It's been said, time and time again, that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but my question is this: can the same be said for happiness? After all, happiness, as is beauty, is subjective; we all have different ideas of what it can mean.

For example, happiness could be as simple as someone getting their dream job after months and months of grueling interviews and obsessively checking their email, resulting in them being catapulted into career success and immense financial gain. They've worked for this, day-in and day-out, and now it's here and they're beyond ecstatic. On the other hand, happiness, for some, could be having children. You watch them grown and learn, as they weave together their own life, make their own triumphs and mistakes and, ultimately, find their own happiness along the way. The point is this: happiness is everything and it's nothing, all at the same time, and that's the beauty of it. A lot can be said about what makes a person happy by breaking down their background, as everyone has different desires and needs. Something so insignificant to one individual could mean the world to another.

So while it's difficult to determine, in a broad sense, what happiness means to someone, the one thing that we can all agree upon is that happiness is better for us...period. Having a positive mindset and being generally happy with where you are in your life, typically results in a better lifestyle, overall. It could potentially lead to better health, more positive relationships or even a sense of purpose.

It may come as a shock but, for the most part, everyone is happy in one way or another. While we may have grand ideas of what we need in order to be happy (job, marriage, children, an education, etc.), we often take for granted the things that we do have that truly give us happiness. Instead of constantly trying to move towards something that we believe will bring us happiness, it's advisable to look at things from above, in a third-person point-of-view, and see all the things that we already have. While it's perfectly acceptable, and beneficial, to move towards goals, it's best to not lose sight in where you are and how fortunate you are to just be alive.

To quote an overused metaphor, 'life is a rollercoaster of emotions'; sometimes we'll be happy, sometimes we won't. The important takeaway here is to find your own happiness; feel the sunshine on your skin; go for a walk and breath fresh air; open the door and tell someone 'Hello'. If we each find a way to spread a little happiness each day, then maybe we can be happier ourselves, knowing that we are spreading love and positivity. Happiness is subjective, but kindness is not. Spread a little kindness, receive a little happiness.

This is how it appeared and I didn’t change or alter anything but you will see bold text from me in regards to certain things here.

For most of us, this is something we are all pretty much familiar with but new users may not be so much. If you care to, you can direct new users here so they can get something of a feel on how some things work.

This fall (reminder this is three years old) marks one year since the official launch of Prose. for iOS. Did you know that it began as a mobile app only?

Since that time, the web version has been created, features have been added to both mobile and web, and version 2.0 of the mobile application has been released. With version 2.0 came a number of initiatives, including the Partner Program (more information below) and the monthly KDP challenges which result in formally published e-book collections of works by you, the foundation of the Prose. community.

We want to take this time to catch you all up on the basic functionality of the platform. Since inception we have received a number of inquiries as well as feedback and suggestions for improvement. In preparation for our next update, we want to be sure that you are all familiar with the ins and outs of the existing interface.

What follows is a recap of what is available on the current web and mobile versions of Prose. If you would like to see more information on any of these features, or have additional questions about Prose, feel free to comment below or send us a private message anytime.

UTILIZING SEARCH

If you’re looking for content on a particular subject or from a specific author, a universal search feature is available on both the mobile and web versions of Prose.

To access this feature on iOS, simply tap the Prose. logo at the top left of your home screen to view the main menu. Tap “search” and type out your desired search criteria. The results will populate in three (3) categories: Posts, People, and Challenges.

Can’t remember the title of a poem you wrote several weeks ago? Avoid needless scrolling by typing out a line or phrase from the poem into the search bar and find it instantly.

EDITING YOUR PROFILE

You can change your bio, registration email address, personal details, and your profile image. In your profile settings you also have the opportunity to turn your mature content filter on or off.

To do so on iOS, you will need to click on the Prose logo at the top left of your home screen which will populate a drop-down menu. By selecting “profile” you will be redirected to your Prose. profile. Tap “edit profile” to make desired changes and tap “save” to implement them.

To do so on the web, you will need to click on your avatar at the top right of your screen. This will populate a drop-down menu. By selecting “profile” you will be redirected to your Prose. profile. Tap “edit profile” to make desired changes and click “save.”

USING THE DRAFTS FEATURE

Note: you must register for Prose. to have access to this feature.

When logged in, you can create drafts for works in progress then retrieve them for later editing and publication. Once a draft has been created, any edits and updates will save automatically.

To save, click on the blue save icon. To retrieve your draft, click on the cloud icon. Note: hashtags and images will NOT be saved with your draft, but we will work to build that functionality into future mobile and web updates.

UPLOADING IMAGES TO POSTS

Adding images to your work is a great way to increase visibility and provide visual interest to your readers, but it is not a requirement for posting on Prose. Resolution and dimensions of your images are pre-set and cannot be edited, however, you can change the position and zoom in for effect upon uploading an image.

NOTE: There is currently a break in functionality that results in some images not rendering once a post is published. To avoid this mishap, rather than uploading your image first, upload it right before hitting the “publish” button.

On mobile, the “choose photo” option will redirect to the image library on your mobile device. If you are using web, you will be redirected to your documents and files where you can then choose a .JPEG or .PNG file to upload. No other file formats are permitted at this time.

USING AND CREATING HASHTAGS

You will note that there is a default list of hashtags (poetry, fiction, fantasy, nonfiction, etc.) but you can create your own easily. The only restrictions are that there be no “special characters” or spaces within the tag itself.

To add/edit tags on mobile: Once you have typed out your post title and body, tap “preview” and then select “add hashtags” and tap the desired tag. A blue check mark confirms that the tag has been selected. Tap “done” to save the tags. To remove undesired tags, tap “add hashtags” and deselect to remove the check mark which will then remove the tag from your post.

To create your own, select “add hashtags” and type the desired text (no special characters) in the text box at the bottom of your screen. You will then need to tap it in the list above the text box to confirm. Tap “done” to save.

On the web: Same steps apply. Click “add hashtags” and proceed with selecting/deselecting tags from the default menu or create your own. Remember to click the tag so that a check mark appears. This will confirm that the tag has been applied to your post.

EDITING/DELETING POSTS

On both mobile and web, you may edit or delete any of your posts, including challenge submissions, by clicking on the “…” menu at the bottom of each post. Select “edit” or “delete” as appropriate. Remember to click “save” once you have made edits.

If you choose to delete a post, a dialog box will appear notifying you of the number of “points” (equivalent to the number of ‘likes’ the post has received) that will be lost as a result of deleting the post. These points do not harm your profile in any way. It is merely a means of confirming that your choice to delete the post is the right choice. If you agree, click “ok.” If you do not wish to delete the post, simply click “cancel.”

SUBMITTING TO CHALLENGES & USING DRAFTS

Challenges are writing prompts and contests created by Prose. and its Partners. Only Prose. Partners can create them. (For more information about Prose. Partners, and to find out how to apply for the Partner Program, read on.)

Before attempting to publish your challenge entry, be sure to verify that it meets the word count requirements. For example, if the challenge requires a minimum of 500 words and your post is only 499 words, you will not be able to submit the entry.

Drafts for challenges are not currently available on mobile.

If you are on the web and are trying to use the drafts feature at any point during the submission process, remember:

The challenge you’re submitting to is completely independent of your drafts. If you look at the URLs in your browser window you’ll notice that one is theprose.com/write and the other is theprose.com/write/2404 or some number following “write.” That number specifies which challenge you’re submitting to when you click publish.

When you click the “Write” button at the top of the screen, you will be directed to the “free write” page, rather than the “challenge submission” write page. It can be a bit confusing when you save a draft while working on a challenge submission since that draft is not associated with the challenge you’re working on.

To submit your draft to a challenge, you’ll need to navigate back to the challenge, and click the “enter” button again. From there, you should be able to load up your draft and submit an entry.

Observe the different between these two URLs:

https://theprose.com/write

https://theprose.com/write/2404

The trailing “2404” is the ID assigned to the challenge. It lets Prose know that the post should be submitted to a challenge as opposed to being a “free write” post. Keep in mind that if you don’t see the challenge icon and prompt while working on the write page, your post will not be associated with a challenge when published.

SENDING PRIVATE MESSAGES

You can contact any author on the platform directly using the private messaging feature. To do so, simply visit the profile of the person you wish to contact:

If you are using the mobile iOS version, click on the message icon that appears at the top right of the author’s profile. If you are using Prose. on the web, you will want to click “send message” which appears beneath the author’s profile photo.

SHARING POSTS TO TWITTER AND FACEBOOK

Any post published on Prose. can be shared directly to your Twitter feed or Facebook timeline. To do so on mobile or the web by clicking on the share icon at the bottom of each post. You will have the opportunity to write a caption before it is shared.

THE PROSE PARTNER PROGRAM

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the Partner Program, you can visit https://theprose.com/p/partners for more information. Partners are a select group of our most talented poets, storytellers, and workers of words. Applications are reviewed extensively by our team and are accepted or rejected based on a number of factors including excellence in grammar and syntax, variation in style and post length, social media presence, and maturity.

(This link is still active if you wish to look.)

These individuals serve as representatives for all Prosers, voices on which we all should rely to speak candidly if we’re not meeting your needs, ears that are always listening, and eyes that watch out for the best interests of you and your fellow penmen.

They are responsible for creating thoughtful and provocative challenges that encourage you to stretch your writing muscles, think critically, and further hone your skills as a reader.

If you have ideas for challenges, trouble navigating through the various facets of the community, or are in search of support and encouragement, Prose. Partners – alongside the app’s administrators—are here for you.

Anyone that wishes to apply to become a Partner may do so (theprose.com/p/partners/apply). If you have applied and been rejected, do not be discouraged. This program is one of many more initiatives we’ve put together to grow the community and strengthen its integrity.

(My understanding is they have since done away with the partnering program.)

CONTACTING PROSE DIRECTLY

For any questions, feedback, or comments, you are all invited to contact the Prose team directly by visiting our contact page: https://theprose.com/p/contact. Our admins can also be reached by private message. Simply visit the Prose profile on web or mobile and send a private message from there.

(Actually the only good way to contact Prose is at: info@theprose.com.)

For the full article, with screenshots and clickable links, please visit The Official Prose. Blog later today at: blog.theprose.com/blog. We will post the blog link in the comments below once it is live.

(This link is no longer live.)

One small detail this doesn’t address is how to tag someone when a challenge is created either by Prose or another Proser. It’s quite simple and most of us “Pro’s” know how it works but for new people ... simply type in their name in the comment section with @ before their name. This ensures the person who created the challenge will know you have submitted something to the challenge and can get to you in a reasonable amount of time to read, comment and perhaps give feedback to what is written.

On another subject, here is a link that was provied to me by @Mnezz which can serve to be useful.

https://theprose.com/explore/people/need-followers

To the left-hand side is the following:

News and Noteworthy (currently empty)

Just Joined

Need Followers

Platinum Members

Facebook Friends

Random

You may consider visiting some of the more recent joined members and/or those who need followers. Just a suggestion.

It may be obvious to many that perhaps the FAQ needs updated. Hopefully that will happen over time.

I was initially attracted to your energy before I even knew anything about you. It wasn’t a physical attraction either. Beyond that. Just a pulling sensation like a magnet.

It’s funny to me now because you were just a chubby goofball that hung out at the back of the school and ditched at lunch. But for some reason I wanted to know you.

And then of course, we end up in the same photo class. I had a total crush on you. I loved your smile and how much you didn’t care.

You gave me a ride home one day and I was so nervous the entire way.

One night after we got to know each other over random Facebook messages we all went to the jacuzzi. Me, you and her.

Of course the inevitable threesome jokes began but ha she was on her period. It was really fun at first...kissing both of our necks and turning us on...until you actually tried to have sex with her. Ew.

You came back to me when you realized she was actually serious about wanting to keep her tampon in. You slid your cock inside me before I realized it wasn’t just your fingering me anymore. I told you to stop. You didn’t. Fuck, I was horrified. Number two already. I didn’t expect it and it was too late.

After that night I’m pretty sure I hated you. You started hitting on her and ignoring me. I didn’t understand.

I was angry when I saw you but you didn’t care. Isn’t that what I liked about you in the first place?

You took something from me and gave me nothing in return.

I was embarrassed and self conscious. Why did you treat me like that?

Yesterday you gave me butterflies and now I’m sick to my stomach by the thought of you.

Then one night you call me crying. You sound like a scared little boy. I invite you over.

I told my mom you were on your way and when you arrived we ran up to my room and closed the door behind us.

You cried while I held you and I loved you so much that night. We cuddled for awhile afterwards with our hearts connected.

We had so much fun that summer. You and I. We saw each other every other day and talked for hours. About the Universe, sex, the future, humans, our mutual hatred for social norms. We got high together at least once on almost everything.

Bong rips, Kings of Leon, slow wet full body kisses up and down. Over and over.

Popping two or three Molly at the underground raves. Tripping balls and making new friends with names like Tiger and Fairy Queen.

Dropping acid and melting into the floor laughing hysterically until my dad calls and wants me to bring my car home immediately. What the fuck. I trusted you and gave you my keys and you saved the fucking day.

It had been awhile and we weren’t on great terms. Not sure why, but you pick me up and we go to a park. After a few painkillers you scored in Tijuana with your latest Tinder girlfriend we’re floating and you play me some new rap music that I dig instantly. We shared a vibe most of the time.

Then that one time I helped you get a job with the company I worked for. We locked the store up and actually did a little coke, I think it was my first time and it was so weird. And totally gross.

I realized at the point you were a loser.

Then you slept with my best friend. Maybe because I slept with yours? But you were sleeping with my girlfriend at the time. So what if she was married?

Haha so fucked. But I really loved her for some reason.

Now here we are completely disconnected. I tried, but you died a long time ago and I’ve grown out of hating everything.

The reason I was inspired to even revisit the topic of our ridiculous past together was because I dreamt of you last night. No fucking clue why but I still kind of loved you. Will you ever leave me alone?

Laston Simuzingili linkedin with this American

maverick freelancing writing scout,

(and word maven par excellence

Matthew Scott Harris always ha sellout),

thru Spoken Word route, a popular global

Facebook poetry forum prodded me to venture,

without shadow of a doubt, and try my hand

to craft, this rhyme for that reason tout

ting expertise (mine) forging metrical

syncopation, which electronically soundless shout,

though tribalism within Lusaka, Zambia beyond

my literary purview hence any objection

i.e. cerebral workout, sans the following

amateurishly wrought gobbledygook by devout atheist

please do not be shy to call me out,

or send strongarm lance of the law if I

unwittingly commit any faux pas, this author,

who took mini crash (course) test dummy

about said convoluted titled topic unbeknownst

to him as little as Trout

Fishing in America,

cuz he gets this hooked Semitic Schnozzle snout

stuck, while groveling, ferreting, expanding

his knowledge base no matter he doth spout -

whale visiting unfamiliar leviathan African bailiwick

may deliver just deserved desserts fallout.

According to the following Google url search result,

I reddit at whatsapp

http://www.qfmzambia.com/2018/10/07/

tribalism-has-no-place-in-zambia-

First Republican President

Kenneth Kaunda opened

potential Pandora box trap

expressing honest opinion, and observed

discrimination predicated on snap

judgement, or based on tribe equally

unfair methodology to foster, and rocket rap

pore, and ethnic background as well

owns no place in Zambia, cuz smeared pap

(as conk curd by ghost of Milton Shapp),

plus Doctor Kaunda also says family names

in tandem should not determine,

who to associate with, any more than nap

pulled lying flat hair, but rather character of hearts,

viz each one of every Zambian availing their lap

necessarily if seat space in short supply.

Speaking at a vision

ambassadors promoting peace

campaign fundraising dinner,

Doctor Kaunda says increase

in toto with discrimination,

suspicion, hatred, betrayal, malice, fleece

sing (the golden calf)

re: greed, selfishness, grease

sing palms, and other

negative behavior release

zing threatening opposition

to zeitgeist, and core values crease

and crimp unity if left unchecked.

He has recalled that during

struggle for independence,

people from various

backgrounds humming and purring

worked hand in glove together,

realizing that they were, spurring

above everything else,

brothers and sisters of

one nation hungry stirring

potential for harmony whirring.

Dr. Kaunda says the “One Zambia One Nation” slogan

coined many decades ago still holds

true and continues starring Hulk Hogan

to unite Zambian’s together as one motley crue

clinging as one to solid state craft toboggan.

He says Zambia remains

a beacon of peace in Africa,

that dare not smother

snapchat, nor shutterfly - oh brother

scuttling important all Zambian citizens

should pay obeisance with mother

land maintaining grew ving

peace and loving one another.

Meanwhile Doctor Kaunda reminded young

people in the country ascending the rung

of success they have a big role to play

with trappings of pride slung

in weaving together unity among unsung

swiftly tailored heroes, as sowers

reaping luxe fabrics of peace among

divinity, integrity, magnanimity,

and unity for this country.

He has however commended President

Edgar Lungu for his efforts in uniting recent

dichotomy, sans the various people in the country,

And speaking at the same event,

National Guidance and reminescent

Religious Affairs Minister

Reverend Godfridah

Sumaili sought riches for indigent -

says national unity and urgent

peace critical for development

of the geographical extent

spanning entire country

Reverend Sumaili says difficult

no matter how fervent

for Zambia to develop

if no unity among Zambians.

And earlier in his speech, Commodores

Vision Ambassador to Zambia

Chairperson Misheck Kombe yours

truly expressed concern to jumpstart

solution regarding regionalism and tribalism at heart

tearing Zambia apart, like inures

reflux resignation of meal,

thus Mr. Kombe underscores

how important each and every shores

Zambian to join the crusade complacent

against tribalism and regionalism

because it retards development for s'mores!

I’ll ramble from head to toe, and let the little bastards watch out the window with hoggiling hogs hogging space until my car is just a stick, like the leftovers of corn on the cob. I fly past the strangers on the roads and the cities, they hate me, well guess what I hate you! I see left to right at night women dressed like its the club. I hear these stupid children screaming and preaching, as if they have the slightest intelligible things to say, I have to many places to be today. I hear this then that, I grab the grapple and jump to the end of the edge. I’ll be knockin’ heads and sippin’ lead, drink until my body rejects. Heck! I wish a God could exist that just complains and talk his ear off like this until the whole damn planet below just rises up and throws rocks at him.

Back to my center of peace were I hear the divisive beast linger in his rotten cove, hidden below the bridge he drinks from the Sodom below. I’m in my head so often I begin to wonder who the hell is the guy talkin’? He tells me what to do and say, then I go on a suicidal rampage, I just say screw it, I look at how low the drops is and just go for it. You gave me a thousand so I say let’s get going.

Every second the voice says: ” turns left right now, don’t bump into that damn idiot!” , ” You’re such an idiot you can’t even properly engage in a proper conversation” , “just say hello you foolish prick!” .

It’s crying and rambling thrown into one mix, it’s yelling and screaming until you’ve got’ that fix. I flip through the countless adventures just to get through all of it, nonsense, and blah blah is my rapport.

Hell just ring your glorious demons up just to get me the hell out of here.

My fears claw away at my stupidity, like a damn kitten.

I can’t tell a difference between a joke and a statement, my stupidity is profound.

Please help me out,

please help me out?

Is insanity a relative of mine, if so please come in take what you please,

″ oh, umm.... sure take that, oh you want that too, sure! Please slap me back and forth with my hospitality, it’s okay, I was just being rude.

I’m running on four, sure I’ll continue with my ramblings, mainly for the therapy, but also for those who can make it this far.

A small bit of small bit of self-loathing and eight ounces of coffee should do the trick for today,

they look through the mirage, wonderful.

Another lonely hour, oh delightful.

Go through the chapters just to read the same one twice.

The hallway is so great, I want to walk with a pal, I want talk about this and then that, I give possibly two or three.

The finish line has never felt so far, yet it is so close.

I love her when she throws her eyes at me then sneaks them back toward the previous -bag.

I began with a hopes of hopeless ramblings, now I’ve simply reached the bottom of a barrel of self-awareness, but you said anything.

Have you any questions?

Good I’m not really answering any, I’m just following my stupid ray to its target; me.

I’ll see to it that this page is so horrendous, and impossible to read.

I know little, but perhaps that’s why I say a lot.

What are the facts but my little toys, I’ll use them to construct my own paradise, the words slide smoothly like ice.

Alright, I have you close to the stove, just let the words burn into your ears, please...

I need this and so don’t you, it seems the less I care the more the world glares.

I’m running empty on the open road, I want to crash directly into a tanker, just right before it reaches the docks.

Just go out with a splash and a bang.

See I’m sure you know that i’m not insane, just going through a phase.

Just exploring what I can and can’t say.

Just running out of words.

But I’m sure my mouth has been filled,

I have yet to choke and die.

Now I have little interest in your stupid lies!

I didn’t understand the challenge, but damn it, now I do.

Feed me until my platter is covered in red matter, I’ll leave the table open while I,

well that doesn’t matter.

I like the Mad Hatter, continue to feed me you little bastards!

I’m an omnivore with an open door,

I’m an carnivorous snake prepared to slip you some venom, the acid bubbles and trembles.

I have little to offer but this bucket, filled with discriminant functions.

Please give this what it deserves, I have to sleep, but who cares when I have to feed.

I want the rush, give me more, it hasn’t been enough.

I’ll go to my most god-awful depths.

The words’ll run cover to cover, and then some.

But don’t tell them.

The tiny wisps whisper,

I have to go, but only a few words more, that’s all I require,

reach the end to run my empire, it stretches O so far and wide.

leave me at peace I feel my feet whimper, they are longing to get up and be productive, but the rabbid brain cursed by your ropes and chains has a few more words to record.

I have gone endlessly about what does and doesn’t matter .

Sorry for the inconvenience, but I must be this way, the mannerisms I have aquired have come from the dank hole, I want to swim in it; I’ll just drown down with it, it seems to have a more prolific sound.

So here I am, it is so great, don’t make me do this again!

I walked.

I walked for quite some time.

In the Sahara, I plodded beneath a searing sun and my skin grew dry as leather. Whipped by sand carried on a savage wind, it was burned and scarred.

I wandered through the Amazon amid torrential rainstorms and was dragged down into a bog of mud on the path.

My feet slid aimlessly over ice in the Himalays and I reached out but my hands were scabbed and callous and they could not steady me.

I lost my way time and again in the Taiga forest as I fled a pack of wolves silently stalking me through the snow.

I looked up while crossing the Alps and saw a vulture circling overhead. He watched, waiting for me to stumble and fall from the narrow goat trail that followed the mountain's rocky ledge.

I roamed through the Savannah, hiding in the tall grass when a lion gnashed his teeth at my frailty. In the distance, I heard the barbarous sound of hyenas laughing at my ineptitude.

I strayed over the Tundra and cried out for help. But a cold, cruel gale stole my words, and left me standing alone with burning lungs and cracked, bleeding lips.

I have searched from the depths of the oceans to the highest peaks on earth. I have followed the north star from the poles to the equator, from the Pacific to the Atlantic. And it has led me back where I began.

I walked for quite some time. And my burden was heavy. And the path was difficult.

I walked but my strength, which was never my own, has waned. My feet are unsure of the way and my heart has grown too weak and weary to lead them aimlessly, any longer. Shadows of doubt, fear and despair slow my journey, hiding the path I walk. My trembling soul is seeking, but my eyes are closed and it searches in darkness. Perhaps I am afraid to see where this path will lead. Maybe I fear the brilliance of the light I am pursuing. Or perchance, I have grown so accustomed to the night that I fear the pain of opening my eyes and facing the day.

When finally, my legs buckle beneath me and I fall to my knees, there you lift me up. Though my thoughts have wandered from the purpose you lay on me, when finally, my face is buried in the dust, there you raise me up.

From the lowest valley, you carry me to the top of a hill and you point to the tree. When I bow down before it at last, the light of heaven bursts through clouds of lies and shines bright on Calvary.

I walked. I searched. But no matter how far I go, I will never find that which does not exist. I will not find happiness outside of you.

Your tender hand lifts my chin towards you and your smile on me. I open my eyes and feel the warmth of your mercy and grace. Born again of fire and water, you give me new life. Hands and feet strong in you. A mind renewed with infinite wisedom from you. A heart overflowing with love of you.

I walk still. With my hand held in yours, you lead me in your footsteps and the burden of this journey is light and easy. I walk with you...and I am happy.

They killed me on a Saturday night, in a case of mistaken identity. They got the wrong man, but they weren’t far off the mark. Of course, I was unaware of the reason, and would have been no happier had I known.

Me and Red purchased those hats from a toothless, crinkled up Mexican in a San Antonio dry goods store, but it would have been a stretch even back then to call them “new”. If it was the same old Mexican who sold them to us that had woven them, then he had done it long before, back when “las senoritas bonitas” still smiled his way.

Those hats, not being the preferred style of the day, had been sitting around in that store for so long that Red and I had to knock the dust off before trying them. The hats were similar in their styles and shapes, being hand woven by the same master, the both of them being flat-topped, with high, stove-piped crowns, and extra wide brims. They were woven from a pliable straw, strong, but lightweight. They were the kind of hats suggested to us by Chaz as being good for the Texas heat. Mine was of a darker brown, with a leather band sporting a coin baring a snarling, scratching jaguar. Red’s was lighter in color, almost white, with a braided silver band, and turquoise stones spaced around. Those hats were of a style rarely seen in Texas, and rarer yet in Kansas, which was the reason we chose them. Me and Red felt the need to stand out in this dramatic western land where everyone seemed large, and with unique personalities.

It would have been easy for someone in Abilene, someone who had never met me and Red, to assume that there could only be one such hat in town at a time, as those hats made a statement. We wore them as fighting cocks wear their crowns, our personalities adjusting to fit their jaunty appearances. When we first road into camp with our new headgear Chaz and the boys had roared their approval. For that moment we were the stars of the outfit, with everyone envious of the Tennessee gringos, and we were proud, we being the newest and youngest of the bunch. Geraldo beamed his appreciation, “Bien, amigos mios! Ahora, tienes un estilo!” It is good my friends, now you have a style!”

Yes sir. You can bet we were proud.

It was a hard two month trail up from Texas. The boys were all anxious for town, so we drew straws to see who stayed back to ride herd. Knowing my luck, I was not surprised when I drew short, but it was alright. The cattle were spooky those last twenty miles. The last thing we needed was for our two month drive to end in a stampede, with our herd scattered over half of Kansas. It was past dinner time when Chaz got back with his cattle buyers, so that when I finally headed into town I was worn down some, but still ready to make up for the lost time. I felt better after a bath, and a shave, but my lids were heavy. A beer, or a whiskey would help cut the trail dust, so I strolled through the opened doors of “The Cow-Town Palace” just as any sixteen year old with ten gallons of hat, two months of pay, and a Colt’s revolver on his hip would. I strolled in like a mucho mal hombre.

I saw it happening, although I scarcely believed it. They were spread wide across the room. Three had pistols, one a shotgun. I almost looked back, over my shoulder, thinking they must be looking for someone else, but it wasn’t so. Flame blasted me from every direction, even as my own hand grabbed iron.

Red had the disposition of a side-kick, rather than that of a hero. He just wasn’t suited to play a great part in life’s play. When we left Millington Red’s mother assigned me the task of keeping Red from harm, a responsibility I accepted, as I had been doing it for most of our lives already. Red was tough enough, and he was smart enough, but he didn’t always think things through, especially when the pressure was cooking. Red’s initial reaction to any surprise was anger. That hot fuse had a way of pushing him to the front of situations that he had no business being in at all, much less being out in front of. That’s where me and Red found ourselves now, right up front of a bad situation.

Red had been gambling in “The Palace” an hour before I arrived. He was gambling sober, as he was still the preacher’s son. Red wasn’t sure, but he thought he caught the whisper from a bottom deal. Red being Red, he continued to play, cautiously, his bets low, waiting and watching for a skunk. It was not long before he heard it again, and he smelled the skunk. Red was young, only sixteen years. He had the look of a youngster, what with his fiery red hair and freckled cheeks, but that youngster was game! Red called a man twice his size and thrice his age, a “no good, four-flushing, sum bitch!” When he did, the “stooges” placed on either side of Red grabbed his arms, holding tight while “Big” Jim Allard gave it to him good with both fists. Beaten to a bloody pulp, Red was thrown without ceremony into the dry arroyo behind Main Street.

Me and Red were partners. We had been partners since we were school kids back in Tennessee. We became partners because we had both caught the “Western Itch”, a problematic infection of the time period. When Greely said, “Go West, Young Man”, he was talking straight at me and Red. We had missed the war, being too young, but we had no intention of missing out on the great western adventure, too.

Red came by his nick-name honest. His hair shone cinnamon-tit red, while his temper glowed hot as a stove top. His real name was Terrance Applewhite, a rather humorous mistake of identity if you think about it. Red’s father was the preacher at the Millington First Baptist Church. Everything wild ever said about a preacher’s son came tied up in Terrance with a “Red” ribboned bow.

Me and Red were fifteen years old when we hooked on with Joseph McCoy, making him believe we were sixteen. McCoy put us on a steamer bound for Houston. We stepped off of that steamer and into our dreams. It’s true what they say, that everything is bigger in Texas. The men were tough, and the women beautiful. The work was tough, but we were game, me an Red. Chaz, our segundo, took us under his wing. A real vaquero, Chaz Valero was a brush-popper. Chaz worked the heaviest Texas thickets along the hottest border country, driving wild longhorns out of the thorny bushes two and three at a time. Once me and Red worked up the courage to try it ourselves and discovered just how hard it really was, Chaz Valero grew to “Texas Size” in our eyes.

At the start the cattle were chasing me and Red out of the thickets, instead of the other way around, but we lived, and we learned. We listened to Chaz, and to Geraldo Velasquez, his partner, around chuck at night. We told them what we had run into during the day, and they told us how to handle it the next time. In between the scratches, the falls, and the heat we got better, and we got wiser. Soon we were chasing those wild longhorns ourselves, instead of them chasing us, and not without some pride. We were working our asses off, but we were being treated like men, and we were being paid like men... and we were loving every minute.

One thing about Red, he didn’t mind the work. In fact, the harder the work, the more dangerous it got, the more Red took to it. Geraldo Velasquez pulled us aside one evening on the way to chuck, pointing out a thicket,“Avoid dat thicket, senors. El Diablo, he leeve in dat one. El Diablo es two-thousand pound, with a broken horn, just so.” Velasquez made a hand gesture to show how the horn had been snapped off. “If you see that bull, mis amigos, go another way. No es bueno. There is better work elsewhere.”

The morning after that talk Red rode straight into El Diablo’s thicket. We could hear the roars of angry cattle, and the “Sum Bitches,” from Red amidst the sounds of crashing brush. We waited anxiously, certain that Red would come out fast, hell-for-leather, but that ain’t what happened. Instead, Red came out of that Devil’s Den pushing El Diablio himself, along with a twelve cow harem! We fell in on his flanks, and together we drove Red’s little herd to the holding area.

“What in the hell, Red,” Chaz asked? “How did you do that? Why did you do that?”

“There was cows in them bottoms. McCoy is paying me to gather cows.”

And that was that!

After two weeks of the hellishly hot work, Chaz, Geraldo,Red and I had slightly over three hundred head of the biggest, meanest cow-critturs created on Earth. When we met up with Clay Peterson and his boys, all together we tallied seven hundred and fifty, bristling mean, Texas longhorn cattle.

El Diablo took the lead, the herd following naturally. Without him to guide the herd we might have never made Kansas. Don’t get me wrong, it was still a job holding that herd together. Anything that startled them cows would set them off to running, and usually in the wrong direction. Our enemies were thunder, wolves, panthers, and Comanches, but something as simple as a pan clanking in the chuck wagon could start them skitterish cows to running. We lived on a nervous edge for eight hundred miles. Me and Red had found a sure fire way to become men in a hurry, but that suited us fine. After all, being men was what we longed to be.

There was a time on that first trip to Kansas when I topped a rise to find Red faced up with three cowboys. I kicked up a trot, having an eye for trouble. Me and that chestnut horse were twenty yards away when I heard it, “You sum bitches!”

When guns were drawn, I slapped spurs. That chestnut horse sailed into trouble belly to the ground and dirt flying, with my Colt’s spouting flame from his back. One of those boys went down hard, and the other two kicked dust away from there. I turned back to Red, who was still fighting to get his gun out of its holster. Red had not removed the thong that held the pistol in its place. That thong was a necessary thing in that brush country we were working. If you expected to keep your gun for any amount of time you had to have it, but it was death for the man who did not unhook it when trouble came along.

“Damn it, Red! What goes on here?”

“It was that sum bitch Spinner Rap!” Red was sputtering with excitement. “He said they were going to cut a third of our herd! Said we had their brands in our bunch. I told the sum bitch to go right to hell, he wasn’t taking any of those cows lest he took me first!”

“Yea, Red! Jesus Christ! Next time take the thong off your pistol before you say something like that!”

Red looked down with sheepish eyes, his Colt still strapped in. His face crinkled red with rage. “Sum bitch! Lucky damned bastards is what they are!”

I looked down at the dead man, at the man I had killed. Red was wrong. That man had run plumb out of luck. A man dead who was surely a “son”, if not a “bitch”.

Red Applewhite pulled himself up, and out of the arroyo. One eye was swollen shut. His nose was likely broken. Some sorry sum bitch had kicked his balls, leaving them tender, and swollen. Red’s only thought at the moment was to find his partner, and to go back after them sum bitches. The livery stable was dark when he got there. He scratched a match on his jeans, found the lamp, and waited while it gathered fuel enough to cast its feeble glow. While waiting he saw the body stretched out on the floor of the barn. A cold fear touched Red’s neck. He knew before he looked, but he held the lamp low anyways, the better to see the face. There was a hole through the cheek, but there was no mistaking Billy Winston, his partner and friend.

“Sum Bitch!” Red’s lips curled down into a heavy frown. He allowed himself some deep breaths as he thought his way forward to the conclusion. “This is it then, Billy.” Red spoke softly in respect for his friend. “This is it.” That decided, there was no reason to wait.

Red Applewhite was no gunfighter, but neither was he a coward. He pulled his Colt to check its loads.

Billy was dead because he had not been there to meet him. Red was not there when his partner needed him the most. Something would have to be done about that.

Red’s hat was gone. It was probably lost when those sum bitches were kicking his ass. He reckoned he would amble on over to find it. It was his hat, and it was a good one. If anybody got in his way, well... damn them. Strong words for a preacher’s son. His tussle of bright red hair stood at nervous attention as he crossed the heavily rutted Abilene Main Street, the blood from his earlier beating still dripping in thick globs from his smashed lips. Red’s left eye was swollen shut, but there was nothing wrong with his right, and one would do. A man sitting on the porch of “The Palace” saw him coming. The man eased up from his bench and ducked inside.

“Sum bitch! They would be ready for him!” Well, that was alright, Red was ready too, almost. He reached down to slip the thong from the hammer of his Colt. It seemed that Billy was still with him. He smiled grimly at that comfortable thought, and he threw his remaining fear aside. Billy was with him.

Three long strides carried Red Applewhite into “The Cowtown Palace Saloon and Gambling Hall”. He stopped, pistol in hand. For all intents and purposes he felt pretty dog-gone good. His blood was pumping freely through his veins, carrying a healthy dose of adrenaline along with it. Had Red looked down, he would have seem the stains, still damp, where his friend’s life had pumped from his body, but there was no looking down. Red’s attention was needed elsewhere. The four men were spread wide through the room, their tension sparking it with electricity. It was the same four from earlier in the night. “Good.” A barely audible, “sum bitch”, leaked from Red’s smashed lips as he took another step forward, and opened the ball. He raised the big Walker’s Colt. For the first time in his life Red fired a gun at a man, at the man on his far right, at Big Jim Allard. When he did, the room exploded with sound. The first bullet that hit Red spun him sideways, allowing the next two to miss. That was the good news. When Red stopped spinning he faced the man on the far left. He snapped a quick shot at that one. This one was slender, with a yellow tie, and an inlaid pearl stick-pin. It was funny to notice that now. Red had the satisfaction of watching “Stick Pin” fall before the shotgun blast knocked him back to the wall. The fancy looking man with the shotgun was pumping it for another shot when Red sent two bullets into his chest, the bullets kissing crimson flowers upon the man’s washed and pressed, go-to-meeting shirt.

He had done for three of the sum bitches! Red leaned heavily against the wall behind him, allowing it to hold him up on his feet. “Damn,” he thought. “If only Billy could see me now!” Red knew that he was dying, but there was no pain. In fact, it felt kind of good, bringing with it a numb, care-free feeling. He lifted the Colt toward the last man standing.

The last man standing had been waiting for this. He had killed before, and he relished neither the killing itself, nor the haunting dreams that followed. Not being a man to “notch” his killings, he was under no compulsion to shoot the ruddy-faced youngster down, and so he had held back, hoping one of the others might do it first, but now it had come time to kill, or to be killed. Reluctantly, this man sent his own .44 slug into the base of Red’s throat. Red’s hand tightened on his Colt, sending its bullet slamming into the rough-planked floor. Red wanted to raise the Colt, to aim it at the sum bitch that had killed Billy, but his arm would not respond. Instead Red Applewhite slid further down the wall, alive, but choking on his own blood, the room darkening around him.

From habits created by his chosen profession, Desmond Sampson replaced the spent cartridges in his pistol before moving. When through with the task he walked over to the body of the red-headed boy propped against the wall. Desmond counted five bullet holes, and he could see where the shotgun’s blast had entered the youngster’s stomach. The boy looked like a good kid, and he had been tough, leaving the bodies of three sure enough tough men scattered about the floor of the gambling hall. “This son-of-a-bitch had sand,” Desmond thought unknowingly, offering up a compliment that Red would have appreciated, could he have heard it.

Chaz and the boys brought us out to the banks of the Smoky Hill River. They put us up high, to avoid the floodwaters, in a spot where the wildflowers mixed with the prairie grass. They wrapped us up in a single blanket, and rolled us into our hole. Chaz said some nice Mexican words that swirled away to nothing in the warm prairie wind. It was a good spot. Me and Red became a part of the western lands we had dreamed of, a part of the lands we had worked in, and loved. We were a quickly forgotten part, but a part, none-the-less.

Red Applewhite had no business being the hero. He was born to be the sidekick, but no one ever bothered to explain that to Red, so he took on both hats down there in Abilene, and he wore them both well.

A wise man has said that, “He travels the fastest who travels alone.” That might be true. Some also believe that a man is destined to be born alone, and to die alone. That might also be so. But me and Red covered some ground together back in the day, and we strolled up to those Golden Gates as only young men with ten gallons of hat, two months of pay, and a Walker’s Colt can. We strode up together, partners to the end, and ready for whatever came next, both of us stronger for the man standing beside him.

I didn’t really know what a gypsy was. I’d been called one and it had been bandied about like a descriptor of something that one didn’t want to become, but damn it I had become one despite all my education.

They sprawled about on those couches that my mother wouldn’t have touched, perchance she wouldn’t have ever come into this place at all. I don’t know now much about her, there is hole in my psyche, where I had stored my time in the military and my time on the streets. All that remained now was the urgent need to never let anyone know where I was. I used a series of phones, the flip phone variety because one thing I was sure of, they were coming for me to. Who “they” were I didn’t know, I hadn’t seen a psychiatrist in 8 years and my business was thriving. Hand to mouth I was not. Out in the Rhymes cemetery I would bury my cash exchanged for gold. One thing I was sure of was that gold wasn’t going to lose favor if and when the Apocalypse came. I hunted bad men. I hunted them like I was one of them. I knew what they knew and knew how they thought, I guess I had exchanged memory for this knowledge in some sort of barter that had happened while I was asleep.

I woke up in the Pie-in-the-Sky Motel off off of A1A. I was soaked in sweat and knew that I had to get to work. I got sick of a sort when I didn’t work, like a doper off of his dope. I guessed I was a doper too, but I didn’t identify as such. Mainly I just got girls who were on dope out of the situations that they were in and it took a degree of dissociation to do the work so I had a combo of drugs that I took to keep moving.

Thump. Thump. Thump. The thump resonated into my bones and I was scared Sick. My hermit like ways were very non-threatening . My main objective in life was not to be found. I found but didn’t want to be found. Skulking around strip joints and motels like this was fine, hoodie on hat pulled down over my often-shaved visage. The door wasn’t of the stolid variety, it was more of two pieces of ply-wood or pulpwood held together by a wish. Who knew I was here. I had a gun, but it was buried down the street behind a vacant lot.

“Thomas”

My name wasn’t Thomas, I had several, but Thomas wasn’t one of them.

It was the old man in the room next to mine. He had given me a drink of rot-gut vodka the night before as I was trying to slip in out of the one eye of the one camera on the premises. Paranoia was just part of who I was now. I lived in a different motel almost every night and I had an encrypted email that I could use at any library or UPS store. Sometimes I would ask to use a person’s laptop and give them a coffee for the trade.

“Go away bro.”

I avoided mirrors because they seemed to tell me about myself. Things I was trying to escape. Parts I didn’t or couldn’t remember. All that seemed to matter now was the job, my existential essence was to make the world better. Just a little bit. I read history books mainly, I stole them from libraries in Phoenix and Rayville and Ft. Lauderdale. I doubted there was anyone out there missing me, because I thought I would remember if that was the case.

“Thomas”

Louder now and more insistent. I opened the door pulled the old man, now not looking as old as I remembered and unloaded a really overly brutal set of licks to his nose and the sweet spot where the lobe of the ear was. No doubt he would have to get his jaw wired up. He wasn’t a regular old man but until he was slumped in the corner could I see that his teeth were perfect and the dirty brown coat he was wearing was Brooks Brothers.

“Fucking fuck.” The sound of my own voice was hard to swallow, I had not heard it in days, while I was on the move. Trains, busses and sketchy cars for cash deals was how I got around and it didn’t require much in the way of speaking.

“Thomas.” He was still awake, and I shuddered profoundly, his face now in my mind’s eye and I couldn’t escape. Everyone had a story and if he got it out on the table then I would have to respond. I was linked to stories. They had some sort of power over me. If I heard it, I had to respond, and this asshole was fixing to give one to me.

Lynchburg, Tennessee

She was old enough to know better. I knew this wasn’t some 10-year-old. She was old enough to make up her own mind, but the Mexicans had her on dope and she couldn’t make up her own mind. Deep in the crevices of my psyche was another girl, married with kinds of her own now but I placed her face on the story, so I could make it real enough to move me.

My voice was telling the story, but I was miles away. I knew Lynchburg, Tenn. I’d been there. Shed blood there. Been on a ripping drunk in that Tennessee town. I had sat in the train station for hours. Waiting on waiting. On some sort of ethereal memorandum to be handed down from whoever was in charge of such things.

“Lacy, we done told you girl, that you couldn’t stay here.” She had enough Fentanyl to last for 2 days when she had her move. 15 years old and barefoot.

“They got me tied to bed, woman.

“You don’t look tied up anymore.

Regina stood 5’1 but she had two dogs and that just smelled blood. All the time. They slept in her bed, often as not lounging as only uncut dogs can. Waddle legs-on their back, with their full scrotal sack to examine. A big light bragging and little like begging at the same time. When Regina was 18 she had a littler of Thibodaux bulls that she cut them all and she would give the lot of em for just Eli. The uncut one. The other was a bitch, she got around the neighborhood pretty good and Gina, called her whore, who wasn’t of herself a saint.

”Did you do something to get tied up in a chain to a bed?”

The girl twirled on the ball of her right foot. “Did that just come out of your mouth?”

“I mean did you steal something.”

“No stupid idiot I have been abducted.”

The door was closed slowly with one of the two dogs growling a warning.

The natural red headed bombshell stood on the porch in a city she knew for 30 or 40 hours and cried and wanted a phone SO damn bad. Everything seemed mauve or light light tan. The light couldn’t really be switched on or off. It was, obviously playing up to the reality. She had been interested in philosophy and had spent the previously summer research ithe best colleges. She would go to Hollins but now, now she wondered if she had been scarred, knew to much that she could never unsee despite the best psychiatrists, the best change of sceneries. She was already a pickle, never to be a cumber again.

I didn’t feel sorry for her so much as I probably should. I felt sorry for her dad and the 20 large he paid me to go find out where she was and take pictures. Within moments of leaving he’s vacation house in Hilton Head, his next read double it to bring her home, I will cover all your medical and legal bills if it comes to that, but you bring her back….so Ill Venmo you the money now. Just try to leave people alive please. Don’t kill anyone and it shouldn’t be so complicated as to have to kill anyone.

It was.

I did.

But to that later.

I came through to Lynchburg by way of an unneeded trip to see my alma mater. Sewanee was grander than I had ever been. I was a piece of shit who wanted to go to sleep forever but I like to think that deep down, far back I had been a good guy. A back-slapping sort of guy. One who got more attention from his teachers as he did the dudes and girls he saw every day at school. How does a generation just wear one down?

I knew I had been in the war and once in DC I went to a bar accidentally that was basically go VFW. I think that was as close to therapy as I ever really got. What I did now---sure there is some self-condemnation but for the whole I am just trying to help other people and it is not the easiest thing in the world to do. Most don’t want to be saved. Most just want that next fix. Ive deployed Narcan 16 times and got punched 5. Lynchburg got outta hand.

She ran till a large rock sat itself in her right foot. That point where the far of the ball meets the soft arch. She stopped hard. The call to her aunt was short. The man across from the house of her friend was a good dude and let her make a call.

I saw a picture later, the one I could barely see because my phone was on battery saver mode, but when in the Tennessee State Us Attorney questioning room I saw another pixel-altered photo.

            I woke up in the Pie-in-the-Sky Motel off off of A1A. I was soaked in sweat and knew that I had to get to work.  I got sick of a sort when I didn’t work, like a doper off of his dope.  I guessed I was a doper too, but I didn’t identify as such.  Mainly I just got girls who were on dope out of the situations that they were in and it took a degree of dissociation to do the work so I had a combo of drugs that I took to keep moving.

            Thump. Thump.  Thump.  The thump resonated into my bones and I was scared Sick.  My hermit like ways were very non-threatening .  My main objective in life was not to be found.  I found but didn’t want to be found. Skulking around strip joints and motels like this was fine, hoodie on hat pulled down over my often-shaved visage. The door wasn’t of the stolid variety, it was more of two pieces of ply-wood or pulpwood held together by a wish.  Who knew I was here.  I had a gun, but it was buried down the street behind a vacant lot.

“Thomas”

My name wasn’t Thomas, I had several, but Thomas wasn’t one of them.

            It was the old man in the room next to mine.  He had given me a drink of rot-gut vodka the night before as I was trying to slip in out of the one eye of the one camera on the premises. Paranoia was just part of who I was now. I lived in a different motel almost every night and I had an encrypted email that I could use at any library or UPS store.  Sometimes I would ask to use a person’s laptop and give them a coffee for the trade. 

“Go away bro.”

I avoided mirrors because they seemed to tell me about myself.  Things I was trying to escape.  Parts I didn’t or couldn’t remember.  All that seemed to matter now was the job, my existential essence was to make the world better.  Just a little bit.  I read history books mainly, I stole them from libraries in Phoenix and Rayville and Ft. Lauderdale.  I doubted there was anyone out there missing me, because I thought I would remember if that was the case.

“Thomas” 

Louder now and more insistent. I opened the door pulled the old man, now not looking as old as I remembered and unloaded a really overly brutal set of licks to his nose and the sweet spot where the lobe of the ear was.  No doubt he would have to get his jaw wired up.  He wasn’t a regular old man but until he was slumped in the corner could I see that his teeth were perfect and the dirty brown coat he was wearing was Brooks Brothers.

“Fucking fuck.”  The sound of my own voice was hard to swallow, I had not heard it in days, while I was on the move.  Trains, busses and sketchy cars for cash deals was how I got around and it didn’t require much in the way of speaking.

“Thomas.” He was still awake, and I shuddered profoundly, his face now in my mind’s eye and I couldn’t escape.  Everyone had a story and if he got it out on the table then I would have to respond.  I was linked to stories.  They had some sort of power over me.  If I heard it, I had to respond, and this asshole was fixing to give one to me.

Lynchburg, Tennessee

            She was old enough to know better.  I knew this wasn’t some 10-year-old.  She was old enough to make up her own mind, but the Mexicans had her on dope and she couldn’t make up her own mind.  Deep in the crevices of my psyche was another girl, married with kinds of her own now but I placed her face on the story, so I could make it real enough to move me.

My voice was telling the story, but I was miles away.  I knew Lynchburg, Tenn. I’d been there.  Shed blood there. Been on  a ripping drunk in that Tennessee town. I had sat in the train station for hours.   Waiting on waiting.  On some sort of ethereal memorandum to be handed down from whoever was in charge of such things.

“Lacy, we done told you girl, that you couldn’t stay here.”  She had enough Fentanyl to last for 2 days when she had her move.  15 years old and barefoot.

“They got me tied to bed, woman.

“You don’t look tied up anymore.

Regina stood 5’1 but she had two dogs and that just smelled blood.  All the time.  They slept in her bed, often as not lounging as only uncut dogs can.  Waddle legs-on their back, with their full scrotal sack to examine.  A big light bragging and little like begging at the same time.  When Regina was 18 she had a littler of Thibodaux bulls that she cut them all and she would give the lot of em for just Eli. The uncut one.  The other was a bitch, she got around the neighborhood pretty good and Gina, called her whore, who wasn’t of herself a saint.

”Did you do something to get tied up in a chain to a bed?”

The girl twirled on the  ball of her right foot.  “Did that  just come out of your mouth?”  

“I mean did you steal something.”

“No stupid idiot I have been abducted.”

The door was closed slowly with one of the two dogs growling a warning.

The natural red headed bombshell stood on the porch in a city she knew for 30 or 40 hours and cried and wanted a phone SO damn bad.  Everything seemed mauve or light light tan.  The light couldn’t really be switched on or off.  It was, obviously playing up to the reality.  She had been interested in philosophy and had spent the previously summer research ithe best colleges.   She would go to Hollins but now, now she wondered if she had been scarred, knew to much that she could never unsee despite the best psychiatrists, the best change of sceneries.  She was already a pickle, never to be a cumber again. 

I didn’t feel sorry for her so much as I probably should.  I felt sorry for her dad and the 20 large he paid me to go find out where she was and take pictures.  Within moments of leaving he’s vacation house in Hilton Head, his next read double it to bring her home, I will cover all your medical and legal bills if it comes to that, but you bring her back….so Ill Venmo you the money now.  Just try to leave people alive please. Don’t kill anyone and it shouldn’t be so complicated as to have to kill anyone.

It was.

I did.

But to that later.  

I came through to Lynchburg by way of an unneeded trip to see my alma mater. Sewanee was grander than I had ever been.  I was a piece of shit who wanted to go to sleep forever but I like to think that deep down, far back I had been a good guy.  A back-slapping sort of guy.  One who got more attention from his teachers as he did the dudes and girls he saw every day  at school.  How does a generation just wear one down?

I knew I had been in the war and once in DC I went to a bar accidentally that was basically go VFW.  I think that was as close to therapy as I ever really got.  What I did now—sure there is some self-condemnation but for the whole I am just trying to help other people and it is not the easiest thing in the world to do.  Most don’t want to be saved.  Most just want that next fix.  Ive deployed Narcan 16 times and got punched 5.   Lynchburg got outta hand.

She ran till a large rock sat itself in her right foot.  That point where the far of the ball meets the soft arch.   She stopped hard.  The call to her aunt was short.  The man across from the house of her friend was a good dude and let her make a call.

I didn’t really know what a gypsy was. I’d been called one and it had been bandied about like a descriptor of something that one didn’t want to become, but damn it I had become one despite all my education.

They sprawled about on those couches that my mother wouldn’t have touched, perchance she wouldn’t have ever come into this place at all. I don’t know now much about her, there is hole in my psyche, where I had stored my time in the military and my time on the streets. All that remained now was the urgent need to never let anyone know where I was. I used a series of phones, the flip phone variety because one thing I was sure of, they were coming for me to. Who “they” were I didn’t know, I hadn’t seen a psychiatrist in 8 years and my business was thriving. Hand to mouth I was not. Out in the Rhymes cemetery I would bury my cash exchanged for gold. One thing I was sure of was that gold wasn’t going to lose favor if and when the Apocalypse came. I hunted bad men. I hunted them like I was one of them. I knew what they knew and knew how they thought, I guess I had exchanged memory for this knowledge in some sort of barter that had happened while I was asleep.

I woke up in the Pie-in-the-Sky Motel off off of A1A. I was soaked in sweat and knew that I had to get to work. I got sick of a sort when I didn’t work, like a doper off of his dope. I guessed I was a doper too, but I didn’t identify as such. Mainly I just got girls who were on dope out of the situations that they were in and it took a degree of dissociation to do the work so I had a combo of drugs that I took to keep moving.

Thump. Thump. Thump. The thump resonated into my bones and I was scared Sick. My hermit like ways were very non-threatening . My main objective in life was not to be found. I found but didn’t want to be found. Skulking around strip joints and motels like this was fine, hoodie on hat pulled down over my often-shaved visage. The door wasn’t of the stolid variety, it was more of two pieces of ply-wood or pulpwood held together by a wish. Who knew I was here. I had a gun, but it was buried down the street behind a vacant lot.

“Thomas”

My name wasn’t Thomas, I had several, but Thomas wasn’t one of them.

It was the old man in the room next to mine. He had given me a drink of rot-gut vodka the night before as I was trying to slip in out of the one eye of the one camera on the premises. Paranoia was just part of who I was now. I lived in a different motel almost every night and I had an encrypted email that I could use at any library or UPS store. Sometimes I would ask to use a person’s laptop and give them a coffee for the trade.

“Go away bro.”

I avoided mirrors because they seemed to tell me about myself. Things I was trying to escape. Parts I didn’t or couldn’t remember. All that seemed to matter now was the job, my existential essence was to make the world better. Just a little bit. I read history books mainly, I stole them from libraries in Phoenix and Rayville and Ft. Lauderdale. I doubted there was anyone out there missing me, because I thought I would remember if that was the case.

“Thomas”

Louder now and more insistent. I opened the door pulled the old man, now not looking as old as I remembered and unloaded a really overly brutal set of licks to his nose and the sweet spot where the lobe of the ear was. No doubt he would have to get his jaw wired up. He wasn’t a regular old man but until he was slumped in the corner could I see that his teeth were perfect and the dirty brown coat he was wearing was Brooks Brothers.

“Fucking fuck.” The sound of my own voice was hard to swallow, I had not heard it in days, while I was on the move. Trains, busses and sketchy cars for cash deals was how I got around and it didn’t require much in the way of speaking.

“Thomas.” He was still awake, and I shuddered profoundly, his face now in my mind’s eye and I couldn’t escape. Everyone had a story and if he got it out on the table then I would have to respond. I was linked to stories. They had some sort of power over me. If I heard it, I had to respond, and this asshole was fixing to give one to me.

Lynchburg, Tennessee

She was old enough to know better. I knew this wasn’t some 10-year-old. She was old enough to make up her own mind, but the Mexicans had her on dope and she couldn’t make up her own mind. Deep in the crevices of my psyche was another girl, married with kinds of her own now but I placed her face on the story, so I could make it real enough to move me.

My voice was telling the story, but I was miles away. I knew Lynchburg, Tenn. I’d been there. Shed blood there. Been on a ripping drunk in that Tennessee town. I had sat in the train station for hours. Waiting on waiting. On some sort of ethereal memorandum to be handed down from whoever was in charge of such things.

“Lacy, we done told you girl, that you couldn’t stay here.” She had enough Fentanyl to last for 2 days when she had her move. 15 years old and barefoot.

“They got me tied to bed, woman.

“You don’t look tied up anymore.

Regina stood 5’1 but she had two dogs and that just smelled blood. All the time. They slept in her bed, often as not lounging as only uncut dogs can. Waddle legs-on their back, with their full scrotal sack to examine. A big light bragging and little like begging at the same time. When Regina was 18 she had a littler of Thibodaux bulls that she cut them all and she would give the lot of em for just Eli. The uncut one. The other was a bitch, she got around the neighborhood pretty good and Gina, called her whore, who wasn’t of herself a saint.

”Did you do something to get tied up in a chain to a bed?”

The girl twirled on the ball of her right foot. “Did that just come out of your mouth?”

“I mean did you steal something.”

“No stupid idiot I have been abducted.”

The door was closed slowly with one of the two dogs growling a warning.

The natural red headed bombshell stood on the porch in a city she knew for 30 or 40 hours and cried and wanted a phone SO damn bad. Everything seemed mauve or light light tan. The light couldn’t really be switched on or off. It was, obviously playing up to the reality. She had been interested in philosophy and had spent the previously summer research ithe best colleges. She would go to Hollins but now, now she wondered if she had been scarred, knew to much that she could never unsee despite the best psychiatrists, the best change of sceneries. She was already a pickle, never to be a cumber again.

I didn’t feel sorry for her so much as I probably should. I felt sorry for her dad and the 20 large he paid me to go find out where she was and take pictures. Within moments of leaving he's vacation house in Hilton Head, his next read double it to bring her home, I will cover all your medical and legal bills if it comes to that, but you bring her back….so Ill Venmo you the money now. Just try to leave people alive please. Don’t kill anyone and it shouldn’t be so complicated as to have to kill anyone.

It was.

I did.

But to that later.

I came through to Lynchburg by way of an unneeded trip to see my alma mater. Sewanee was grander than I had ever been. I was a piece of shit who wanted to go to sleep forever but I like to think that deep down, far back I had been a good guy. A back-slapping sort of guy. One who got more attention from his teachers as he did the dudes and girls he saw every day at school. How does a generation just wear one down?

I knew I had been in the war and once in DC I went to a bar accidentally that was basically go VFW. I think that was as close to therapy as I ever really got. What I did now---sure there is some self-condemnation but for the whole I am just trying to help other people and it is not the easiest thing in the world to do. Most don’t want to be saved. Most just want that next fix. Ive deployed Narcan 16 times and got punched 5. Lynchburg got outta hand.

She ran till a large rock sat itself in her right foot. That point where the far of the ball meets the soft arch. She stopped hard. The call to her aunt was short. The man across from the house of her friend was a good dude and let her make a call.

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And from the Wikipedia.org: "Derivative work". And sort of the, "Derivative Work." And sort of the, "Derivative Works". And the, "Derivative Work." And the, "Derivative Works." And the, "Derivative". And sort of the, "Derivative."

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And from the BuzzFeed.com: "16 Surprising Ways You Didn't Know You Could Get Pregnant".

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