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kaikishoku · 2 years

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(short story) alone.

3245 words.

(CW : animal death, related ideation)

She hadn't realized how comforting the back parking lot of an abandoned shopping center could be. Ordinarily, she'd be terrified of being in a place like this—even now, cautionary tales drilled into her mind by her mother about the type of people who could or even did live here bounced around in her head endlessly, echoing off of each other, but the effect numbed her instead of making her anxious. Maybe she'd worn herself out emotionally already, too wound up from the day and its events. Her boss calling her in for a talk only for it to be about nothing at all had done a number on her mental state already; and then a customer had asked her for help and then hit on her after taking her polite, public-ready mask as interest; and finally, she'd missed the last bus that ran to the Dixie an hour off from her house. She couldn't call her parents (they expected things of her now that she had a job and could, in the mildest sense, fend for herself), she had no friends who'd drive out this far just to take her home, and she wasn't very close to any of her coworkers.

And so: she walked, mentally drawing a map between the bus stop by her work and the next one over. That one had another bus that ran a little later, if she remembered right; it wouldn't take her exactly close to home, but it would be good enough. She'd already have to walk an hour to get there, and walking another hour and a half seemed just fine. If she was lucky, though, it'd be an empty bus, and the driver might be nice enough to go a little out of their way to get her home safe and sound. She'd been thinking about all of that as well as her day before, mentally replaying every remark she'd said to judge how irritating it must have been to hear, when her foot had caught on a curb and she'd tripped down an embankment. She had to have scared someone—she screamed like the Devil was after her, tumbling down a slight grassy decline; she felt even sillier when it was over sooner than expected, the embankment being anti-climatically short.

That was when she'd found the parking lot. The asphalt was cracked from disuse, lightened in color by the unkind rays of the sun, though that had its perks: grass and dandelions and other plants had begun to spring up between them, the green almost a navy color in the dark of the coming night. The paint indicating parking spots was worn and faded too, and while most of the signs for special parking for those with disabilities were still standing, they were rusted and resembled distressed jeans if distressed jeans were parking signs. She only recognized the building across the parking lot had been a shopping center by its large windows and faded lettering across the top of some big name brand department store she might have been able to barely make out if it'd been the daytime, but had basically no hope of doing so in the waning hours. Still, it was enough—just as the faded paint lines had been—to determine what and where she was.

Most importantly: she was alone. Completely and utterly alone. There wasn't even a stray cat, or markings of any kind of life she could see from where she was standing—no sleeping bags or abandoned carts, no bags or cans, nothing like that. Quietly she made her way across the parking lot, eyes flicking between the ground (no cigarette butts) and the area around her (no beer bottles), until she at last reached the glass doors which were unopened in every sense of the world: they were closed, they were not smashed, and they were locked. The inside was dark, as if covered by a black tarp, and she turned around half-expecting to find someone standing behind her, having snuck up on her while she was distracted.

Still: she was alone. With a sigh, she moved to the stucco-covered wall beside her and slumped against it, feeling it catch and drag on her jacket as she slowly dropped down to the ground. She stared out at the parking lot, heart settling in her chest quietly as her mind, too, fell silent in the hush of the empty space. She felt that if she spoke even a word that the spell would be broken, and whatever magic that was keeping the world at bay would disappear in an instance; it made her feel like a child again, watching the night sky stretch far beyond the large gumball tree that had sat—and, to her knowledge, still sat—in the yard to the side of the duplex she'd grown up in. Even then there had been the sounds of bugs chirping quietly beneath the stars, the summer nights of the south never truly quiet the way that someone might think they'd be no matter the distance from main roads and busy city streets. She took out her phone and turned it off for good measure, watching the screen flash then darken, the vibration that went with it almost imperceptible in her hand.

Completely, and utterly, alone. There was something freeing about the thought—no one knew she was here. No one could get in contact with her. There was only her and Nature, which had started to retake its land from the concrete fingers of the city that stretched further and further every year. She was utterly disconnected and, instead of being scared or anxious or on the verge of a panic attack like she was in her day-to-day life, she felt—

Content. A laugh bubbled out of her, so sudden that she startled at the noise before she realized it was her own. Blood rushed to her cheeks and she hurried to stand up, looking around again as paranoia crept up her back like the itsy bitsy spider and its waterspout. Her laugh had been loud, or maybe it had just seemed that way in the lonely, empty parking lot, but it gave her shivers to think it might have attracted the unwanted attention her mother often warned her about. Her steps quickened as she made her way back across the parking lot, back up the small hill that separated it from the main road, and down the sidewalk to the next bus stop. Her heart pounded in her chest as she sat at the bench beneath the stop, clutching her bag, and stared at the times listed beside her until the bus pulled up, and she quickly made her way in with barely a look or even a word to the driver.

The next night, she stopped at the same spot she'd tumbled from and peered at the parking lot and the old, decaying shopping center from her spot on the rise. It looked the same as it had before—quiet and empty and alone, and she gave the handle of her bag a firm squeeze before she carefully made her way down the embankment and into the parking lot once more. The world seemed to vanish around her as soon as she had—the noise of the road faded away behind her, replaced instead by the calming silence of the abandoned parking lot, and like the night before she crossed the lot and sat down against the shopping center's stucco wall. She pulled her bag into her lap, cradling it against her chest, and after a long moment spent surveying the area, she leaned her head forward and closed her eyes. Quiet, quiet, quiet—but not quiet in the way that it was truly completely silent. As she focused less on her busy mind and more on the area around, she began to hear them: the soft flap of wings, the gentle chirps of crickets, the light crunch of dead leaves as animals picked their way around the outskirts of the parking lot. It came together like a nighttime symphony, something only she could hear—that she and she alone was allowed to hear, the rest of the city too busy and absorbed in their own lives to stop and listen for—and the tension of the day slowly, slowly, slowly faded from the knots in her back, releasing the soreness from her shoulders. She sighed into her bag, rubbing her fingers over the rough brown burlap, and grimaced when her fingers passed over a fraying hole. Another one to repair, adding to her bag's already colorful patchwork visual. Her older coworkers and her family always had something to say about it, but privately she liked how her bag looked; it was different, and she felt like it fit her.

Just as she'd been touched by so many people and things all across her life, so too had her bag. It didn't matter that no one else knew where she'd been or when her bag had gotten one patch or another—what mattered was that she knew. It didn't shield her from the barbed hints that she should look into getting a new one, disguised as idle questions or looks of surprise when she arrived at another gathering with her bag slung around her shoulder, but it reassured her in the peaceful, buzzing quiet now.

Snap. She hit her head on the wall behind her as she straightened up, goosebumps covering her arms. A growl started up from the bushes far in front of her and she held her bag defensively, heart beating in her ears. Snap. Snap. Snap.

A gangly old dog stepped out, head lowered and hackles raised, its lips drawn back to show off what few teeth it still had left. She froze, trying to remember what it was you did when faced with an angry dog. Make yourself look bigger and fight if you can—no, that was for mountain lions. Slowly wave your arms and make it recognize you as human—no, that was for bears. Back away and don't make any sudden moves—that was it. She stood up slowly, taking one step to the left and then another, sidling along the wall of the building and keeping the dog within her sight. Its head raised as she moved away, the snarl disappearing from its muzzle, and it didn't growl again when she sat at the corner of the building instead. Its untrimmed claws scraped against the cement as it stepped up to the mall and turned around twice before dropping down onto the ground; after a long moment, it laid its head on its paws, and she let out the breath she'd been holding.

That dog became her new friend. It was there when she left, acknowledging her exit with only a turn of its floppy ears, and it was there again when she came the next day. She sat at the corner of the building again, cautious of the old mutt, and she closed her eyes to enjoy the quiet. She did this when it was sunny and when it was overcast; she came when it rained, the old black umbrella working in tandem with the hood on her windbreaker drawn over her head to keep her from getting too wet; and she came when it began to grow colder, and the trees started to shed their leaves for winter. The stray dog was there most of the time, and when it wasn't, she would sit in its spot instead.

On her way home that night, trudging through the leaves swept to the side of the road by cars screaming through the dark, she saw the mutt on the side of the road, splattered in dried blood and limbs askew. It was stiff when she nudged it with her shoe, and a faint, indescribable odor rose from its body. She shed her jacket, wrapped the mutt in it as best she could, and took it home.

There was no question about it: she couldn't and wasn't going to keep it like this. It was dead, struck by a car and dragged off the road like it'd just been an opossum or squirrel or deer, instead of someone's pet and companion at some point in time. She decided she'd go in the morning to the abandoned parking lot and bury it before her parents woke up. She'd give it a proper funeral, and then she'd go to work. In the meantime, she put its body still wrapped in her jacket into a black garbage bag, set it down by the front door, and went to bed, her pillow growing wet with warm tears beneath her cheek.

The ground outside of the parking lot was riddled with the roots of bushes or flowers intent on taking back the black asphalt behind her. It was cold, too, making the ground hard to break through and her fingers stiff around the rubber-coated shaft of her garden shovel. At first, the hole she made for the dog was too small and too shallow; then it was the right size, but still the wrong depth; and by the time she was satisfied with the grave there was only an hour left until she had to go into work. She stared at the numbers on her phone, bright and clean beside her dirty nails. If she finished the job properly, she'd be late for work, but it felt wrong to just throw the bag into the hole, haphazardly cover it with dirt, and rush to the store so she could wash up and be ready to face the day. This dog had been her companion for weeks, even if it had never stopped growling at her when she came too close, even if it hadn't shown her any curiosity or kindness. It had been there in the quiet, alone together with her. The least she could do is let it know someone had appreciated it in its final days.

She carefully laid the bag in the grave and spoke as she scooped dirt back into the hole—she thanked it for letting her stay, for the company. She told it about her days and how the sight of it curled up in that spot time after time cheered her up even when she felt like crying and giving up. She patted the dirt when she was done scraping and scooping it back into the grave and stood up, staring at the spot where a corpse in a bag had just been. It wouldn't be a grave without a marker, she decided, and she was already late to work—she would already be taken aside by her manager and thrown frustrated looks by her coworkers—so she took her time finding rocks to lay at the top of it in a small pile. It was better than nothing; it was better than it would have gotten ordinarily.

She wondered if anything happened to her, if she was hit by a car in the night or if she suddenly passed away, if someone would do the same for her? Would they bury her with as much care, and would they be able to say any kind words about her? If they were a stranger who saw her every day, would they do the things she had done for the dog that had kept her company day after day?

Probably not. She crossed the parking lot and climbed up the small hill, taking a moment to stand on the cracked sidewalk and watch cars pass by on the road in front of her. She looked behind her at the abandoned mall, then dialed the number for her work and quietly informed them she was quitting. She turned her phone off right after, her stomach tying itself into ribbons and bows as she sprinted back down the hill and landed hard in the parking lot, knee bending with the force, feet and ankles sore as she ran across the black asphalt and turned left at the wall as she reached it. She followed the building as far as she could, slowing to climb over broken old generators and piles of garbage, and she yelled as a pothole in the asphalt on the other side of the mall caught her right foot. Pain exploded in tiny bursts all across her body—her elbows and knees, her right ankle, the crown of her head. Her vision swam in front of her as she pushed her herself up and found the culprit for the aching of her head: a rusted piece of metal that must have belonged to a shopping cart or something at some point, one of those motorized ones; it was larger than her head, and she reached up to feel wet, warm blood on her forehead.

She closed her eyes and laid her head back down, temple against the cold asphalt, trying to catch her breath. Her heart pounded in her chest and she breathed in, breathed out, breathed in, breathed out, just the way her first grade teacher had taught her to calm down her anxiety. Slowly she pulled her legs towards her chest and turned on her side; she rolled her ankle to test it and hadn't moved it much before a sharp pain shot through her leg. She sucked a breath in through her teeth and waited for it to subside before she sat up, taking it slow. Her ankle was definitely broken, and a concussion wasn't out of the question. She checked her phone and laughed hoarsely when she saw the screen cracked beyond saving; she managed to turn it on, but trying to swipe it to unlock it left her with shards in her thumb and a blood smear.

Missed calls from her manager popped up one after the other; another showed up as she sat there, picking glass from her thumb and wrapping the bottom of her shirt around it to stem the blood when she was sure there was none left. She watched it ring, ring, ring and time out when she didn't pick up, and she turned the phone off with her other hand. Back into her pocket it went; back to walking she went, putting as little weight on her right side as she could manage. The back of the mall was almost identical to its front—almost, because the parking area (calling it a "lot" would be a stretch) was smaller and dirtier than the other side's. The bottles strewn about and tags spray-painted on the walls said it wasn't as desolate or abandoned as the other side, and a broken window close to the front confirmed this.

She carefully climbed in and stood by the window for a moment, not sure what to do—she hadn't had any idea what she was doing when she started running in the first place though, to be fair, and so in the still quiet of the mall she once again let the rest of her decide: she sat down, closed her eyes, and listened to the silence that rested in the building like a blanket of snow on a cold winter morning, the throbbing in her ankle slowly slipping from her mind, the ache in her head slowly dissipating as she rested back against the wall.

She sighed one last time, the gentle crinkling of leaves outside of the window warning her of the breeze before it swept past her cheeks, cooling them.

Peace. She was totally and completely at peace.

#short story #unnamed character #one shot

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dixiedrudge · 16 days

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Pitt moves to dismiss Confederate monument lawsuit

Fight Censorship and Help Spread Mockingbird Non-Compliant News! Like, Share, Re-Post, and Subscribe! There’s a lot more to see at our main page, Dixie Drudge! View Source: A judge is expected to make a decision this week on Pitt County’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the Board of Commissioners’ unanimous decision to donate the county’s Confederate monument to a memorial park in…

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utterlyinevitable · 4 years

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Carnival

Pairing: Dr. Ethan Ramsey x F!MC (Dr. Rebecca Lao) Word Count: 2.5k Warning: fluff and a few curse words (and PINING!) Summary: There’s a carnival down by the bay and Becca ditches her friends to spend her special day with Ethan. This takes place during OHSY.

A/N: As always thanks to @aylamwrites for pre-reading. Also sorry this has taken so long, anon! Hope you’re happy with it 😬

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It was a warm summer day and the gang of residents finally had a Sunday off together in what felt like months. Elijah, Jackie, Sienna, Becca, Bryce and Kyra were all sprawled around the living room of the former four’s apartment, their skin itching with heat.

“I’m going to die if we don’t get the A.C. fixed,“ Becca groaned from the wooden floor.

“I called Farley,” Sienna noted from the corner of the couch. “He said someone’s coming Monday morning.“

Bryce whined, “But it’s 90 degrees today!” He was parallel to Becca, cuddling his discarded shirt as a pillow.

“Don’t you have your own place?“ Jackie retorted.

Bryce reached over to pat Becca’s stomach and responded, “I’d choose sweating my balls off with my best pal over me-time any day.“

Jackie squinted her eyes, still not too sure of the dynamic between The B’s.

Elijah was scrolling through Pictagram when he piped in, “Guys, did you know there’s a carnival in Charlestown?”

The friends responded with mixed grumbles of “no”, “really?”, and one “aren’t we too old for rides?”.

“Says there’s a beer garden, and it’s by the water,” he added in hopes of coaxing his friends into a little adventure.

It was a unanimous decision for the residents to leave the uncomfortable heat of the apartment and head to the park. The carnival was down by the bay and in support of the Boston Historical Society. The group circled the grounds twice, taking time to play one of those water racing games and sample all that the best food trucks Boston have to offer.

The tap stall was by far their favorite. The gray truck was home to six different beers and even had a game bolted to the passenger side. If you managed to get all 3 rings on the vertically hanging and impossibly tiny peg, you got a free pint and a commemorative mug. Bryce managed to win free pints for himself, Becca and Kyra - although Kyra used the cancer card when the last ring spun along the peg tantalizingly slowly before falling off the side. Bryce shot her a disapproving look as Kyra accepted the free drink. The three winners stood by while Jackie fought with the worker about how this game was completely rigged, so desperately wanting a win and free beer.

Filling up her second mug as she waited, Becca snapped a commemorative photo of her day drunk state with Bryce’s megawatt smile and wink photobombing in the background. Cheekily, she texted it to Ethan. They were friends after all. The two hadn’t crossed any intimate lines since he returned from the Amazon, though they could be caught holding hands time and time again.

Before she could respond back she was being dragged away.

“Come on, Becks!”

Bryce led them to the photobooth where they all took a string of silly pictures. It was fun to immortalize this day, but Bryce had an ulterior motive.

“Happy Birthday, Becks,” he whispered in her ear as the six of them posed with various props.

She looked over at the bright eyed and absolutely perfect man next to her, “How did you -?”

Becca didn’t like birthdays and she certainly didn’t tell people when hers was. The only people who knew the significance of today were her mother, aunt, and HR representative at Edenbrook.

All he offered was a wiggle of his manicured brows and “I have my ways of persuasion.”

“Hospital database?” she matched.

Bryce chuckled and slung an arm over his best friend’s shoulders, “I’ll never tell.”

As the sweltering afternoon set in, the group settled into the grass of the secluded beer garden and enjoyed the band playing some classic rock cover songs. She was leaning into Bryce when Becca noticed a familiar gray sweater passing by.

Her eyes furrowed thinking she was hallucinating. Who in their right mind wears a cardigan in this heat!? After blinking a few times she was certain he wasn’t a figment of her imagination.

“Be right back,” she hopped up so quickly she nudged Bryce in the ribs. “Sorry,” she mouthed as she ran after the tall and notably refined figure she’s come to admire.

“Hey!” she called from six feet away, “Dr. Grumpy!”

Ethan turned towards the recognizable sing-song voice and let her catch up to him.

Becca had the biggest smile plastered onto her sun kissed cheeks when she said, “You came.”

“It’d be a shame not to support such a worthwhile cause,” he shrugged as he crossed his arms, trying hard not to let her smile infect him. “Also there’s a gourmet mac and cheese truck I’ve heard is a must-try.”

In her current tipsy state she didn’t catch most of his words but knew she texted him about Mac Attack’s presence as a follow up to their conversation about comfort food from last week.

With a deviously elated smile, Becca slung her arm through his and tugged, “Lets go.”

Ethan was stunned by her forwardness in such a public place, however, for some reason he didn’t care.

“Where to?” he asked with a faint smirk as he shuffled along with her.

“I’ve been thinking about fried Oreo’s all day,” Becca all but moaned, licking her lips.

He quipped, “I’d like some sustenance to combat the imminent heart attack.”

“Mac Attack it is!” she said in complete elation before skipping along, dragging Ethan alongside her.

They stood fourth in line at the popular bright yellow and red food truck. The clear blue sky started to turn shades of wandering pink and purple as the sun began to set. Becca was staring up at the sky as Ethan was studying the limited menu with distaste.

“That looks awful,” Ethan groaned, pointing at the bucket of everything-on-top gooey mac-and-cheese one of the patrons was walking away with.

“Well if you didn’t want to eat greasy comfort food, why’d you come?”

Ethan dismissed her comment, sheepishly caving, “Fine, let’s share.” The beam radiating off her freckled cheeks was all the reassurance he needed. “You like truffles?”

“Nope,” she popped the ‘p’. “I like crispy onions and bacon.”

Their eyes met and Ethan let the slightest of smiles find home on his lips.

Ethan paid for the meal and the two carried the carton over to an empty wooden picnic bench. He held the cheesy heaven in his large palm stably for them to pick at with their two-pronged forks.

“I concede,” Ethan began after the second forkful, “This is rather tasty.”

“Told you!” Becca lit up. “And you should wash it down with…” she patted her body and looked around their seating area for her mug. “Crap, I left it with Bryce.” Her doe brown eyes went wide as realization washed over her. “Shit, how long have I been gone for?” she said more to herself.

Becca stood up, grabbing her phone from her jean short pocket and texted the group chat a single emoji.

“All good.” She put the phone back in its place and bent down to shove the last big forkful of gooey goodness into her mouth. “Whatcha wanna do now?” Ethan gazed at her as she not-so-eloquently spoke with a mouthful. “Riiiides?”

“I don’t do rides.”

“Heh,” she tried and wonderfully failed to hide her smirk at the naughty remark she could have made. One and a half more beers and she would have made it.

He raised a questioning eyebrow.

“Your options are: ferris wheel, sizzler, or photobooth and beer garden,” she listed off a few things she wouldn’t mind doing. “Fair warning, my friends are camped out in the beer garden.”

He sighed, “Ferris wheel.”

“So romantic!” she winked.

“I regret this already.”

The two chucked the rubbish in the nearest garbage pail and made their way to the side of the park with the rides. They walked side by side, their hands brushing against the other’s every now and again. In the bubble of waning alcohol and heat of this surprising summer day her pinky extended to caress his before capturing it as her own.

Not far from the Ferris wheel entrance, they noticed Baz, Zaid and Ines in conversation by the ticket booth. With a timid look at one another Ethan took her whole hand in his and promptly changed course;

“Photobooth.”

She can’t say she minded.

Becca tugged back on his hand stopping him in his tracks. Ethan whipped around, eyes pleading. He did not want to be caught, lest by Baz.

“Beer first. You gotta catch up,” she enlightened. “I don’t want four photos of Dr. Grouch. I want Ethan.”

Lucky enough they were at the east entrance while her friends were still camped out by the west. Even more in Ethan’s favor, one of the stalls was a local whiskey distillery.

“Someone knew you were coming,” Becca joked as she pointed to the wooden stall.

After some bargaining, the doctors were graciously allowed to down two flights of samples in exchange for Ethan placing a decent-sized delivery order.

“Last one.” He inspected the liquid. “I will not be offended if you can’t stomach it. Though I will judge you.” He lifted the dixie cup up and she saluted hers as well.

The thick brown solvent smelled like sweet gasoline and tingled against her tongue. Becca pursed her lips in an attempt to keep an indifferent face. She couldn’t do it. Her mouth begged for air and a chaser. “It burns,” she choked.

Everything about Becca was endearing. Her cheeks were flushed and her freckles were more prominent than he had ever seen, even in the dusk and illuminated by harsh floodlights. A brisk night breeze washed over them sending a shiver up her spine. Without a second thought, Ethan shrugged out of his cardigan, holding it open for her.

Becca closed the gap between them, turning her back and slipping her arms into the baggy sleeves of the soft fabric. The closeness and wafts of his cologne were another type of intoxicating. She fell into it. Her back pressed into Ethan’s chest, she tilted to see the ebullient blue eyes gazing down at her. His supple lips parted. The pleasant whiskey-laced breaths enticing her.

Their locked eyes were glazed, a telling signal that it was about time to let loose.

Ethan licked his lips and swallowed hard. “Where’s this godforsaken photobooth?”

With the kindest of smiles she broke the trance, pulling his cardigan tightly around her and moving onto the next activity.

They moseyed on over to the photobooth, coming full circle on her special day out.

Being just over 6’4”, Ethan was too tall and the photographer signaled him to sit on the stool. Becca gazed at the box of props in consideration, deciding to go au naturale. She already had the silly photos from earlier, anyway. Looking at Ethan sitting there impatiently Becca bit her lip, deciding on an audacious move.

She sauntered over, fitting herself perfectly in the space between his legs. She perched herself on his left thigh and draped her arm over the back of his shoulders, feeling every tense muscle along his upper back. Ethan reflexively closed his legs tight to give her better balance and wrapped his left arm securely around her waist. The much too big cardigan slipped, exposing her bare shoulders. Their eyes locked. His free hand flew to the exposed skin of her leg as it lifted to lay across his lap on its own volition. The corners of her lips perked before she turned her head to the camera, letting the photographer know they were more or less ready.

They both gave their best candid smile.

Click.

Becca was so close. Ethan was drawn to the sweet scent of vanilla and gardenias on her neck. His eyes hooded as he relished her, and his left hand grabbed a wanton fistful of sweater.

Click.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw him inching closer, and tilted her head towards him. Their noses brushed.

“It’s my birthday,” she whispered, their lips mere centimeters apart.

“Is it?” he murmured.

Click.

She nodded sheepishly, her half-lidded eyes never leaving his.

His wide eyes never looked more crystal clear.

A signature smirk took place as he hinted, “Then I supposed ‘Happy Birthday’ is in order.”

His heated breath was sweet with the last notes of whiskey and lingering of mint. It surrounded her, pulling her closer to him. His shallow breaths picked up as her lungs stopped working. It was as if he was breathing for her, giving her life in his simplistic existence. A fleeting pound against her side gave her a push.

She kissed him. For the first time in months they became one.

Their lips overlapped, capturing his plump bottom lip between her own. His shoulders rounded under her touch. Neither dared to deepen the moment. Her tender kiss became bruising as he gripped her tighter, closer - as close as their flush bodies could become.

Click.

Ethan pulled away, “Reb-”

She pressed her index finger to his lips. “Shh, that’s my present,” she sighed with her forehead against his.

They sat there longer than acceptable, hearts racing and eyes conveying all they wish they had the courage to say.

The loud grumble from the photographer brought them back into reality.

Becca waited a few steps away from the booth as Ethan apologized and paid for the photographs. He bought two copies; folding one delicately in his wallet before walking over and handing the other to her.

Becca stared at the first photo on the strip, her thumb hovering over their faces. “I can’t believe you’re smiling,” she contentedly muttered. Her eyes trailed down to the last. Looking up at Ethan she told him in earnest, “Best present ever.”

Ethan’s hand flew to rub the back of his neck as he averted his gaze down to the dewy grass. “I - I knew it’s your birthday, Rookie.”

She raised a brow, “Came down to celebrate with me?”

“Something like that.”

Becca found the hidden smile in his features instantly. She went to take a step closer to him, daring for their lips to meet once more.

But the universe had other plans.

The loud bellowing voice stopped her motions, “Becks!”

“Becca!” another rang.

“Over here!” Bryce shouted once more from a fried food stand.

They both let out a breath of air.

Becca bit her lip as she looked from Ethan to Bryce and back to Ethan. “I… should go.”

Deep brown met clouded blue, both filled with restrained sorrow.

“Don’t get into any trouble.”

“No promises.” She winked as she slipped out of his sweater. He accepted the fabric, now envious of how it was able to hold her all evening long. A lightbulb went off in Ethan’s mind as she started to turn away.

“Oh.. right,” Ethan called her back to attention. She spun around, hopeful. “Here.” He handed her an ivory envelope from his back pocket with her name written out in his fluid script.

She held the card in the same hand as the photos, looking down at it longingly. “Thank you.” Becca brought the weighted paper up to linger over her heart as she took one more look up at his sapphire blue eyes glistening along with the stars.

Ethan gave a single nod, “See you tomorrow, Rookie.”

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thebiscuiteternal · 3 years

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https://www.courthousenews.com/websites-not-bound-by-ada-accessibility-rules-11th-circuit-finds

ATLANTA (CN) — In a decision that a dissenting judge warned could have widespread consequences for visually impaired people, a split panel of the 11th Circuit ruled Wednesday that websites for businesses that are generally open to the public are not places of public accommodation under the Americans With Disabilities Act.

In a 2-1 decision, a panel of the Atlanta-based appeals court ruled that although “inaccessibility online can be a significant inconvenience,” supermarket chain Winn-Dixie cannot be found liable under Title III of the ADA for having a website that is inaccessible to disabled people who use screen-reading software.

Title III of the ADA prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in places of public accommodations, including hotels, restaurants, bars, movie theaters, grocery stores, parks, schools and museums.

“All of these listed types of locations are tangible, physical places. No intangible places or spaces, such as websites, are listed. Thus, we conclude that, pursuant to the plain language of Title III of the ADA, public accommodations are limited to actual, physical places,” U.S. Circuit Judge Elizabeth Branch, a Donald Trump appointee, wrote on behalf of the majority.

Oh, fuck ALL the way off.

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floridamobilenotarys · 3 years

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tumblingdoe · 6 years

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January 11-15 on the Sexplanations Road Tour

Friday January 11, 2019

Nels repaired the roof vent that was worn out and worked on the water system while I business-interneted. We drove out of town to an Indian restaurant, ate, and then unrelated to the food -- determined that Nels needed some medical care. Five’ish hours later at the hospital we were discharged without any good answers but he seems to be on the mend. We drove south where I satiated a guilty pleasure (Chick-fil-a) and grocery shopped for some healthier eats. I bought a basil plant that we call Marvelous Mrs. Basil. We finished watching The Wiz and then winded down to the somewhat terrifying sounds of a car repossession followed later by car drifting and police intervention.

Saturday January 12, 2019

Happy that we survived the night in a parking lot, Nels and I drove to a nearby RV village where we were able to empty our gray and black water tanks for only $10. We also cleaned out our fresh water tanks and did dishes in house for the first time! An hour later we were San Francisco at Aunt Linda’s. She made us brunch and talked to us about sex and aging, hormones, incontinence, impotence, and dating. I’m excited to turn the conversation into an episode of Sexplanations.

Aunt Linda then drove us to our next engagement -- recording videos and a podcast at Mr. S Leather with Amp from Watts the Safeword. Amp had reached out on Twitter and I was so relieved. I wanted to keep going with the Sexplanations podcast and recording video episodes while on tour but we haven’t had time to sort out equipment or set it up. Amp had a studio in San Francisco with lights and microphones and cameras. He invited me in, made me tea, gave me all the time I needed to switch gears in to pro-mode, and then recorded everything for me to share with you. We did a podcast on sexhacks, an episode of Watts the Safeword on sex education, and an episode of Sexplanations YouTube channel about daddies. We just put my memory cards in his gear and voila, production! It was such a huge moment of feeling wrapped up by a safe person and validated as a creator. Amp didn’t judge me for needing his help. He just loved on me and needed that.

While we were there I also got a thorough tour of Mr. S Leather. I’d been 12ish years ago when I was in San Francisco for my doctorate but a lot had changed. Amp walked us through the showroom -- gear for every fetish and kink you can imagine. Then as a super treat he took us behind the scenes where most of their products were manufactured, right there in the building! We saw the old latex room with patterns for full suits, the remains of a really comprehensive dungeon, and the shipping warehouse. I was astounded by the passion everywhere. There was so much attention to detail and care for the products! The foot and half long dragon cock dildo was made by someone who wants that experience to be perfect.

I left feeling all warm and gooey. Nels left with ideas for rafting wetsuits and a new sex education. We wandered down the street to a coffee shop we learned about at PatreCon called Wicked Grounds. They had offered to host a event but I hadn’t been able to follow-though. So I asked a table of friendly faces if they had any sexuality questions for the sexologist on tour. “Nope.” One of them actually had their own sex education channel and was very situated in their knowledge of the subject.

I walked away from the cafe feeling very comfortable that we hadn’t planned more in California. Cali has so many sex ed resources. So does Oregon. These places aren’t my classroom per se, they are my launchpad. Between Nels’ friends in Oregon wrapping us up emotionally and Cali grounding me professionally -- it was like we were being nurtured for the experiences to come.

Nels gave me a burrito that he’d gotten for me while I was shooting with Amp and we walked to The Chapel twenty or so minutes away for a show. He treated us to the Red Room Orchestra performing the Big Lebowski. Margaret Cho was Walter, Kevin McDonald was the Dude, and James Adomian played the stranger. It was outstanding! Just incredible!

After the show we found late night Indian then took a Lyft back to the RV. The fridge wasn’t working because things weren’t so level on the San Francisco hills so Nels and I capped off the night stacking these really nice blocks someone got us on our Amazon Wishlist.

Sunday January 13, 2019

We went back to Aunt Linda’s, this time for showers. Then she took us out for lunch at a super cool restaurant called the Pork Store. After food we rushed back to the RV to get across town to a landscaping center to meet Dixie de la Tour for a podcast recording in. the. RV! Dixie showed up with her St. Bernard and we all climbed aboard to talk about her work running and mothering Bawdy Storytelling. She also has a podcast. 10/10 would recommend! We wrapped up our conversation 10 minutes before the landscaping center closed so I ran in with Marvelous Mrs. Basil in her inadequate two inch pot and paid a $2.00 re-potting fee to get her a new container and more soil.

It was a rush-rush day. Next on the list was dinner with three of my classmates from the institute where I did my doctorate. Jack drove an hour and half south, Danielle drove an hour north, and Nels and I drove the RV to pick up Ivy for us all to meet at Basil Canteen for Thai. The whole meal was perfect. I hadn’t seen these friends in more than a decade but there we were deep in conversation about sex of course, and buying a school to teach sexology! I think everyone left having to wake up in a few hours for work but grateful for the night.

Jack drove Ivy home (which I hoped would reignite a romance) and Danielle invited us to stop at her place the following day. We all said good-bye and then Nels and I strolled home happy. On our way around the block --because the RV was parked just down the street--we said hello to some gorgeous queens from the Imperial Sovereign Court and stopped at a gaming cafe for virtual reality. I love it. Nels was indifferent. And then he was awesome at it and we hung out for an hour getting some physical activity in by thrashing our arms around.

To conclude the day, we drove all the way the beach so we could listen to the waves from bed. It’s still really hard to push myself with work and travel but gifts like that are a reminder that were are right where we need to be and doing the best we can.

Monday January 14, 2019

I woke up wanting nothing more than WiFi so we set up our laptops in a cafe on the oceans and worked for hours. I was actually still on the phone planning stops when Nels courted me out to get to Sunnyvale by 3:00 to meet Danielle, my classmate from the night before. I kept working in the RV while he drove and we got there right on time.

Danielle situated us with rain showers, chicken soup, and tourist suggestions for the rest of our California route. That is until we learned that the coastal highway would be shut down for the week due to landslides. I was disappointed but only mildly. Being in Danielle’s care was delightful. She kept it simple and cozy, no pressure, no hassle. We got to explore her Somatica space -- a revolutionary way to improve relationships and sexuality and Danielle gave us two of her books! And a bag of oranges from her yard!

To finish the day Nels and I drove past the Apple complex, which is enormous, and we dined all fancy-like at Oren’s Hummus.

Tuesday January 15, 2019

Sadists are people who experience pleasure from inflicting pain. Nels is not this. I think he experiences pleasure from pleasing others. While I slept he drove us to Lover’s point so the RV windows would be looking out over a quintessential ocean view. Then he proceeded to cook onions, kale, broccoli, rainbow carrots, sausage, garlic, and eggs in a cast-iron pan for breakfast on the coast. Who is this person!?!?!

Before getting back on the road we climbed along the rocks watching the cormorants dive. I tried to swim but the tide came too quickly for it to be safe. We returned to the RV to acquire more miles. I responded to over 100 emails then requested we take a break from the washing machine existence of riding in an RV and nap. Post nap, Nels was at it again making colorful amazing food. He set up Moon --the 2009 film-- and we had our version of a drive-in dine-in movie.

This is in San Luis Obisbo. Now we’ve driven longer past huge agriculture land to Solvang and it is time again for cuddles and bed.

#sexplanations road tour #curious road tour #sex ed #dr. doe #california #bawdy storytelling #watts the safeword #sfsketchfest

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pen-whipped · 5 years

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∞ Wold in an Inch ∞

~for Carlton & Erica~

∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫

∞ Prologue ∞

Never give ‘em the last inch was scratched on the wall of the jail cell next to several pairs of initials with hearts drawn around them. A 12’ X 10’ holding tank decorated with similar slogans and signatures where people seem to have thought about only two things while they were here: holding on to one final piece of anything to control and … Love. The walls, ceiling, and floor were coated with thick grey paint where the scriptures were etched; and a metallic bench, toilet, and sink matched all the blandness. Here I realized that one of the greatest motivators of the world is Love. I thought of The Trojan War. Boudicca’s Rebellion against Rome for her daughters. Rama and Sita. Fairytales and over-stretched history, of course. I also thought about ... Nationalism—the disgusting love of country. Racism—the even more disgusting love at the expense of its hatred for others. Capitalism—the love of material goods beyond need and necessity, at the expense of others. Religion—the love for some version of god or gods and the ideals and values that uphold that version. Movements and Rebellions in the name of Love. And so of course I thought about Ernesto “Che” Guevara and how when asked by a reporter, “What inspires a revolutionist,” he responded after a pause and a grin. “Amor” (Love), he said.

I realized then that the other motivator of the world is this power structure that harnesses the actions of those motivated by Love or some extension of Love such as jealousy, desire, passion, rage. Of the two locals I was locked up with, in this small shithole Texas bo-dunk town, one hospitalized a man who slept with his wife and the other had a physical fight with his own wife. A third man loved a woman so much that he joined the carnival she was part of so as to not ever be without her, and thereby revoked his probation. And me … I was headed to a wedding from Colorado to Austin, TX, where my best friend had claimed the love of his life.

∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫

∞ Rite of Passage ∞

You forget these people exist. Even having been raised around them, with them, and by them, you just forget. I was born and raised in Texas, in their jungle like Tarzan with gorillas. And that’s actually the perfect analogy because right when the state trooper says to me, “With a Black in the White House, Queers havin’ a Christian’s marriage, and dope bein’ legalized all over God’s good country, you just cain’t be too careful these days,” what comes to mind is the evolution chart where a drawing of a man standing upright is preceded by different hunchbacked ape-like creatures. Here, barely across the border into the Texas panhandle, knuckles still drag on the ground. You spend over a decade in the land where people walk upright and you forget the knuckle draggers exist.

Karl Marx tells us that killers first make an enemy of their victims before killing them. This is how the crime is justifiable. Such sociopaths have the same characteristics of a nation that makes an enemy of another nation before destroying it. America and its fictitious WMD ploy that led to the Hussein regime’s demise. A nation ran by a Texan. “Now that’s when the country had its head on straight,” he says peeking through his rearview mirror at me behind the glass that separates the front seat from the back.

Red neck adages—they’re like poetry without everything poetic.

“A good Christian was pullin’ the reigns then,” he continues.

I wonder why they speak in parables—southern draw riddles filled with similes and metaphors. His “Christians,” sound more like “Chrust-yens.” I get it. The same way Jesus’ parables made all the rest of the world understandable for the knuckle draggers in his time, so do the redneck adages for our time. And they loves them some Jesus too. He’s everywhere.

I could take his last adage a million different directions other than the one these handcuffs connected to the yellow rope ran through them and around my waist and back up through my thighs insists that I do. He’s fucking hogtied me. I look at the cuffs and yellow rope and think how man is the cruelest of all animals, for a dog would only bite another dog, but we … we shackle and belittle, demoralize and strip identities, rape and enslave, indebt and un-educate one another to the point that we ourselves forget that others are living, breathing human-fucking-beings. But, even with this in mind, I say with a hint of delight, “And we was all better off when it was,” leaning forward to the hole in the glass divider, referring to when a good Southern Chrust-yen led the nation. Never mind that it was war, poverty, and a greater divide between the classes that he led us to.

To reverse Marx’s notion of the killer, if the victim can make the killer identify him or her as one of the killer’s own, or at the very least as a human being, then the victimization is more likely to cease or at minimum the inflictions lose harshness.

There’s a Bible in the front seat, and I’ve heard numerous Chrust-yen references and seen two crucifixes since I was pulled over: one around the narcotics officer’s neck and one dangling from this trooper’s mirror. So I continue, “Yes, sir. My uncle’s lil’ chapel in Amarillo donated all they could to support both Bushes, Junior and his daddy.” (There’s no chapel. No donations. The point is that I too am a Christian, and even greater so, I too am a Texan—though I was born in Texas, I am neither a Christian nor a Texan; he, however, should believe that I am both).

His eye brows perk up. He glances twice in the mirror before saying, “You from Texas?”

“Yes, sir. Born ‘n raised,” I pronounce with a draw that would win me an Academy nomination. “Up north they still make fun’a my accent.” He tells me he didn’t even notice the accent till now. “I hide it so much, ya know. So’s to not get made fun of up ‘er in Colorado.” … and so the game goes until I’m a human being, and then eventually I’m one of his own and he’s telling me about his family, his farm, his career, and finally I get him to admit why he stopped me. This is only an inch, but it’s something.

I’d like to thank The Academy, first; then my rhetoric teacher; followed by my redneck uncles for the southern draw and simplified grammar.

He’d been claiming I was driving over the speed limit, even though that’s anything but true. Since I don’t have a driver’s license, I kept to the limits the entire drive and planned on it all the way to my destination. Never once drove 5mph more than the limit. And so each time I’d asked how much over the limit he clocked me at, he’d just say not to worry since he’s droppin’ that charge.

“Reason I’m takin’ you in is cuz drivin’ without a DL is breakin’ the law here in Texas.”

But the reason he pulled me over … the reason two K9 Units parked on both sides of my rental car only minutes after I was pulled over … the reason the narcotics officers gave me the 3rd degree interrogation about drug trafficking … is, as he says from under his ten gallon hat, Colorado just passed a law legalizing marijuana, and well, “With a Black in the White House, Queers havin’ a Christian’s marriage … dope legalized in God’s country … you just can’t be too careful these days.”

“Now listen,” he goes on to say, “I realize I’m ‘bout as tight as bark on a tree when it comes to the law. Some may’a just gave ya a ticket and sent ya on yer way, but I believe it’s just as likely fer you to sneak back ‘cross the state line and never return to pay for yer crime. You’d just be whistlin’ Dixie up ‘er like you’d never did nothin’ wrong down here. This a’way,” he says, “You have to wait and see the judge in the mornin’. Pay yer dues and what not.”

I’m shackled like a killer who’d forgot to make an enemy of his victim first. Hogtied like a baby pig that’d escaped the pen. A one-time freed slave who’d left the North and returned South only to be caught without his emancipation papers. I’m thinking in redneck adages. I was driving without a fucking driver’s license for crying out loud!

More laws lead to more crimes lead to more criminals lead to more jobs to catch, house, and process the criminals, which lead to more revenue leading ultimately to more money circulating within the system. Criminals are filters for the process in this way, lab rats exploited for the greater good, space monkeys for the ruling knuckle draggers. Karl Marx claims that in capitalistic societies, the people are concerned more about money and commodities than they are other human beings.

Dogs, on the other hand, well … they just bite one another.

∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫

∞ Crossing the Threshold ∞

It’s hard to believe Nietzsche’s claim that we should celebrate the rebel for reminding us of our enslavement to the system when I’m told to strip all my clothes off and lift my dick and nuts up to show that nothing’s stashed away in some secret compartment.

The first steps to make a slave of an individual are to separate them from their own kind and then strip them of their identity. Separate the rebel from his support group and give him the title criminal, thereby giving a less lustrous title and making the act of any rebellion lose any glory to others contemplating similar actions.

Ranchers hang dead wolves on fence posts for similar reasons. Other wolves are deterred from entering land when they see the carcass of what was one of their own that dared to “trespass.”

Romans left messiahs hanging on crosses to discourage other messianic aspirations.

A simple change in titles shows the power of words.

They take my cell phone and my wallet with all its contents including cash and ID card. No contact. No identity. They take my clothes, which could in many ways show identity. And as I hold my dick and nuts in my hand and he gazes long and hard at my taint, I think, I just didn’t have my mother fucking driver’s license, though I dare not utter a word.

To fight monsters is to become one, Nietzsche says.

I’m handed a green jump suit and a pair of flip-flops, and with that, a new identity. I am no longer the rebel who dared to drive to his best friend’s wedding without a driver’s license; I am now a criminal in the Republic of Texas. I’m a fucking dead wolf on a fence post. Jesus hanging next to others who did not abide by the law.

I am one step closer to the beast’s belly as they seat me next the woman who’s only job is to tag the slaves and send them to their quarters.

“98% of Colah’rahdins that we pull over have marijuana on ‘em. That’s statistically,” she says popping her gum and not taking her eyes off the computer screen for one moment.

I’m not human to her. I’m a product with a barcode that she runs across the scanner. I’m an enemy, soon to be a victim. A rebel turned criminal. I am not one of her kind.

“They come in here cryin’, talkin’ ‘bout how it’s legal up in Colah' rahda. Well it ain’t down here. Those types is ‘bout as welcome as a skunk at a lawn party.”

She’s as poetic as the trooper. Stoic.Short, round, and full of attitude. Dedicated to a system that is more unjust to those who are of no concern to it than it is unjust to those who are offensive to it. Another Nietzsche claim.

As a new challenge arises within me, I notice something in myself that I begin to notice in all human nature. I want to break this preset image she has prescribed me with, partially as a challenge of wits, but also because I want to get as much as I can from her, however little it may be. Even if … it’s just an inch. With the trooper gone and the officer who checked my taint nowhere to be found, this lady has current reign over me like a slave master.

I start the game with the presupposed idea she has of me. I can’t speak in a dialect that makes me sound ignorant and fitting to the image she has of all who come through here; and I can’t speak from the education level I have that is far above her own. I have to speak plainly. To her. Not above, nor below. All we have in common at this point is our current relationship. And that’s enough to work with.

The strategy behind me telling her, “I bet you see the worst of the worst,” is to separate myself from those who are in fact the worst of the worst. And she responds to this.

“You have no idea.”

Now, to connect more with her, I say, “Well, my cousin’s a prison guard at the federal penitentiary in Colorado; and he tells me that every four years a prison guard works, what it does psychologically to him or her is equal to what one year does to a prisoner. You’re still behind bars and surrounded by criminals in here. Man, I feel for ya’.” Now, I’ve further separated myself from the criminals she’s used to and have shown that I am more on her side of the law, even if just through a relative. I’ve also dabbled in some sort of empathy of her situation, shown understanding as to why she wears that frown and never looks a processee in the eyes.

“This job has made me never trust men again; I’ll tell ya’ that much,” she says. “Don’t get me wrong,” and for the first time she turns her head and looks me in the eyes, “I ain’t no fuckin’ carpet muncher though.”

I’m in. Ten minutes later and she’s laughing with me and barely asking the questions the computer screen tells her to: do I have this ailment or that ailment, am I suicidal or have I ever been suicidal, am I addicted to drugs or have I ever been…and so on.

“Listen,” I say during one of the most intense moments of laughter shared between us, “Can I ask a favor of you?”

Her posture shoots straight up and her frown returns. She doesn’t look me in the eyes anymore and she certainly does not laugh. She says, “I don’t know ‘bout that.”

“Calm down,” I tell her with a smile, “All I want to know is if you can prolong this processing. I ain’t gonna lie, an extra moment spent out here laughing with you is greater than any moment spent in the holding tank.”

An extra moment is an inch.

I see her body ease from its defenses. “You mean you ain’t ready to paint your butt white and go runnin’ with the antelope just yet, huh?” And she smiles.

“No, ma’am, I ain’t.”

All I’d done with the trooper was try to get anything I could from him, even if it was just the admission to why he pulled me over. With her I want as much time out of the holding tank as possible, or at the very least, same as with him, I want her to see me as a human being.

I think about life outside of here, how all we do in life is try to get a little more than we have from those who are in control of us or in control of the things we want. A nickel raise from our boss. A better position in the workforce. A higher grade from a teacher. Equity on homes. More square footage in our lofts. Return on investments. Sex from a lover. Devotion from a lover. Love, period. All we want is to get a little more of the control that controls us. And then Nietzsche comes to mind:

This world is a will to power, he says, and nothing besides.

A new rebel comes in and this lady has me stand in a corner while she processes him. She does this twice more before I realize she’s stalling for me. Rather than process me and have them wait their turns, she goes through them first; thus allowing my processing to be prolonged. I am now a human being.

After the third rebel passes through and into his new criminal identity, she finishes my questions, finger prints, and mug shots; and then says, “That was the best I can do. It’s time.”

I thank her. Tell her it’s more than enough.

“Now, walk down that hall to the laundry room," she motions the direction with her hand, "And then we’ll get ya’ in that tank”

She follows me. Doors buzz open as we arrive at them. In the laundry room she tells me to grab a mat, a sheet, and a blanket, all of which are stacked neatly on different shelves next to industrial size washers and dryers. “If you want two blankets, I can do that for you too; but you’re gonna have to deal with the others bein’ jealous.”

“Gladly,” I say.

“Then unroll ‘em and roll ‘em back up together so it looks like a mistake was made.”

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∞Belly of the Beast∞

“It’s gonna be about 12 hours before the judge is in,” she says as the door shuts behind me. The three rebels from earlier are sprawled out on the floor. Same jump suit as me. Same blankets. Same matts. Same flip-flops next to the matts. We are one and the same.

The messiah on his cross did not stand out from the murderer or the thief on theirs.

One lifts his head up and slides his pallet over to make room for me. “Don’t shit unless you absolutely have to,” he says looking at the silver toilet fully exposed in the corner. As he rolls over and back to sleep, he continues, “Even dogs don’t shit where they lay.” The others never move. I make my bed, careful not to reveal that I have two blankets.

I lie in utter silence.

I think first about Martin Luther King, JR and his Letter from Birmingham Jail, where he too was arrested for being, as his jailers claimed, an unwelcomed outsider in their state. Though I dare not think my circumstances are remotely comparable to his and his time in the Alabama jail, I am reminded of him saying in his letter, Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

And though I was not racially profiled, I was indeed profiled. With a Black in the White House, Queers getting married, and dope legalized all over, a change is slowly coming—a change that threatens the way of life where these types of comments are made. To a far smaller degree, my green and white Colorado license plates are Martin’s black skin. And, with everything stripped from me, I lie here experiencing what Martin called, nobodyness.

This cold, horizontal floor is the belly in the beast of order. All laws, all virtues, all values—all of which are based on perspective, are the means to make order from the seemingly chaotic. And this is the bottom of that order. The exploited who arrive here, or any floor like this one anywhere, are merely, as Nietzsche claims of all exploitations, consequences of the will to power, which is after all the will to life.

I’ve become the consequence of a way of life fighting to sustain itself. I represent the other life that strives to grow, spread, seize, and become predominant - not from any morality or immorality but because it is living and because life simply is… again and again I claim with Nietzsche and experience it now more than ever … a will to power.

I'm sorry that I can't praise the police department. It is true that they have been disciplined in their public handlings, but for what purpose? To preserve an evil system. I try to make it clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or even more, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends. So said Martin Luther King JR in that letter he wrote from jail.

I imagine the letter I’ll write, and think that it has to be dedicated to my best friend and his new bride. Like the little drummer kid in the manger banging bongos next to bay Jesus’ crib, this letter is all I have to give. And in it I’ll mention how I thought mostly of Marx, Nietzsche, King JR, Lacan, and Campbell. It will only be a matter of time, I think, and I’ll be out of here and writing my own Letter from a Texas Jail.

That very matter of time stretches beyond all previously known flexibilities for time. No prior concept of it exists in here. I clear my thoughts of King JR when one of my fellow mates awakens and asks a passing guard for Tylenol. And when the guard returns with a bottle of pills and a sign-off sheet, he asks the guard what the time is. I’d been to Birmingham and visited the King in his cell after I watched him protest with non-violent means he’d learned from Gandhi, saw him arrested by bigots with faces as stoic and prescribed with presupposed ideals of particular people as that of the lady who’d processed each of us in this cell, I sat next to King JR while each pen stroke gave birth to one of the most widely anthologized letters of our time, and when the guard looks at his watch and says, “a quarter to midnight,” I am in utter disbelief.

You can fit days inside the minutes of a jail cell, so I learn. Centuries in its hours.

The other two wake and ask for Tylenol too, admitting quietly amongst ourselves that they don’t need it. “You might as well take what you can get around here,” one says. And it’s at this moment that we all introduce ourselves for the first time and then tell our tales of capture. After this the conversation goes directly to, and never leaves the topic of, pussy. The variations of pussy from looks to feel, from hair lengths to shaved, from menstruating bloody to (what each of them agrees is the best of all pussies:) pregnant pussy. “I wouldn’t know, honestly, never have had that kind,” I say.

But what I really want to say is …

I want to tell the guy who beat his wife’s lover to a pulp about how Jacques Lacan took one of Sigmund Freud’s studies a layer deeper than Freud himself did. Freud demonstrates that at times children will not want to play with a toy, nor will they care at all about a particular toy, until another child wants to play with it. Lacan studied infant twins who could neither speak nor barely move more than their arms and heads, but would easily and obviously be overcome with a fit of jealous rage when the other sibling would suckle from the mother’s breast. I imagine this guy probably not wanting much to do with his wife until someone else did. He threw a fit like an infinite. Something intrinsic in us seems to want to control everything, even if it is only the desire of the other. A child would rather destroy a toy it cared nothing about than to see another child enjoy that very same toy. It’s about control, holding on to every inch within reach.

I want to ask the other cell mate why he beat his wife. He never tells why they fought, but I'm certain it can be connected to Freud’s idea of the Ego being projected from within us and into our outwardly real world surroundings, creating all things we fear and hate, as well as all things we desire and love. This means all things externally felt and imagined are more than directly related to our inner selves; they are, more particularly, our inner selves externalized. Buddhists have a similar belief that all enemies are only such because we have made them so. No one is our enemy whom we have not made be; and furthermore who our enemy is says more about us than them. These ideas combined mean that all things are manifestations of the Ego. We set all challenges and obstacles in our own way. And so I wonder about this other cell mate of mine; what could he have projected from within himself onto the woman that birthed his children; what fear or hatred brewed inside himself so much that he beat the shit out of her as if she was the embodiment of that abstraction from within himself. I wonder…

I want to discuss the carnival love. This guy loved a woman and didn’t want to be without her, but he’s been cycled and recycled in the system since he was a teenager, and so he had to rebel against an order to be with her. He committed a crime as a child and has been paying for it since through a series of revocations and so on. He’s one of the oldest in our cell but he has a childlike quality to him, an innocence that none of us possess, as if this system has kept him in the state he was in when he committed his crime. I think about Nietzsche saying that at one time in history, people who wronged others in their social group were punished with a severity that equaled the crime; and after that punishment, not only did they not repeat the offenses, but they also were considered to have paid their debt for the offense. Nietzsche claimed in the late 19th century (and I would claim is even more the case in our 21st century) that nowadays people pay for a crime for the remainder of their lives, whether it be through the inability to acquire decent work based on criminal records or it be the continuous revocation of the same crime committed decades prior. The overall goal for the endless un-reconciliation is one similar to medical industries not wanting to find a cure for ailments. People dependent upon and stuck within the system become filters for the process of monetary circulation and are best kept as such, as lab rats for the greater good, as space monkeys for the knuckle dragggers.

I’m thinking these things, though I dare not utter a word of them. Instead, I join in with the dogs and bark about the variations of bitches and pussies as I know them. I would separate myself from the pack if I were to provide my insight to anything other.

It’s here I realize we’re all in this cell due to some relation to love, even if by some extension of it: jealousy, passion, and so forth. I represent the beginning stages: a wedding. The carny represents the next: giving up the self for love and fulfilling the desire of the other. The guy who beat his wife is some stage nearer the end, either right before or directly after she cheats on him. And thus the final stage, the guy beats the wife’s new lover to a pulp. And the cycle is complete in a way that makes an enemy of Love and thereby justifies the system that controls it.

I wonder if it all is really, rather than being about love … is all this … is life and the control of it all really about … I mean … could it be that as the dogs in this kennel discuss nothing more than … could all of life, directly or indirectly, really be about pussy? This is, of course, from a man’s perspective; we could say “cock” for a woman’s, or perhaps some ambiguous sexual connotation to encompass both genders (Freud and Lacan would say both genders are phallic, for even the lack of something is the representation of that something that is missing).

I wonder ... Is love really our own childlike want to control a vagina like a toy? Do we ever leave the Oedipus and Electra Complex stages, where the moment a child first recognizes their own sexual identity, the very next step is to focus libidinal energy on the parent of the opposite sex? Then, all extensions and versions of jealousy and rage focus on the parent of the same sex. Is the guy who hospitalized his wife’s lover not the unrepressed Oedipus Complex, since his desire to possess and control the sexuality opposite his own and destroy the one that is the same as his and therefore the rival to him actually plays out, as if it escaped its subconscious repression? And he, like most of us, dared not think about sharing that vagina, as if it were his little toy that he could not stand the thought of someone else getting pleasure from. He demonstrates how we will throw tantrums that destroy others if they play with or attempt to play with things we claim as our own. We are nothing more than infant twins, each on opposite tits, sucking away and making an enemy of our own brother for indulging as we do. We will beat him to a pulp. Hospitalize or imprison him. Make a repeat offender of him to trap him within the system that supports this behavior because this justifies its existence. Even if it is all over a toy we care nothing about.

The law shapes man into its image, Lacan says, exploiting the poetic function of language to give man’s desires symbolic mediation.

I often think that we are no different from salmon, spending our whole lives trying to get back to the place we came from. We swim up streams of vaginas every chance we get until we die, and sometimes we die by them or because of them. Salmon spawning in the one place it was spawned from. I say vagina, or I say pussy, but really I understand that this is connected to reproduction. This is connected to survival of the species. We humans are a living, breathing organism that strives to grow, spread, seize, and dominate every inch of our immediate surroundings (for us as individuals) until this inch grows into all space (for us as whole organized units).

Everything we do is connected to the womb—that which we crawl out of like Jesus rolling the stone back for resurrection. To die and be born again in the same place, we have to protect the womb. We have to keep it sacred and cleanly, preserve its virgin-like and godly qualities. We have to claim it as our friend, our soul mate, our companion, our wife, the mother of our children. In other words, we build walls of illusion around it like fences around territory. And then we hang dead carcasses on posts to deter other dogs. We have to claim the womb by some way that designates us as the sole owner; meaning, we control it and only we can touch it; only we can play with it; no one else can stick their cocks in it but us; and no one but us gets pleasure from the one we claim as our own. Otherwise … we will destroy it—a Pagan temple where queues of beasts await in provocation. The goddess becomes a fallen statue in her own bed of ash, dripping, oozing, disease infested, and speaking the language of heathens from some dead religion. Decrepit and useless. There will be no rebirth otherwise.

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∞Road to Trial∞

Just before the twelfth hour in the tank, when conversation was dead and sleep was impossible, I lie awake reading all the markings on the walls and floor. Hieroglyphics of the slaves. None betraying the pattern of either keeping control of something or always loving someone. I wonder by what means were they able to leave these marks, but then I see the broken pieces of concrete rock lying loosely about the floor. As an unfamiliar feeling sets in, something beyond boredom and close to devastation, I understand how scratching philosophy into the layers of paint would help ease this approaching panic. A small purpose would be given in this way, a tiny goal, something that lets us and others know we were here, alive, and real; and something that (once again) becomes our own.

I grab a rock and underneath the slogan Never give ‘em the last inch, I start my own contribution, slowly inscribing: and take

The guy who beat his wife, he jumps up as if he’d woke from a nightmare. Sweating and breathing hysterically. He pushes a button on the wall and a woman’s voice comes through a small speaker demanding to know what his emergency is. He can’t speak. He’s hyperventilating. Me being close to panic already, I feel his instability spreading to me. Like some air born pathogen. And from the looks on the faces of the others as they begin to watch, it’s spreading to them as well.

A loud buzzer. The door opens. A guard takes him out of the cell and as he does he says, “Holy shit, this tank’s stuffy’er ‘na horses face eatin’ corncobs.”

The window is completely fogged over, as if we’ve been recycling each other’s breaths for centuries now. The guard stands next to the open door allowing new and cold air to come in. I sit upright, lay a blanket across my lap, wrap another around my shoulders, close my eyes, breath deeply and slowly, and attempt the first meditation of my life. I don’t know what meditating actually is or even what it consists of, nor do I know how to actually do it. But I attempt it anyway, attempting it as I’ve heard of it being done. I eventually calm myself through the process and end up in some place other than where I am.

I journey through Joseph Campbell’s theory of monomyth. Thinking back to Colorado when I, the hero, was called to action as Campbell says is the first step of all heroes ranging from Greek and Roman mythological heroes to Buddha and Jesus. I see the mountains—snowcapped and towering in their implications of a land where it’s okay for Blacks, Queers, and drug users to be human beings. According to Campbell’s theory, after the hero begins his journey, he will first cross a threshold where some foreign creature will take him further into the land of the unknown, or as Campbell says, the entrance to the zone of magnified power … where darkness and danger reside … a passage beyond the veil of the known into the unknown. The threshold guardian takes the hero closer to if not directly into The Belly of the Whale, according to Campbell. Jonah comes to mind, of course. But also, Dionysus and Hestia. Jason and Medea. Odysseus and the Odyssey. Jesus and the Romans. Me and the knuckle draggers. The hero enters the belly of the whale where the metamorphosis begins. Once inside he may be said to have died, only to return to the World Womb anew.

“Where’d you get two blankets from?” the guard asks me, and my eyes snap open and I’m brought back into my cell. I shrug my shoulders, act clueless, and say they were wrapped this way. “Supposed to only have one,” he says and turns around. And with that our cell mate returns, pale but calmed. He apologizes and goes right to his mat and blanket. Everyone rolls their backs to one another; and still seated upright, I close my eyes to the heavy noise of the door shutting.

Campbell says the hero, upon exiting the whale’s belly, is no longer who or what he was when he entered it, and he is then ready for a series of trials and tests from some awaiting female character—either a goddess or a temptress of some sorts—who has the ability to lead the hero astray or to encourage him to continue his journey. After her, the hero meets a male father figure for atonement consisting in the abandonment of the self-generated double monster—the superego and repressed Id. This requires an abandonment of the attachment to ego itself … and one must have faith that the father is merciful. This center of belief will be transferred outside of the self.

After a few moments of being lost in the silence, I wake. I grab my piece of the floor, the small chiseled concrete rock, and I continue my contribution to the slogan. As quiet as I can, next to my two words—and take, I press the rock into the paint and drag it into figures forming the words: back every inch from ‘em you can.

With a small purpose, there is no panic. Time is irrelevant. I take careful pride in my lettering and refurbishing the part of the slogan not created by me. I add a comma after the other rebel’s part of the slogan and a period after my own, uniting them as one and the same and ending them together as such. I brush the remnants clear and blow heavily across the phrase that now reads:

Never give ‘em the last inch, and take back every inch from ‘em you can.

I read it and wonder if others will understand it, or if it will be hidden by all the other slogans like the messiah surrounded by murders and thieves. I wonder if others will add to it. I think in years it will turn into a poem—stanzas by those of us who know what it means to own nothing except that final fucking inch. In decades it will become a new decree … maybe. But really I know it will be lost and forgotten once it’s covered with a new shade of grey paint as thick and dense as the power structure that willed it to be. Winds turn sands and hide footprints this same way.

Centuries pass and then the door buzzes and the guard says, “Westerholt. The judge will see you now.”

I throw one blanket to the carny and one to the guy that beat his wife’s lover. The guy who beat his wife, he says to me, “Hey man. Larry’s the impound guy; I know him. He ain’t gonna give you your car without a license. He’s gonna bleed you for every cent he can.”

“Thanks for the heads-up,” I say. And the door shuts behind me.

A new lady sits where the first did, but they are one and the same, like Romans to a messiah. She hands me my clothes and directs me toward the same room where I showed my dick to the officer earlier. It’s almost 10am. Within ten minutes I dress, and then I’m given my wallet and cell phone back. And with that, my own identity.

“Directly across the street's the courthouse. Judge’s chambers is down the hall, last door on the left. She’s waitin' for ya’.”

When all the barriers and ogres have been overcome … the triumphant hero meets the Queen Goddess of the World. This is the crisis at the nadir, the zenith, or at the uttermost edge of the earth, in the tabernacle of the temple … The meeting with the goddess is the final test of the talent of the hero to win the advantage of her charity … And if she shuns him, the scales fall from her eyes; if she does not, her desire helps him find peace. So says Joseph in his Hero of a Thousand Faces.

Outside the sun is warm and bright and opposite everything from where I just came. I breathe and taste the air like a newborn resurrected from the womb. Squinting and yawning and stretching. Each vehicle that passes is a truck of some kind: dualies, F150s, and old farm pickup trucks. The buildings are from some other era, pre 20th century. No stop lights in either direction for as far I can see. It’s like a dream. I’m lost on some time travel expedition. If a horse and buggy came down the street and stopped to watch two gun slingers pace and draw on one another, I would not be surprised in the least.

Down the hall of the courthouse and in the last door on the left, I wait to see the judge in an office with Jesus décor all over. Crosses hang on the walls. Bibles on the shelves. Magnets on the filing cabinets: several with proverbs and one with a picture of Jesus holding a lamb. A picture on the wall shows a man and a woman holding hands and walking on the beach toward a sunset that colors the entire scene shades of orange. At the bottom of the poster it reads, Our love is designed by Jesus. And though it’s a silhouette of a male and a female figure holding hands, it’s obvious they are a white couple. A white, heterosexual, non-drug using couple, designed by Jesus himself. I am in God’s country, at least this version of god; and I am about to have one his own protégés pass the same judgment on to me as they would have he himself pass it. Since he hates Blacks, Queers, and junkies I think it fortunate, at the very least, that I am white, heterosexual, only on the proper occasion do I use drugs, and it helps that I really am originally from this god fearing jungle.

She yells from the courtroom next door that she’s ready for me and the secretary gives me a nod. “She’ll see you now,” she says as if I was too stupid or not worthy of hearing the judge’s yelling myself.

The courtroom is empty of people but filled with antique wooden chairs with red velvet cushions aligned in scattered rows. Her desk is at the front of the room. This is not the typical courtroom you see on TV depicting the 21st century. This looks like an elementary school from a time when plainsong and national athems filled the rooms. It’s still haunted by such chimes.

An old white lady with short and tightly curled grey hair peers over the rims of glasses at me as I approach. I ask her very politely if I may take a seat at one of the two chairs across from her desk. The game has already begun; I know the one inch I want from her. I no longer use the dialect I did in the tank where pussy was the topic. I now speak with a language even elevated above that I did with the lady who gave me my slave tags. I follow our introductions with lots of yes ma’ams and no ma’ams. And when she gets a pencil out to start figuring the total fines, I quickly mention that I am an English instructor at the university back home and so math certainly isn’t my strong point. Simultaneously I have informed her of a respectable career as well as humility exposed through a personal weakness. We laugh a bit at my expense: the joy of all I’ve been through and the circumstances that caused them. I admit fault repeatedly, bring up the importance of the wedding, and I most certainly mention being originally from Texas myself. And not two seconds after she tells me the total for my fines, I ask for my inch.

“Your Honor,” I say, “I wonder if you might consider giving me anything for the time I served in your jail. I spent nearly 13 hours in the tank and just wondered if you can give me anything for that. However little it may be. I would be more than grateful.”

“Well, we don’t give anything for time less than 24 hours served,” she says. And just as I nod in understanding and tuck my chin to my chest, she says, “Usually… that is,” and she smiles. “How ‘bout this?” She scribbles through the original total she’d written down, which was just over 400 dollars, and she draws a new figure that is just under 300 dollars.

It’s not much, but it’s something.

I shake her hand and thank her. And I notice, Joseph Cambpbell was right, scales do not fall from her eyes.

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∞Atonement∞

One step closer to getting out of God’s country, I call Larry’s Tow. After I tell him who I am and ask for directions to his impound lot, he says, “Hell, boy, I’m out-n-about. Only two clicks from ya’ now. I’ll pick ya’ up.”

The final step for Campbell’s hero is confrontation with a male figure who holds the key to either life or death. In my case, the final figure holds the keys to my rental car. And I’ve already been warned by my cellmate that once this Larry guy discovers I have no driver’s license, he’ll care more about money than he does about me as a human. He will see me as some sort of cash cow ready for the prostate milkin’, or something like that; I’m sure. But, as Campbell claims, the hero must have faith that this male figure is merciful. Paralleled with Freud’s claim of the Ego’s projections becoming manifestations, the hero must transfer his inner mercy outward and onto this male figure who then reflects it back as an act. In other words, I have from the time Larry picks me up on the corner near the courthouse until wherever his impound lot is to pull out all the same inch winning tricks I have so far.

As I stand on the corner in the centermost part of this Wild West remake, an oversized truck with a diesel engine’s purr pulls up next to me and the door swings open. “Hop own in,” says the old man. In a Western flick, his name would be Stretch. His boots rest at the bottom of his long thin legs that are wrapped tightly with denim. His belt buckle protects his entire midsection like a shield. Button collar shirt with stripes and his lip’s fat and full of chew. “Colla’rahda, huh? Bet it smells like pig’s shit and cow guts to ya’ll when ya’ll come down here to the panhandle.” And he’s right. The stench is everywhere. Breezes are unwelcome; all they do is spread the horror. “Ta’ us, down ‘ere, That’s the smella’ money, son.”

I don’t hold back. I fire at him with a southern draw, because I know my time is limited. I have to become one of his own and he’s already attempting to separate me from being such.

“Born an’ raised in the panhandle, sir. I know the smell quite well.” With that, I talk about Amarillo being my hometown and I thank him repeatedly for picking me up. Then I continue on with all the same previous strategies as those I used to get every single inch I could from everyone who had some control over my life within this last 20 hour period:

Get those in control to identify with you. Match your language and intellectual level with that of their own; you cannot have those in control thinking you are smarter than they are and you cannot give those in control any reason to believe that you are dumber than they are (one insults their intelligence; the other confirms their stereotype). However, you must behave in a way that lets them know you are aware that they are in control; this will keep them from feeling as if they need to remind you who is in control. This is indeed the classical dialectic of Master and Slave. The slave must know and accept his position, so that he can maneuver through all the barriers that create this position before he can free himself from those very barriers. In other words, a slave must know he is a slave and all the ways in which he is a slave before he can free himself from slavery.

The recipe for making a slave:

• Remove one individual from his or her own people: family, friends, and any other social group.

• Further separate the individual from all people who speak the same language as him or her.

• Just prior to basting, brush away any previously known identities (this includes everything from the individual’s name to associations they identify themselves with).

• Add new identity in 2 parts: Part One. Give the individual a new title, not a name in the sense of a Proper Noun (this should be something derogatory, something that lets the individual know every time he is summonsed by this title that he/she is at a lower status than his master and/or all those who refer to him by this title). Part Two. The slave should no longer be considered an individual. Their new identity should have him/her assigned to all groups similar in stature as their new position, thereby also losing any individualism. Nigger, Queer, Dope-user, White-Trash, Criminal — these are good examples for both Parts One and Two.

• Prior to adding the slave to one holding tank with no windows to the outside, an act of humiliation should precede (public nudity often works well). The walls of the tank should be painted a dull color so the slave gets no stimulation at all. The tank should also be no more than 12’X10’ in diameter. If a tank of this sort is unavailable, a cage or a shack directly behind the master’s mansion should suffice, so long as the cage or shack is in similar condition as all other animals’ cages on the same property.

• Beat, whip, or whisk the slave at your leisure and to a pulp that is to your liking.

• Serve to a God fearing Christian; and Enjoy!

And since this is the process to make a slave, the recipe need only be reversed for the slave seeking freedom:

• Do not Enjoy! Get/be/remain angry (History shows that angry people are those who shift the course of mankind)

• Do not serve the Christian god. His book and ideals promote slavery (amongst other things like homophobia, patriarchy, servitude to a master [even when not a slave as the current topic], narcissism, and murder of those that are different in any way).

• Consider all beatings, whippings, and whiskings as Nietzsche claims of all things that do not destroy us. Even if they truly do not make us stronger, believe it is so while it’s happening so that you may get through the process and eventually overcome it.

• Remove yourself from the confinements of the master’s tanks, cages, shacks, and even the shadows of his mansion. Position yourself in a way that makes it impossible to be caged (i.e. do not drive without a driver’s license).

• Get your identity back, and associate yourself with those you identify most with, and those whom encourage your self-expression.

• Master the use of language (knowing when and how to use its variations among whom)

The whole reality and its effects lies in the gift of speech, Jacques Lacan says, for it is through this gift that all reality has come to man and through its ongoing action that he sustains reality.

Never has this quote rang truer than here in this desolate Texas dirt-hole town, where language creates both a law and a belief system that imprisons someone for something so minor in its true essence because of how it is greater in its implications. That is to suggest: the act of driving without a driver’s license is not the same threat as the driver and what he represents when coming from a place where value systems are different. But language is the bridge of the dialectical process; and though language enforces, language is used to challenge the enforcer's words. Those who use language like whips and chains to control others as they will themselves into positions of power through it should not be surprised when someone uses language and lashes back in a way that calculates repositioning that same power, even if it is only by an inch in favor of the one lashing back through tongue and pen.

At the impound lot, Larry and I are like old buddies talking about high school football in Texas being better than college football in other states, and Texas women have asses like no other women on the planet (I don’t give a fuck about football. Give me Nietzsche, Freud, Lacan, and King any day. Talk about Campbell and his “follow your bliss” philosophy. Rhetoric and its power to seduce and manipulate. And I damn sure don’t care about Texas ass no more than I do pregnant pussy. But Larry doesn’t need to know any of this). I never lose faith in his mercy; and I’m projecting my inner belief outward and on to him. Tough I dare not do it without the assistance of words, for I believe in the power of language irrevocably.

In this tractor garage just on the outskirts of this shithole Texas town, the lot is filled with locus shelled cars and tow trucks and trailers. And in here, Larry sits at a desk and adds up my cost. Just as he tells me the total, another 300 and something dollars, he orders some other gentleman who's legs dangled out from underneath a truck to go fetch the red hatchback. Instead, just as I hand Larry my debit card, his partner (or employee or whatever he is) rolls out from under the truck and walks right up to us and says, “He ain’t got no DL, Larry. Trooper Walkins told me last night about ‘im not havin’ it. We cain’t let ‘im outta here in that car.” His greasy cap and brown coveralls become the focus of my hatred.

I turn directly to Larry and ignore ol’ Skeeter, or whatever the fuck his name is, and say, “Larry, I just wanna get home. I’m 50 miles from the Texas border and all I want is to get back to Colorado. I ain’t got no one who can even come get me.”

Larry puts his face in his hands just as ol’ Skeeter, or whatever the fuck his punk ass name is, says, “Cain’t do it. Larry, you ain’t even considerin’ doin’ this; are ya’?”

Skeeter is about to get a drop kick to the fuckin’ throat and a karatee chop to the bridge of his nose right when Larry says, “I don’t know why, but I am considerin’ it. 31 years in this business, and I never have allowed it once." He pauses. Shakes his head. Looks up at me and says, "Why this time, I do not know.”

I’ll tell you why. I’ll tell everyone why … because while I was here in God’s country … I fought, through the use of language—the only tool I’d been afforded and the only tool they did not strip me of—for every last mother fuckin’ inch that was rightfully mine to begin with anyway.

∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫

∞Epilogue∞

The drive home was done at neither one mile over nor one mile under the speed limit. Until I crossed the state line into New Mexico, I felt like a slave on the underground railway. My palms were sweaty; I had cottonmouth; and I kept looking in the rearview mirror for police or troopers. All I wanted was to be back in the north. The moment I was in New Mexico, everything felt differently; and as I approached Colorado, the mountain range in the distance made me feel at ease. I felt proud to call Colorado "home." I imagined the mountains representing this strange place where black people are accepted, gay people are allowed to love one another, recreational drug use is permitted. I imagined just over the approaching mountain range, Colorado as this land like OZ where witches and flying monkeys all walk upright and don't drag their knuckles on the ground, unicorns and fairies prance and frolic beneath rainbows, more gods than the Hebrew wolf hanging from a cross are celebrated, music plays in streets of gold, dogs chase only their own tails, and police and state troopers spend their time focusing on real crimes.

I missed my best friend’s wedding. The only request he made to his bride to be in regards to the wedding, he said that she could have everything she wanted for the wedding, the only thing he had to have … was me there. It’s been nine days since Carlton and Erica’s wedding and I have not stopped typing this essay since I got home. Every spare moment I found has been spent in front of my laptop laying down this story. I believe dogmatically that language creates and sustains our reality, controls us and gives us the ability to control. And so this story about language, told by way of language itself, is my attempt to capture a moment in time, to control the narrative before it slips away. This is my gift to Carlton and Erica. But more so, it is my apology to them both. Two of the most powerful words in the world, said in any language at any time, are I’m sorry. And though it will never make up for the ceremony I missed, I have just said how sorry I am in just over 9.6 thousand words.

Carlton and Erica, I’m sorry.

I’m so sorry that I missed the ceremony of your union.

I love you both dearly—forever and always…

One Love.

~Harley

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