably ever seen, and you keep goin on about some English feller with a girl's name. You amaze me some times. Normally, it's you staring all googly eyed at something like this." The sun was starting to sink out over the ocean and I was starting to realize that Aunt Jean's letter to Mama didn't do the scene justice. The sun setting was turning the sky into all kinds of purty colors I had never seen before. Sunsets in Oklahoma were pretty too, but this here was wondrous beyond words to describe. I pointed out toward the beautiful horizon.

           Needless to say, Thurman got pissed, "That right? I bet you rank it right up there Hilda Spring's ass? I'm surprised you didn't say it's just a big bunch of water." He turned red. I understood that he was just embarrassed that I had cut him off on that Drake guy. " Tell me Mr. Most Inspiring Thing I Ever Did See what does it make you think about?"

            I thought about it for a minute, but couldn't come up with a reply. We had backed the truck right up against edge of small cliff. The tailgate was down, and we were sitting on it on one of Mama's quilts, eating salted crackers and cheddar cheese, and sipping on a couple of Coca-Colas.  I kept looking backwards over my shoulder towards the road the whole time. 

              Thurman noticed and asked, "Whadda you keep looking over your shoulder for, Junior? You reminding me of Old Billy Randolph with that old crooked neck of his."

            I shrugged, " I don't rightly know. I guess I'm waiting for the Pharaoh's army to show up and drag our sorry asses back kicking and screaming to Oklahoma."

            Thurman was first stunned, then started to laugh but stopped before he got it out. He looked at me, quickly turned and looked out at the ocean and took a drink off his soda pop. Something about what I had said struck a chord, "Damn it, Junior. That actually made some sense in a seriously dumbass way."

              I was just starting to get use to him laughing at the things I said, I was caught completely off guard by his second hand complement. I didn't know what else to say, so I said, "Whadda we do, if they show up?"

            He took another sip and thought about it some more, " Well, since Moses ain't sitting here eating crackers with us, I think we'd be seriously fucked.

           I nodded and tossed a piece of cracker to a seagull that was eyeing it hard. "Then let's hope they don't show up then."

           We sat there till the sun went down and the sky turned black. They didn't show up that day, or the next, and we finally made our way to Uncle Bill and Aunt Jean's house where we were received with a shit load of kisses, hugs, and open arms. It was great to see family especially Aunt Jean. She had taken care of both of us once when Mama was sick, and we had formed a very strong attachment.

    She had only had one baby, and it died after six months. Uncle Bill had a son by a previous marriage, but he was bad news and was always locked up somewheres. She gave Thurman and me all that extra love that she'd been saving for her own children.

           She cooked us up a whopper of a home cooked meal with bacon, eggs, biscuits, gravy, greens, and taters. Uncle Bill even broke out a jar of shine he'd been saving for a special occasion. After eating, we sat up talked and laughed for hours about old times. Uncle Bill had to work the next day, so he  hugged us both and stumbled off to bed. Aunt Jean and us went into the kitchen, sat down, and talked real low for more than an hour more.

            It all reminded me of how I didn't want to go home after Mama had gotten better. It was hard to leave all the love in that house and go back into the gloom and doom of a bitter father and mother trying her best but too weak to withstand the worst of it. I was always ashamed of that feeling because I knew how hard it was on Mama trying to protect us from Papa's random rages. I always went out of my way to try to make Mama smile at least once a day and to lighten her load whenever possible.

         Watching Aunt Jean talk and laugh while she was telling us a story about how she accidentally let loose a fart in church while everybody else was praying, reminded me of my efforts to bring Mama joy and that feeling of guilt that had prompted them. I made out like I needed to get something from the other room to keep her and Thurman from seeing me cry.

          Later that nigh, as we both lay in dark trying to sleep, Thurman asked me a question, "Billy, I been laying here thinking. We didn't do nothing wrong. We was victims as much of anything. Why would we have to worry that the whole of Pharaoh's army be after us?"

           The power of those words hit me hard and made my chest jerk. I had felt guilty my whole damn life and never really understood why. I always figured it must have something to do with some sin or another. I rolled over to face him, ' Bible says we all have sinned and come short of the glory of God."

​            "Yeah, but a whole damn army of Egyptians?"

          I thought about it, then said, " You know, we never did pay Old Man Jewell for that mule we took."
        
           I was more than a little surprised when he answered, "That's what you think. I took that mule back to him fore we left, gave him ten dollahs, and told him it was Pinky's fault we took it in the first place."

           I smiled to myself in the dark. " Hell, it might be Pinky chasing us then."

          "Whew!" he put on sounding relieved, " Thadda be great. Pinky ain't got enough sense to find his way out of Oklahoma much less lead an army."
               
                     
                
                 

           
​          " I don't think I'd pick him up, Thurm. He looks way too damned crazy." I knew soon as the words left my mouth that Thurman was going to pick him up anyway. 

           The old man standing on the side of the road looked a lot like my great-uncle Bo, and that didn't reflect well on either his character or his looks. Bo was one of my momma's Arkansas uncles and an ex-con who had spent a good deal of his life incarcerated. I knew the reasons why I felt reluctant to stop were the same reasons that inclined Thurman to pull over on a solitary back road that supposedly was leading us into the small farming community of Corcoran.

           We hadn't been on that road five minutes before we spotted him standing at the side of road with his right thumb raised. He was a scrawny looking, tall, thin man wearing a dirty gray jacket, a high buttoned work shirt, a shabby looking homburg hat pulled down low over his eyes, and a battered looking pair of brown boots. One pant leg was over one boot and the other was tucked into a boot. He looked like he hadn't shaved for about a week or two.

              "Howdy neighbor, thanks for pulling over. Been out here since dawn, and people just been passin me by like I's carrying the plague." He opened the door, I slid over, and the dingy looking fellow jumped into the cab. He stuck out a grimy hand, "Name's Wilcox. Orville Wilcox."

             When he spoke, it revealed two missing front teeth. I also noticed he had a long scar under his left eye. I shook his hand and saw that he had a small  tattoo of the Stars and Bars on his right forearm.

            Thurm introduced us both, "I'm Thurman Jackson and this here's my brother BJ, or Billy John. "Where ya headed?"

            "Going to this here town up the road a piece called Corcoran to see my Uncle Jed. I just got out the pen in Oklahoma, both my parents died while I was locked up, and I been hitchen rides out here ever since."

             "Your uncle named Wilcox too?" Thurman asked.

             " Yep; came out here from Marmaduke a couple years ago. Said he could get me a job ginning cotton."

             "If your aunt's name is Belinda, I think I know ya uncle."

            The man beamed, "That's her, my aunt Belinda Jean. She killed a man a bar fight once. You know her?"

           Thurman answered excitedly, "Hell yeah, I know her. She was workin the ring game game for us when I was with the carnival. Ain't that somethin." Thurman got so excited about the coincidental meeting, that he didn't even notice the gun that Wilcox drawn out of his jacket.

         Thurm was still talking when he turned and saw it. Things suddenly went silent.

              "Lookie here boys. We don't need no more trouble than it needs to be. I can't go showing up at my uncle's door step like a bum. If you just hand me over what cash you got on ya, we'll call it all square and no one gets hurt."

           Thurman looked at me and then at Wilcox; I looked at him then at Wilcox, then back at Thurman. We both started laughing. Wilcox kept trying to scowl and act all menacing and shit, but it wasn't having any effect on either of us.

              Thurman was trying to get his laughter under control, " What kind of damn idiot comes out west, to rob a couple of broke ass Okies? Hell, you'd got out a week earlier, you could've robbed us in Adair."

              That made me laugh even harder, and it was minute before I could add in my two bits, "What was you locked up for in Oklahoma, stealing church plates?"

                Me and Thurman were laughing so hard Thurm had to pull over to keep from wrecking the truck. Wilcox was turning redder and redder and getting madder and madder and kept threatening to shoot us both.

            Thurman, still laughing, told him, "That damn gun of yours looks older than dirt, and it probably ain't even got no bullets in it."

               "Yessiree," I added, "You shoulda stuck up somebody for some bullets for you started robbing perfect strangers."

               "It does too have some God-damn bullets!"he screamed. Then Wilcox turned the gun toward his face to look at the chamber before he pulled the trigger. There was a flash of fire, some blue smoke, and an explosion that blew a small round hole in the roof of the truck. While Wilcox was sitting there dumbfounded by the explosion, Thurman reached over and wrenched the gun out of his hands.

                He pointed it toward Wilcox and spat, "Get your ass out this truck, asshole!"

             Wilcox was still so shocked by the turn of events that he didn't budge an inch, but his face twisted up into the saddest looking image of human being that I had ever seen, and he started crying.

               "I'm sorry fellas. I'm in desperate means. You know Belinda. She ain't gonna give me nothing but shit when I get there. I needed some money to buy her a bottle of gin to soften her up some, so she would let me stay till I got my feet under me."

              Thurman was mad, "Ever body out here's desperate, Orville. You don't leave everthing you own come 1300 miles lessen you're desperate."

               Wilcox persisted, "Please, Thurman, at least give me a ride the rest of the way. My damn feet are killing me, and I ain't et anything in three days."

             Thurman glared at him for a minute before relenting, " Give him one of them biscuits we saved from breakfast, Billy." After I dug the biscuit out of the glove box and handed it to Wilcox, he added, " Only reason I picked you up was I felt sorry for ya. I knew you was a felon the moment I laid eyes on you. I worked with enough ex-cons during my days with the carnival to know how hard they got it."

           Wilcox gobbled the biscuit down in one bite. I took out the whiskey flask I had bought in a souvenir store in Reno and handed it to him. He took a swallow, looked at me pleading, and I nodded, so he drank it down. He wiped his lips with his jacket sleeve and handed the flask back to me.

             "I knowed I'm pitiful boys, and I wasn't planning on robbing no Okies, not lessen I had to.'

            "Fuck that! Quit trying to steal off honest people, Orville. Ever body got it hard out here. Hell, we been on the road less than a month, and they already tried to rob us three times. That shit just makes it hard on people."

           The outburst shut Wilcox up. He rode in silence the rest of the way staring silently out the window. Every now and then I would hear him sniffle and wipe something out of his eye.

           We dropped him off at his uncle's house on a street on the outskirts of town but not before stopping at a small store and buying him a pint of gin. Thurman amazed me that way. He would have shot the fool before and not thought twice about it, but his heart was also as soft as a cloud at the same time.

            As we pulled away from the front of Wilcox's uncle's house, I asked, " How did you know he wouldn't shoot us?"

             Thurman almost started to laughing again, "I didn't. I couldn't stop laughing at the craziness of it all."

               We both laughed at his answer,  then I asked, "You said that people have tried to rob us three times. Counting Wilcox, I know of two times. You know something I don't know?"

              He shifted gears then looked over at me, " Sersie tried to snake my billfold in Reno. When I grabbed her hand, she pulled out a knife on me."

              " You didn't tell me this?"

          "Hell, it wasn't your billfold. Sides, you didn't mention that family trying to rob you and that old man trying to sodomize you till we was in clear out of New Mexico."

            He was right. I thought about it a minute then retorted, " Wasn't your butt."

           Thurman laughed louder and harder than I had ever heard another human being laugh. The closer we got to where we were going, the easier it seemed to evoke a sense of humor in someone who had never had much reason to laugh before.

            We had finally reached our destination, and while the episode with Wilcox was kinda of an ominous start to our new beginning, it, at least, looked like we would share some laughter in whatever that beginning turned out to be.  For the moment, that was enough, that was plenty. 

            I looked over at Thurman. He was still smiling.

         "This here map they sent says Uncle Bill's house is about a mile straight this road."

            Thurman nodded and shifted gears.