SEQUEL TO PART VI

Adrenaline is sometimes painful.

The anger that coursed through my body as I mutilated – and that’s the right word for what I had done – the Paul Marcum look-alike faded before I got back in the truck. My hands and legs shook as the effects wore off. I guessed that’s what a junkie feels like after a high, after his head has been totally messed up for a few hours or a day or whatever and reality starts to come back. I was cold and my joints were stiff and I shivered as if winter had arrived and brought with it the northern winds. (more…)

I’ve never been good with directions. Jeanette always planned out our trips, routes, where we would stay, what we would do.

Turn left at the light. Hit the interstate. Just keep driving. Don’t worry, I know where we’re going.

Always in control, the true pilot of our vacations. I just navigated us where she said to go. (more…)

The dawn came, the sun casting its blinding rays on us. Nature’s alarm clock. My joints ached, as they did every morning. Sleeping in the truck just wasn’t good on the body. I missed the comfort of a bed and sheets and a pillow. I glanced around our surroundings. Things were much the same as the night before. The world still spun, the sun still came up… time, however, no longer sped along at a breakneck pace. It had dropped down to extra slow motion, each second like minutes, each minute like hours. Survival and loneliness are wearisome bedfellows at best and I had them both as companions.

“You awake, Humphrey?” (more…)

Humphrey sat in his seat, his head slightly higher than the edge of the door.  He could see over the dashboard and at the road ahead of us.  My little stuffed traveling buddy.  We sat atop a hill overlooking a small town—Jalopa, South Carolina.  It wasn’t much of a hill, but it gave me a clear line of sight in all directions.  The town wasn’t much of a town either—a couple of buildings that looked as if they belonged in the fifties, some cars lining unmetered parking spots.  A red vehicle sat stopped at a street light.  The light itself had long since expired. The death of electricity made sure of that.  The few houses off in the distance ran along a cracked blacktop that was in serious need of repaving.

There wasn’t much to see.  (more…)

“Sometimes life kicks you in the teeth.”  It was one of Pop’s sayings.  It was how he referred to dealing with everything in life.  “It’s how you respond that makes you who you are.”  It was also one of the last things Pop said before…

I can only shake my head and close my eyes and pray there is a better place on the other side of this mess. (more…)

The rap on the window snapped me from dreams of Jeanette and Bobby, sitting in the warm sun at Brayland Park.  Bobby squashed tiny ants as they scurried onto the blanket Jeanette had laid out.  She wore a sun dress, yellow and white striped that came to just above her knees.  He was in a baseball uniform, Junior Jaycees on the front of his garnet shirt, his number 9 on the back, along with his last name, WALKER, in white lettering.  I was there, watching everything through a video camera lens.  I wasn’t very good at holding the camera steady, but, thankfully, in the dream I held it just right. (more…)

The rifle was light, unlike Pop’s shotgun.  That thing was heavier than any firearm should be and the kickback could damn near knock you on your ass if you’re not ready for it.  He called it Ox—I guess it was an appropriate name for something so powerful.  One time, my brother, Leland, thought he was man enough to wield such a beast.  I set up a can on the old fence post by the pen.  Leland took aim, the shotgun in the crook of his shoulder, right in the socket where the collar bone and shoulder come together.  He squeezed the trigger.  (more…)