Tocky on 11/2/2018 at 06:46
Sardis Lake is a fairly large one. It has beaches whose heyday passed some time in the early seventies though folks do still come to swim and lay about on summer days. Mostly folks camp and boat and fish. Many fish all night on the rocks near the spillway. There one can catch crappie, spoonbill catfish, and the occasional bass. Mostly what they fish for is the spoonbill. Those can weigh in at upwards of thirty pounds but of course most don't. Some, like me and Rodney, just stop to watch what folks are catching.
We were doing that one night, just leaning over a rail as the water roared, boiled, and misted from the huge concrete opening, when Rodney elbowed me and turned to look down the road which went the way round by the camps and beach. There walked two young girls bathed in the blue arc sodium of streetlights. I had been broken with Belinda for about a month at that point and Rodney was likewise free. We watched them walk straight to us like mana from heaven.
I don't recall all the conversation but I do Rodney saying "What are you ladies doing out by yourselves on this fine ass evening?" You just have to know the inflection he gave words. Not real good looking but damn he had swagger. We talked for a bit and burned one and somehow the pairing off happened. We were in Rodney's big Chrysler and already parked in the shadows so we listened to some tunes, him and his girl in front and me and mine in back. I can't recall what she looked like except dark hair and eyes and she tasted of cinnamon gum. I was rounding third when the door opened and the arm rest she had her head on was taken away. Her head looked up from it's upside down perspective and mine from being buried in her neck.
Oh shit it's my boyfriend. You damn right it is, bitch. Hey, hey, there are ladies present, no need for foul language. Get the hell out of the car. Do you want to? We better. And so it went until we were standing across from "the boyfriends" and one of them with a gun pointed at Rodney doing near all the talking. I'll try to recall the conversation because I couldn't keep the gun from swinging in my direction with each of my comments. Keep in mind he is trying to talk to Rodney.
Guy with gun- What the hell do you mean kissing my girlfriend?
Rodney- She didn't taste like your girlfriend.
Guy with gun- Shut up you stupid fucker. I asked you a question.
Me- A dumbass question.
Guy with gun- You shut the fuck up.
Me- Okay but I don't know how the hell anybody is going to shut up and answer. Telepathy maybe?
Rodney- Look we didn't know anything about no damn boyfriends.
Me- Yeah, it didn't exactly come up.
Guy with gun- I told you to shut the fuck up.
At some point during this the girls had changed sides. The one without the gun pointed at it.
Me- Just a fact. This is some bullshit.
I was staring at the guy without the gun who looked like he wanted to make a move on me but instead turned to the girl and started berating her.
Guy with gun talking to Rodney- Tell me one reason I shouldn't just shoot your ass right now.
Me- Maybe because you're not a complete moron? Not a complete one anyway.
Guy with gun- I thought I told you to shut up motherfucker.
Rodney- Yeah maybe you ought to be quiet.
Me- Okay. Just trying to talk some sense. Somebody has to.
Guy with gun- Last time you cunt. You're going to be talking out of another hole in your face in a minute.
Rodney- Godamnit I told you we didn't know anything about no boyfriends. I don't know what the hell else you want me to say.
At this point the guy with the gun just goes on a cursing binge. At one point I said "fuck take a breath" but he didn't hear that what with all the creative character slurs and all. But then one of the girls said something about seeing the Park Rangers coming and they disappear quick. Sure enough on the way out we see them pulled over and I'm saying yeah fuckers find that gun but before we left me and Rodney had a little conversation in the car.
Godamn man I thought I would shit when you said she didn't taste like your girlfriend. We busted out laughing. When we were done he told me thanks for taking some of the heat for him. I told him I just couldn't shut my damn mouth is all.
This is Rodney about that age-
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Tocky on 19/2/2018 at 07:33
Well it's another evening and I'm feeling fine as a frog hair split ten ways. I wish I could get some stories out of folks but that's fine too. It's just that we learn so many things in so many ways and all of them are a story. I like hearing about that. It bolsters my faith in humanity.
I've always been more confident than I had any right to be. Look at my wormy butt in that early picture. I couldn't gain weight in those days if I ate a gallon of lard every meal. Look at that face. Ridiculous porn 'stache and I could walk up and smack the prayer out of a popes mouth. I'm blessed. My ignorant ass is blessed. I can't lose and I know it. I've always been lucky. Maybe in the end I will pay. Maybe in the end I will die alone and in pain. It's okay even so. I have it coming for the good I've been given despite my evil heart. I tried to pay back but I always got more than I gave.
My wife hasn't always been aware of my lack of immortality either. For awhile I was the go to guy who helped her friends move out of the home of whatever low life cheating lying bastards they had been suffering. I was the muscle in case things turned bad. LOL. I didn't have enough lead in my ass to fill a number two pencil. I had bravado and a certainty things would turn up aces on the last deal of cards. After a bad turn on one packing up leaving where the guy went to get a shotgun from a closet and I stepped in front and spoke reason, though unarmed, I carried my 45 from then on in the small of my back. No sense being extra stupid.
I never pulled it. It was hidden. I let them rant and rave. Why not? They knew they were losing their good thing. They knew it was their fault. They blamed others but later would blame the right one. I knew that. They said some really awful stuff though. I heard terrible things like one where a guy spoke of fist fucking his wife in front of his kids. Awful shit. I hope they felt the weight of what they said later. I hope it made them better people. For some it does but they usually have to lose it all.
I felt a bit used though. I wanted my wife to understand I was not immortal. No matter how I acted, no matter how I never let on I felt any fear or let on I was anything less, I wanted her to worry I was not all the bold ass I made out to be. It's a peril of this fake front you put on that even those closest believe you. Even my daughter believes. When she had a stalker she didn't go to her husband. I dealt with it. I had to. I knew he would and that could not be. He has the future. I'm all the past and over. That's another story. I'm a liar and fraud though. I'm not invincible. I'm just willing to see it through is all.
The last time I helped in a move the guy was plenty pissed and had plenty to say. I stood calm and firm as always. But I felt old. I felt weary. I knew one time I would say the wrong thing. There is always somebody quicker, somebody stronger, somebody more lucky. Well, maybe not anyone more lucky. I suffered his words and blocked the way of any retaliation. We loaded up the stuff and the kids to take to her mothers. On the way her boy was such an angry little guy. I wanted to say something but I didn't know what. I didn't really know the situation. How hard it must be to love them both and have to choose. I kept silence but it took something out of me. That angry little face. What would it grow up to be?
After we had dropped him off at his grands she wanted to celebrate her liberation and though I had no inclination I had obligation and Rena wanted to help her shake her out of her bondage. We went to a bar to dance. When some cowboy asked my wife and she accepted the dance her friend sat in my lap. I told her she didn't want to do that. She said she did. No. You are just grateful is all. No. That isn't all it is. Yes, it may not feel like it now but... damn it she was rubbing her ass on my crotch. My dick was a traitor. That bastard belied my words. I was still trying to tell her it was a bad idea when Rena came back and caught her.
Oh she was pissed at her. I guess I should have stood and dumped the girl on her ass but sometimes you just can't think. But she was more pissed at me. "Did your dick get hard?" she asked as if she knew. What could I do but shake my head? Sometimes you are caught in honey and don't know enough to move until the trap comes down. As bad as it was she never had me risk my fool neck to move another of her friends out of a bad relationship. I'm alive. Even the bad works in my favor. Rena forgot. I didn't. I'm glad I didn't have to move another "friend". I'm not immortal.
This night I'm listening to Beth Hart croon sweet sultry words as I type and I'm alive and the world is fine.
Tocky on 24/3/2018 at 07:39
Okay, well I'm up anyway with a horrible pain that goes bone deep due to a wisdom tooth extraction and I'm hoping to drink enough to get some sleep but while I'm up I'll type aimlessly until the alcohol kicks in. I ran out of the hydrocodone which isn't much better than aspirin anyway and I may hit up the Nyquil before long. This is awful. It was a hard pull. Nobody else would do it but this one young doctor. Are you sure you can? It's got a long curved root and it's right on a nerve. Sure. Well it was saving me enough to go on a weeks local vacation which is how I measure things so I told him go ahead. When they were shooting in the novacain he hit the nerve which lit up my whole right side of my face like fire and shot my legs out comically straight. He pulled like crazy for over an hour. Even a week later I'm still feeling it bad. When you think it's pulling a bone from another bone then it makes sense it would hurt bad.
Anyway I want to talk about the savior complex between gulps of cheap wine. We all have it to some extent. So much bad shit happens that we want to fix it when it pops up right in front of us right? Now is our time. We will right the wrong. We will avenge. For all the weak who wish they could we will beat a fool down. Luckily they don't happen often.
We, Rena and me, were in the Mid South Coliseum before a ZZ Top concert and there was this guy arguing with a cop. I don't know anything that came before but I stopped to listen. It soon became apparent the cop was just hassling this guy for being a long haired hippy. Well in my soul I too am a long haired hippy though my shorn locks say otherwise. Eventually the guy had enough and just turned to walk away. At that point the cop smacked him in the back of the head with a billy club.
Whoa whoa oh hell naw. The guy was like what the hell man? Me too. In spite of Rena pulling my arm I walked up to the cop and told him that wasn't right. I went on a tirade about what he should be doing instead of indulging his fear of harmless folks out for a good time. I told him his job in uninterrupted glory about his fears of a permissive society and how wrong they were and why a society founded on the sort of authoritarian rule he seemed to deem necessary would not work and how he was to protect and serve the very sort he was bashing in the back of the head and I went even further about how he should be ashamed of his behavior for waiting till he turned to hit him and that was so cowardly. The guy he had hit had taken his leave and didn't even hear any of this.
I let him have it. I was sick of all the times I had been targeted for my looks. And you know what the weird thing was? He actually WAS ashamed. I expected him to target me then but he didn't. He didn't say a word. He had a sort of hang dog look like he knew what I was saying was right. I didn't know how to deal with that. I hadn't expected it. So I said something goofy and awkward about how on another occasion I might shake his hand but not tonight. I wanted him to earn that handshake and then I let Rena pull me away. THAT is how foolhardy I act. I am not as good a person as I act like I am but yet I fool others into being receptive of my sermon.
Other times I don't fool because I mean it. When my daughter called and had that quiver in her voice because she had picked up a stalker and needed me it was different. If you have ever heard the word "daddy" said in a fearful I don't know what to do way then you know. I turned the tables on that fucker. I learned everything I could about him. When I called him I told him where he lived, what he drove, who his parents were, and most importantly what I was going to do to him and why. I couldn't risk my son in law finding out so I would have to do it quick and by myself. My family had a future and I am expendable.
I still feel kind of like a puss because I did it over the phone because I could never catch him at my daughters place of work but it worked so what the hell. All's well that ends well. He stopped harassing her. I was just being honest. I regretted I would have to spend the rest of my days in jail instead of with my grand kids. I sincerely wished I wouldn't have to kill him and meant every word and what do you know I didn't. You always have to remember it could go the other way though.
There was a night me and Leggit and my brother and Dit stopped at a store on our way home only the store was closed and there were these guys out front and we started talking to them and this one guy who was huge anyway asked us to help get him out of a ditch. Only he didn't exactly ask. He demanded. Well we didn't have a chain and I was in my dads Nova and I tried to tell him these things but he wasn't having any. He pulled a gun and pointed it in my face. So okay we would all pile back in and see what we could do. That would hurt less than a bullet right?
So we all drove to where he had mired up to the axle and there was no way in hell our car could have pulled him out even had we a chain and I glanced off to the side where it was and thought once again this guy was nuts. That car was buried to the floor board. His lights were shining on it and there was no way. So we were still on the highway in our car and the easiest thing to do was punch it and leave these idiots at warp speed. We did. I have no idea how he expected us to help anyway. I had no inclination to help an asshole under the best of circumstances anyway and this wasn't the best.
What the hell else did he expect us to do? Was this asshole so used to getting his way through bullying he just took it that we would pull down into a mud pit and stick ourselves? We punched it. I'm not such a cocky fool as to stick around for some big ass bitch wanting the impossible. They tried to give chase but we had such a head start there was no way. I'm not above running should it seem prudent and this time it did. See? I can be a puss at times. We laughed at their headlights in the distance. What the hell did he think would happen?
Okay the Tylenol PM and a couple of glasses of wine is helping enough that I may can sleep now. We will see.
Tocky on 26/3/2018 at 05:52
I'm all over the place and not really fleshing out my stories. I likely should just quit but it's addictive. It's like I'm at the end of my life (though with my luck I'll live to be a doddering pathetic mess) and recounting in disjointed fragments the flashing moments. And then with full knowledge of what's happening I'm plowing ahead like I've always done. So let's do it again.
I love my brother. In ways it may not have seemed like it. I broke his nose playing backyard football. I broke his arm on a tandem swing because I wanted him to see how fun it was to swing so high the bar whacked against the top bar. He stepped off and that was the wrong thing to do. You either commit entire or get off at the start. I didn't mean anything bad to happen but I was a bad big brother. No way to deny holding him down to fart in his ear. But I swear I would die for him. I think he would me too.
I made it seem like I stopped all bad behavior when I got married. That's not true. For a few years I would every now and then go visit Jeff, my old buddy, in the Diamond Backs motorcycle club. I love Jeff. I grew up with him and he was the little brother of my friend Elliott only he was a better person at heart than Elliott ever gave thought to being. He was less macho and more funny and I wasn't as good to him as I should have been early on because he was always wanting to tag along. I pissed on his head as he climbed a ladder to where we were on the roof of a barn partly just to get away from him. I told him I would if he kept climbing up. That was so wrong and I knew it though. We bathed him up real good and to his credit he never told. He was and is a good friend and I'm an asshole. No way around it.
Anyway I used to go to his house on the weekends and spend the night while my wife went to her mothers. Not fully broken in to the family man thing yet I guess. Plus he had acid a lot. I love acid. It makes you feel as if you have achieved another level and advanced into a further mental realm while in actuality you have just laughed the night away at stupid shit. Sometimes you can do stuff you have no way of actually doing in normal life. I recall picking the chimney off a lantern with my bare hand and him being amazed. I lit my cigarette and returned it then asked him what was wrong. That should have taken your skin off he said. I guess I was alternating pressure based on temp and avoided it. I don't know. But acid makes odd things happen.
The last time I tripped with him we were at Glen Grosses house. I didn't know the guy. Jeff thought he was okay and that was enough. Jeff was wrong. My brother was with us but not tripping. He was on his favorite: alcohol. At one point Glen pushed my brother over a bicycle in the yard purely because he thought it was funny and my brother tumbled down the hill on the other side. Well my brother pops up and is okay but I'm not. I mean he was like what the hell but generally okay. Then Glen makes the mistake of sitting down beside me on a metal folding chair. As soon as I thought it I did it. I reached down and grabbed the nearest leg of his chair and yanked up. It was like a cartoon. He stayed in his seat as it did a 180 and then fell out to land on the top of his head. It was hilarious and everybody laughed. Almost.
Glen was pissed. He was a lot taller than me but not much better built. He was bitching. I stood and told him that was my brother he pushed over and I would be more than happy to carry it farther but if he wanted we could call it even now. I let him go on about how I was a brave little fucker but reminded him we could go farther. He didn't want to. I wish now he had. You have no way of knowing what is going to happen in the future. You just can't. This guy might have cured cancer but he didn't. Instead he and his brother molested a four year old girl about six years later. If I had known I would have broken his neck. But you don't know. I have wished so often I had.
They all laughed about it at the Diamond Backs. I wouldn't say I was a hero but I definitely had cred. It was a story laughed about for awhile. I was in good standing. I did hang out at the club on occasion but though I really love Harley's I just am not much of a joiner. Paige who was there to see it would bring it up and we would all laugh. But after it came out he abused that little girl it wasn't funny to me anymore. I wanted to kill him. I had kids of my own to think of though. He went to jail for the max anyway but I wish I had at least beaten him to a bloody mess. You just don't know though. It's a fruitless yearning to wish for a way to change what happens. But you do. If I had just injured him enough he wouldn't have been able to do that horrible thing. She might have been spared. It's one of the few times I wish I had been more violent. How do you know? How do you know when it's right to let go on somebody? I hope that girl is okay and happy. I feel like I failed her. Nothing can stop that feeling.
Edit: I forgot to say Jeff got me back quite literally. When I was sitting on a storm house he snuck up behind me and pissed on my back. What could I say? I knew it was payment come due. Little shit never quit trying to tag along.
Tocky on 31/3/2018 at 04:22
I know I said I'm a good person at my core in another thread but I'm not exactly good according to the rules of society. I figure they are some decent guidelines on the whole but I have my own rules. Basically just have as good a time as you can without hurting anyone if they don't make you. Words are just words and that isn't any reason to hurt anyone though shit if I haven't fought over those too.
I fought Kevin once. I didn't want to but he insisted. It pissed me off that he insisted. I guess we had been with each other too long and had gotten on each others nerves. I fought Elliott a lot but Kevin was my best bud. We were simpatico. We were friends since the sixth grade and shaped each others souls. We fought though. I kept telling him why I wasn't going to fight him while I beat him all the way from my living room into my bedroom. Every opening in his defense got a punch. As I had him against the far wall I suddenly realized what I was doing. Wait. This is Kevin.
That is of course when he started in on me and I allowed myself to be backed into the living room again. He hardly laid a glove on me. I'm quick. Was anyway. I finally said we were going to stop. That pissed Kevin off. Why did I get the say when we quit? I wanted to tell him because I can beat your ass and I've already knocked numerous lumps on your head and face while you haven't landed a solid lick on me but you can't say that. I know he was pissed because I'm so arrogant. But I can't help that. I just know I am going to be okay. The hardest punch I've ever taken (and certainly not by Kevin) took my balance but I stayed on my feet and covered until I got it back. I'm not going to lose and even if I do so what?
We quit. He didn't like it. You never do when you know you got the worst of it. It really wasn't going to get any better for him if we kept at it. I had held back and still he had lumps. I felt bad about that. We took a ride on our motorcycles after and felt better toward each other. Tony, one of his friends who wasn't one of mine, later talked me into saying I got the best of Kev then tried to use it to drive a wedge between us but I recounted the conversation for Kevin and he just said not to mention it. I was only being honest when goaded into it. Fuck Tony the back stabbing bitch. That's the sort of shit girls do. We are friends to this day so eat it Tony.
I hadn't meant to tell this story. I meant to tell about breaking into the Masonic lodge and getting drunk my first time and got side tracked. That I did with Kevin and a couple other guys but now I've done this whole other story so I'll do that one next time. Anyway I'm no saint and only one step ahead of the devil on my best day. Take it with a grain of salt when I say I'm good. I meant to be. I really did. There was always so much fun to be had though.
Tocky on 7/4/2018 at 04:00
So the Masonic lodge. Look, I'm not the worst to come out of my little town okay? Before me and my crowd there was a guy that came back from Nam and dropped a grenade in the constables car. Puffed it up like a balloon. Nobody was inside it. We haven't had any homicidal maniacs. Suicidal ones of a sort. There was a Phillips boy who was riding around tossing M80's out the window with some guys and bounced one off the door frame right into the open box of them. M80's are like a quarter stick of dynamite and illegal. They lived but not without damage. It blew the front seat into the trunk. Crippled one guy and none of them could hear too well after. Mostly harmless stuff though.
The generation before us took tractors apart and put them together again atop the local store. They stacked a pile of old tires in the middle of town and set them on fire which burned long enough to ruin the tarmac and would have burned longer had the fire department not finally snuffed it. The generation after us was worse too. Doug and Steve tried to knock the light off the constables car as it rounded a bend by using a log on a rope swung from a tree. Too much rope. They knocked out the side glass instead. Hell about the worst we did was slip up and scotch his wheels on the sly then do a burnout all the way around his car and laugh as we sped away while he thought his car had died because it wouldn't move and stripped the starter trying to crank an already running engine. That and hide in the deep ditch shadows at the twin church crossroad and toss a string of fire crackers on his hood when he stopped for the sign. Yeah I guess we weren't exactly good but we didn't shoot out the lights on a highway patrol car with a pellet gun like Doug did. It's a wonder that boy is still alive.
My town never raised a saint though. So I was spending the night with Kevin over the weekend. We often stayed at each others houses till Sunday evening or so. Mostly we did legal stuff. He lived close enough to Oxford that we would walk to the theater. Saw Phantom of the Paradise there. I recall telling him I liked the bad guys music better and him saying he knew I would. Anyway we might slide down the big kudzu hill on a coke button sign or have a rotten plum fight or even toss them at cars way off and sometimes hit them and hide.
This evening we had made plans to camp on Masonic lake which was down a paved dead end damn near dead across from his house. Pretty lake. Sand and clear water and surrounded by pines. A couple other guys were coming with that he knew and we all had sleeping bags. I had managed to get a six pack of Miller tall boys. Fourteen and I had never been drunk but I wanted to know. Always Jim Nightshade and never Will Holloway.
We set up at sunset right on the lake in a scattering of pines below and to one side of the Masonic lodge. A nice place with large windows facing the lake and a huge fireplace. While the rest built a fire I chugged every one of the tall boys. One after the other with hardly a breath between. Ugh hot beer. You couldn't get me to do that today for a steak dinner. I was on a mission. The world was bright and clear and wonderful and the stars spun above as we spoke of whatever young teens talk of that an old man like me can't recall. When I went to pee it was in that floaty haphazard zigzag to the waters edge. Mission accomplished.
At some point somebody mentions there is a pool table in the lodge. Well that is just too much of a temptation isn't it? After little deliberation we found a side window unlocked. Nice place. You could stand in the fireplace. Today it would go for millions in Oxford but back then the world was more accessible. It was a better world. You don't believe that but it was. Rich folks hadn't figured all the angles then. Hell, they didn't even care about some of the angles back then.
So I start out pretty good. Might be leaning a bit heavy on the cue but I'm making decent shots. Then one of the guys finds some scotch. We were on the rocks tanked by the third rackup. Just after that break I was lining up a shot and out of nowhere I spew on the table. Surprised me as much as anyone. Damn. We came up with a towel and I cleaned it up as best I could but that had ruined the game. It was then I noticed I was so shit faced everything I did was in a circular motion. I had to pick a point to make it to when I walked else I would end up anywhere. Even then it was a near thing making it anywhere I had planned.
We vetoed sleeping inside that night and I'm glad we did. Instead we went out to the fire and talked in the cool night air until we fell asleep. I was out first. I was also up last. Damn comfortable in my sleeping bag I could have slept until the cops hauled me off like a reprobate burrito. Everyone else had taken off but one dude (I wish I could recall his name and maybe I'll ask Kevin next we talk) who was kicking my leg constantly. The cops are here! Get up! He had stayed behind to get my drunk ass up as everyone else ran. I scooped up my bag and started running as blue lights flashed showing pines in a crazy fun-house obstacle course. I swear I owe that guy. I would have been laying next to the fire for them to pick up if not for him.
Everyone was running roughly parallel to the road we had come in on but far back in the woods enough to be out of sight. I was still drunk as hell but running flat out. We all were kicking up dead leaves like maniacs. Then I was yanked off my feet too sudden to respond and thrown on my back. I looked behind me and there was a single strand of barbed wire grown into and between two trees, some remnant of long ago fence. It had caught me just beneath my right eye and there is scar there to this day if you know where to look. The barb had stuck in my eye socket bone right at the edge.
We reconnoitered farther and deeper into the woods and discussed our options. Back to our respective homes was the new plan. We even emerged right into the backyard of one of the guys. We split then and me and Kev crossed the street to his house. I don't recall what lie I told my folks about the purple cut beneath my eye.
Tocky on 22/4/2018 at 03:55
God it was hot the summer we went to see Nicky. We left out early, about 3 Am, and made the Mississipi river bridge right about sun up in Greenwood. Windows down and no air conditioning in a 66 Plymouth Belvedere. All that water deep and moving and wide. Largest river I'll ever see. I always wonder if I could swim it when I cross it. I knew I couldn't at nine.
Lot's of naps and blue car games. Dad always pushing that slant six to make enough speed to average sixty miles an hour despite stops. When I see the movie Easy Rider I recall the days of two lane blacktop and grimy little southern towns. Yet another Ben Franklin dollar store in the rear window. Funny how Strong Arkansas smelled strong from the paper mill. Dad mentioned it as a joke to a local as we got lunch at a greasy spoon and they said they couldn't smell anything. You get used to anything I guess.
We got caught in a black funeral procession somewhere in north Texas. The light changed and we just turned into it. We didn't know. This was during the time of the civil rights trouble. A white car full of white people from Mississippi in a black procession. Dad kept looking desperately but we had to ride it out for what seemed miles before we could turn off at a wide spot and let it pass. I guess in those days the cops didn't block the intersections for black folks processions. Glad things aren't as bad at least now. Weird the things that stick in your head.
As the light faded to a golden glow that lit the road with it's luster we came across some leaves blowing across the road. They kept at it for miles. We had passed the midpoint of Texas where the grass and sparse trees give way to desert and Chaparral bushes head high and obscuring the dry land. At some point I realized it wasn't leaves. They were crawling. A mass migration of tarantulas. A river of flowing spiders washing over the road. All I could think was what if I were laying in a sleeping bag on some cowboy camp out looking up at the twilight stars and this twilight zone wave of horror came flooding over me.
We spent the night in Wichita. Later I would do my tech training there in the Air Force and pull the soup puke gag in the airmens club at Sheppard. No idea then I would be the sort of guy that would. No idea I would watch a stripper get eaten on the stage at an off base club by one of my buddies while I shouted "you don't know where that's been!" either. Life is strange no doubt.
Nicky met us at some motel Dad picked in Lubbock. I was just glad it had air conditioning and a pool. I was struck by what a cool friendly guy he was. I wanted to be that funny and suave and interested in folks when I grew up. He wanted us to spend the night at his house but Dad wouldn't impose. Instead we went to a steak house, best in Texas, they all are. I had shrimp for the first time and discovered I loved it. Everything was exotic and new and spiced with strange delights. Nicky held court with stories of his life there and I just couldn't imagine anyone more sophisticated and downright cool. He couldn't have stepped out of a jet and been any cooler. My first meeting with my older half brother made a big impression.
He took us for a ride the next day in his sailboat named the "Wicked Wanda" for chissakes.
Later he would come to see us in Mississippi with his girlfriend and custom Chevy van about the time the song "Chevy Van" was out and just confirm how cool he was. That was when he told his Nam stories because us boys pestered him. The funny ones anyway. He read my brother a Spiderman comic doing different voices for all the characters and I will never think of the Green Goblin as having any other laugh but the insane chortle he gave him.
I loved him for everything he was. He was so much like my Dad in looks and demeanor. As he aged I saw that more. The last time he came to see my sister in Memphis she said she opened the door and thought God had granted her a last visit with Dad. We all came up to see him then. It was my last time. I always meant to make it out there again. Always busy. Always something. I wish I had one last time. He died yesterday. His ashes are going to be spread on the grave of his daughter Skylar who died in her early teens in a car wreck that nearly broke Nicky. But even when I called to console him he said things to make me laugh as if he was okay. He wasn't. No man should have to bury three of his kids in his lifetime. He still has three boys to reach out to though.
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Tocky on 5/6/2018 at 04:31
I'm going to talk about here what I don't feel like derailing in the other thread: religion. You know what I think about religion? Fuuuuuuuuuhhhhhuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhuuuuuuuuuck religion. Sure I know some need a reward and punishment system in order to behave. If not they would be skull fucking babies or something. Does that make me feel all cozy safe? Fuck no. I like folks that can be good without punishment as a deterrent. Folks that just want to be good. Sometimes those folks are religious and I don't condemn them for it no matter what religion they adhere to. BUT the more a religion tries to tell me what to do and how to live the more I hate that religion. Are you religious? Well fuckity fuck fuck your religion and it's my way or you are damned ways. If I'm going to hell then by God I'm going hammer down and shifting for a higher gear you bitch.
I believe in being good. I really do. I even talk to sky daddy as if it were a real thing. Just a hold over from my upbringing I'm sure. A psychological crutch as it were. I thank the bastard for even as stupid a thing as the glory of a field of flowers and the abandon of playing in them. But religion can suck my dick. Hard. Think this way and ONLY this way? Fuck you religion. Your books have some good in them but also a WHOLE lot of stupid shit some long ago dumbass wanted us to swallow. You folks that defend the stupid shit? Fuck you. You folks that defend stupid shit because it's the cool thing to do in this enlightened age of we must be accepting of a whole lot of stupid fucks of another religion? Fuck you. Religions- ALL FUCKING RELIGIONS- are trying to control you. They try to control the way you think. And those others that don't think the same way? Why they must be subjugated and shown the error of their way through word and deed. Yes indeed. And if it's a lot of those that think different then we have to wipe those suckers out. God says.
Let me ask you this, do you think that just because there are a whole fucking lot of one religion that I should kiss their ass rather than tell the truth? Well fuck you for thinking that. Religions kill folks that don't think their way but I would rather die than turn over my mind to you boring ass fucks. You have no imagination and are as stunned as turkeys staring at fireworks when anyone with one speaks. You have been so long in your rut of bullshit that anything outside your box is scary. Well YOU are scary. Hell even the Buddhists murdered a bunch of Muslims. All of you are bat shit.
YOU scare me. Know why? Because you refuse the evidence of your senses for dogma. You are a backward pull on humanity. We strive in our fumbling grasping way to understand the universe and add to the collective knowledge of men unafraid to think differently to do so, men who observed and reported what actually was, and you try to wipe out all that we have gained so you can adhere to the words of men who didn't understand shit. Oh but they are the sacred words of God or Allah or Oogy Boogy well who the fuck says so? Men who SAY a god spoke to them? Men who want you on your knees? Well if there were a God he wouldn't want me on my knees. He wouldn't be a child demanding adoration and a lot butt kissing. He would be secure enough that he would be okay without it. He wouldn't want you wallowing about in a lot of holy holy praise your name shit like a lot of mindless scared cattle. He would want you trying to understand this creation of his and how it was done. He would want you to attain the status of equal just because he really did love you and not some hey y'all better kiss my ass on Sunday shit and know your place. Don't eat any smart apples because I want you stupid and obsequious.
Stupid fucks. When I was in church sweating in my starched collar as a kid listening to all the crap and all the stomping you are going to hellllllluh shit I was questioning why I should even be listening to folks who never questioned a damn thing. And that day in Sunday school when God told Abraham to murder his son he loved because God was such a jealous insecure and petulant child and Abraham didn't tell God to go fuck himself because he was such a subservient little bitch he would sacrifice his love for a fucktard of a God I said fuck you pieces of shit. And Job? Took everything from him on bet with the devil? Asshole. God was an asshole. I don't want to be with an asshole who would not know you can't say oh but here you go another wife as if he didn't know you can't just replace a person. Why in fuck would you have a damn thing to prove to the devil anyway? Fuck the devil. And fuck you insecure bitch of a God.
Have I offended anyone? Well I don't believe in your sort of God. For one thing what would a singular god do with a dick? You call it he right? Well what does HE fuck? God is supposedly singular. No use for a dick. Dumbass. I don't like you being so goddamned stupid. And I'm sick as fuck of you assholes defending one religion or another for any kiss a billion whatever dumbasses because we can't offend. Fuck you. I'M OFFENDED you want me to. ALL of you scared pussies who won't call a spade a spade and I've kept my silence so long just to be nice. I live among you. I'm not one of you. If there is a judgement day then BY GOD I'm going to let all of you have it. God too if he is as stupid a fuck as all religions portray him being. Egotistical fuck. I may burn in hell but you are going to hear me say fuck you for Abraham. You wouldn't get my son you piece of shit.
Harvester on 5/6/2018 at 08:47
Quote Posted by Tocky
I like folks that can be good without punishment as a deterrent. Folks that just want to be good. Sometimes those folks are religious and I don't condemn them for it no matter what religion they adhere to.
Thank you.
Quote:
Have I offended anyone?
Not me personally, I respect your opinion and get where you're coming from. But I am a bit sad to see my faith, which is a tremendous source of support for me in these difficult times, seen dragged through the mud. However, rather than ask you or anyone here to hold back - please, by all means, continue the discussion and don't hesitate to speak your true feelings - I think I might take a little break from TTLG for a couple of weeks. This week my wife's tombstone will be placed and on the 19th it will have been a year ago since she died. I think I might take the time to reflect on any emotions that might arise and not let myself be bothered and distracted by discussions on topics I care about. I will return and by then I might be willing again to participate in discussions on these topics. But even then, I wouldn't ask you to hold back for my sake.
For now, no hard feelings. You're a cool guy, Tocky, and I do mean that. :)