“This conjecture must be 100% human content,” she says?

Rules me out… I am a writing machine. Ha!

I feel like I have a pretty good understanding of what AI is and does, but being technologically dated and set in my ways I haven’t tried it, or used it, or whatever it is you do with it. My boss asked AI some pretty silly questions in a meeting once, and it responded with equally stupid answers, so I wasn’t very impressed.

I expect that AI will end up being, for me at least, like the computer. I saw my very first home computer being used when I was in high school, somewhere around 1980. My rich friend Adam’s father had gotten one for Christmas. He was mouse-clicking away on it one day as I passed through their house, so I stopped to watch.

“How much do they cost?“ I pried curiously at Mr. Stefan, asking the toughest question first, as any teenager who has not yet learned to place tact behind his interrogation will.

”Oh, you can get a good one for around $600.” He responded with some obvious pride.

“Hmmm. What do you do with it?” I questioned further as I peeked over his shoulder, unable to see the fascination in the green screen which so mesmerized him.

”Oh, I balance the checkbook, things like that.”

$600 to balance the checkbook! I was incredulous. $600 might not seem like much to you these days, but I had just purchased my first truck back at that point and paid all of $300 for it. $600 was a lot of money, especially when my mom balanced her checkbook with a five cent pencil… and Mom wasn’t even all that smart! So I immediately blew the computer off as an overpriced gimmick (to my own detriment, as from that point on I watched them take over the world until even I was no longer able to sidestep them). And so now, due to Mr. Stefan’s misinformation causing my late arrival to the computer party, my virtually poop technological skills have never recovered to this day.

I suppose the same thing is bound to happen with me and AI, as I am not the best agent of change, especially change that requires me to believe that a bunch of chips and wires in a box might be smarter than me. Ugh... typical man, huh?

Of course I’ve heard all the talk about AI taking over and killing us all. Big whoop, says I! If the scientists were so smart we’d already be dead from climate change, or Y2K, or thermo-nuclear war, or some other such BSx2. Fear-mongering is what it is. Plain ol’ BS. And if it turns into something more than BS? Well, we’re all going to keel anyways, sooner or later. It might as well come as we are enjoying entirely uninhibited sex with our new high-dollar, high-IQ humanoid!

So I’ll take my AI like I take my movie popcorn; with a queasy stomach from all the “AB” (artificial butter that is), and with a grain or two of salt.

“Say, turn off your phone, won’t ya? I’m trying’ to keep up with the movie over here.”

Is there anybody hungry?

Is that gnaw even around?

When everybody’s fat

and burger joints abound?

I mean, if addict‘s can score hits

just by standing in a line,

then if anyone’s still hungry

it’s a bureaucratic crime!

Are there any kids still out there

with nutritional wishings?

Can you feel a hunger pang

whist obliviously Twitch-ing?

Or when Welfare pays you better

than the factory down the street,

so you’ve thrown your worthless man away

whose paycheck can’t compete?

And can there still be hunger

in a country so sublime,

that it‘s arming the Israelis

while aiding Palestine?

And if everyone’s invited

cause our borders don’t exist,

should we cry for who is hungry

but who will not dig a ditch?

Forgive me my foolish follies,

I know to you I sound obtuse.

But is emotional intelligence

not put to better use,

by placing useless passions

upon yesterday’s shelf,

and instead giving assistance to he

who cares to help himself?

The face in the fly-specked mirror was a hard one, shaped even meaner by the rusty room. An aura of stagnant humidity lingered behind the stinking mixture of excrement and paper that filled the mineral stained toilet in the graffiti scratched stall; a literal shit-hole. Cyrus Bohannon had recently added his own bloody shat to the odorous pile in the bowl, carefully hovering himself overtop so as not to touch his ass to the filthy seat.

“Perfect!” He cursed aloud. “No hot water!” An undeterred Cyrus shaved in the tepid water anyway, dribbling it disgustedly over his cheap, pink, “toss-away” plastic razor. His toothbrush remained in his pocket, though. He did not pull it out, fearful that somehow the putrid, humid air might carry the shit smell into its bristles. He was successful in washing the sweat from his skin and face, but the tired redness would not rinse from his eyes, no matter how hard he scrubbed.

Cyrus Bohannon’s whole life smelled about like this cankerous Arkansas highway rest stop.

So Cy reached into his other pocket, the one without the toothbrush, removing from it a clear sandwich baggy, the baggie’s bottom a rainbow of colorful pills. His arthritic hands split one of the capsules in two rather deftly before pouring the powdered contents of each half into the hollow made at the base of his left thumb and index finger before tossing the empty halves into the sink’s trickle. Lastly, Cyrus Bohannon lowered his face into the powder and inhaled deeply, feeling the burn that sucked through his nostrils until came the familiar acidic drip down the back of his throat that preceded the rush.

The sun was bright upon re-entering the world, so Cyrus squinted into it, using a hand to shield his raw and red-rimmed eyes. Worn boot heels gave the old man an uncomfortable looking, bow-legged stride, or maybe that was the hemorrhoids, it would be hard to guess between them if an observer were to try.

Cy climbed up onto the cab’s fuel tank, grasping for the grimy Stuckey’s bag he had shoved between the rig’s seats. There were picnic tables close by the toilets, but Cyrus did not care for company so he found a shaded curb near the rig where he lowered himself gently down to the concrete, mindful of the electric pain from his arse-hole. He gripped the greasy bag tightly in his shaking hands, not really hungry but knowing he needed to eat. That was the problem with the speed, you never, ever felt hungry.

Once seated Cy allowed his eyes to close for the briefest moment. On the highway behind him the hum of tires and throaty roars of the “Big-Rigs” zipped along with a frequent and soothing irregularity, that and a warm sun lulling him despite the jittery-tingle of the pills. In a brief, but vivid dream a blinding silence of snow drifted around the Freight-liner’s cab as it slid down Monteagle while a desperate Cy fought at the wheel, the dream so real that he actually heard the lonely whine of air-brakes squelching high-pitched and hungry just before the crash. At the end Cy lay dead in a twist of metal, but he couldn’t be dead could he? Can you be dead and still feel the heat of the day, or the weight of the crushed door pressing your thigh?

“No, you cannot,” he reasoned. But still there came to him the whoosh-wooshing of passing cars on the highway, so Cy squeezed his eyes tighter yet, wishing to go back to being dead, but he could not ignore the cab door moving against his thigh, pressing harder now. Reluctantly, the “dead” being so peaceful, Cy peeked open his unwilling eyes.

He was surprised to find that it was not the door of the cab pressing against his leg, after all. No, it was a damned dog, a lowly mutt that had crawled its way up beside him while he napped, a damned flea-bag stray! Cy “shoo-ed” it angrily, willing it away. And it did take a wary step back, but it did not go. Instead, it whined… the same whine as the air-brakes in Cy’s dream? Cy “shoo-ed” again, and the dog took another step away to where Cy could get a better look. “Just a damned mutt, spotted brown and white like a Holstein cow, long-eared and long-tongued. Ugly, is what. You are one ugly dog!“

Shamed, the dog took a circle at these denigrations, sitting itself down on Cyrus’ other side, but leaning itself up hard against his right thigh this time.

“Shoo, dog!” He hollered it this time, angrily. Once again the dog stepped off, but not far away. Instead it stretched its nose toward the Stuckey’s bag, eyebrows high and hopeful. Cy noted then how thin it was, even for a dog. He pulled the burger from the bag then, tickled when the dog sat down. Curious, Cy put the burger back in the bag, it amusing him when the dog stood back up. Cyrus took it from the bag again, “hooting” this time when the dog sat down once again.

“Well, how about that?” Cy didn’t even realize in his excitement that he was speaking aloud. He unwrapped the burger now, smiling when the dog sat back down. He took a bite, surprised when there was no reaction from the dog, not even a whimper. Not hungry himself, he pulled the patty from between the buns and tossed it at the dog, who promptly snagged it out of the air and smacked it down.

“Whooeee! I reckon you are a smart dog!” Cyrus took out the french fries next, and tossed them one-by-one at the cur, who yanked each one from the air and smacked them all down, just as it had the meat patty.

Fries gone, Cyrus wadded up the bag. The dog sat.

“That,” Cyrus thought aloud, “is really something! I reckon she knows just when to sit. You are a smart bitch, ain’t you now?”

As if it could help, Cy grabbed at a handful of air, pulling himself with it up from the curb. The dog stood as well. Limping his way towards the Freightliner, he glanced back to see the dog limping along behind. A mini-van sailed by on the highway, its children waving at Cyrus and the dog through its opened windows. Cy found himself waving back, though he wasn’t sure which was more noteworthy; children waving at him, or him waving back?

He climbed into the cab then, settling his hemorrhoids into the warn cloth of the Freight-liner’s seat. Triggered, the big diesel roared beneath his boots, shaking the cab like an atmospheric re-entry. The dog sat hopefully below, patiently, its wide eyes looking up at the driver’s side door. With the hissing of brakes and a grinding of gears the big rig shuddered forward fifty slow feet before the brakes hissed again, lurching the rig to a stop. The man climbed back down and gestured toward the dog, who dropped her ears and trotted happily forward.

At sixty-four years of age Cyrus Bohannon finally caught a break. He found his luck just outside of Little Rock, so that’s what he called her. And so that everyone would know, he painted it beside the Queen of Hearts on either side of his cab:

Cyrus Bohannon

Owner/ Operator

Me and My “Little Rock”

It is older than old

this Paleo soul

which drank whole deserts dry

Then rested on mountain crests

pondering stars

which have burned but the blink of it’s eye

Father to daughter and mother to son

one solitary soul

older than old, bolder than bold

A bridge to the question of why

I have no idea where I am going with this except to say that I’m a sucker for a good documentary and I watched one yesterday. In fact, the one I watched was so good for someone with my upbringing that I feel compelled to complete the circle, and to document it in turn.

I stumbled across “In the Blink of an Eye” on Prime Video and started watching it with low hopes, but it did what good documentaries do, pulling me in, tickling my memory back to one of the passions of my youth; a passion which, as happened with Christmas at an even younger age, had its glory stolen away by the money grab of commercialism.

Those of you who know anything about me from my time here on site know that I am a redneck sprung from rednecks. I do not say this proudly, although I could. It is simply fact. And being a redneck, I like automobile racing (at least I did, once upon a time). In particular I like southern stock car racing. Like me, NASCAR sprung up from the red clay of our shared southern home; a heavy, sticky soil that packs out smooth and hard as hawked-out cement until it is perfectly suited to race cars on. So they did just that, those good ol’ boys of another era who came home from WWII having gained the three things required to create the perfect twister of a red-dust storm; mechanical knowledge, engineering experience, and a lust for excitement.

I vividly remember my first time at a race track. My father took me out to East-Side Speedway one night around 1970, when I was still small enough to be toted in his arms late at night. I remember the glow of the lights in the distance from where we parked, the roaring of cars which could not yet be seen, the anxiousness in my dad’s step to get those cars into view. I remember the roughness of the wooden bleachers beneath my bare feet, the glimmer of the lights off the whirling metal, the smells of wetted dust, burning high-test, popping corn and suspense. It was only small-time, small town racing, but it was sprinkled liberally with the magic dust of Grand National dreams.

A couple of years after that night, and right after the divorce, the old man called up my mother one Friday and asked if he could take me with him up to Martinsville, to see the “big boys” race. Caught quick like that and without an excuse handy Mom said yes. That weekend was the highlight of my childhood; camping out in the back of Pop’s pickup truck and joining in frisbee games where fifty-or-so Blue Ribbon and Marlboro toting fathers gathered in an outside circle throwing a bunch of frisbees across to each other while their screeching flock of kids in the middle happily chased down, and tussled over, any wayward throws (myself right in there with ’em). There were banjos picking over in that direction, and race cars roaring in the other, colorful flags flying on high with a blimp slow-rolling against the clouds, and best of all Richard Petty was right yonder; King Richard we called him, a sparse man sporting a big hat beside a sky-blue race car any of the three of which… man, hat or car… were already larger than life. It couldn’t possibly get any better for an eleven year old, yet it did. After that weekend followed Bristol, Rockingham, and finally Charlotte, the crown jewel of racing. What a summer!

You have to keep in mind that this was all pre-1979, when began an unquenchable thirst throughout America for all things NASCAR. Prior to 1979 Winston Cup racing was little more than a southern joke. The races were held in the south, the drivers were from the south, and there was little to no television coverage (the Daytona 500 being the lone exception as a once a year novelty event on ABC’s “Wide World of Sports”). The Daytona 500 is unique in that it is equivalent to NASCAR’s “Super Bowl”, but it is strangely held as the first race of the season, rather than the last. They run it first, in late February, because Daytona is usually warm then while the rest of America is still frozen. This was especially the case in 1979, as a gigantic snowstorm had settled over most of the east coast, forcing people inside on a Sunday afternoon, and this after the NFL season had ended and before baseball season had begun… the horror! With no other sport available for bored men to watch on an inside day they tuned into the Daytona 500, and those bored men were coincidentally treated to the greatest race in NASCAR history. For stock car racing, that snowstorm turned out to be the perfect storm, as a fantastic race culminated in a last lap crash, allowing NASCAR’s only nationally recognized name, Richard Petty, to sweep through to the checkered flag. And better yet, immediately after Petty flashed across the finish line in his famous STP branded racer the cameras panned back to the wreck where two drivers were fist fighting in the infield, and still another driver had leapt out of his car to come to the aid of his brother, the three of them throwing haymakers until the service trucks could get there to pull them apart! It was glorious, this two on one melee after a fantastic race with millions of first time viewers! It was the perfect storm indeed for a second rate sport, as fans from all over America began heading down south to watch those crazy-assed southerners race their hot rods. It was the height of happiness for me to see the rest of the country embracing my favorite sport!

For a while, at least.

Then my happy bubble burst. Mom moved us further away from Dad. Worse, she moved us to the city. Trips to race tracks ended for me. City life and time changed my priorities, as will happen, turning me away from “out of sight, out of mind race cars,” and toward girls, rock-n-roll, and a car of my own. But then came cable television. ESPN and TBS began showing races nearly every weekend. I found myself drawn back in by the ’84 Firecracker 400, hearing Ronald Reagan issue the “Gentlemen, start your engines” command from a phone in Air Force 1, and then seeing in real time, albeit on television, the image made famous by Sports Illustrated of Air Force 1 cruising in to land with that iconic STP car in the foreground, racing alone down Daytona’s backstretch. It was not my luck to be able to go to the races anymore, but I’ll be damned if racing wasn’t reaching out to me and pulling me back in, or so it seemed at the time.

A few years later my buddy Dave and I got us a place down at the beach. Dave laughed at me on those hot summer afternoons when I‘d hop on my ”beach cruiser” to pedal back up to our 17th Street apartment in time to catch my heroes on TV. My asshole friend would yell, “go on then, you hillbilly fuck” as I flipped him off on my way. The bikini-clad tourists could wait, I figured. Girls would always be there, but Talledega only came around twice a year. I guess those priorities hadn’t completely changed.

I will admit to being a little bit ass-hurt when my friend called me a “hillbilly fuck,“ so I did the only thing I could do. I loaded up my truck with beer and weed, shoved Dave into the passenger seat, and I converted him; two long-hairs in cut-off shorts and Van Halen t-shirts on a NASCAR roadtrip. What a fucking blast we had! I’ll never forget the joy on his face that entire weekend. We’d been to a lot of rock and roll shows, but there is a huge and obvious difference between 18,000 headbangers at a one-night stand, and 80,000 redneck wall-bangers rockin’ a racetrack for an entire weekend. Upon arrival Dave completely bought in to the laid-back party style of it (in particular to a group of redneck girls we came across as they bathed boldly shirtless in the dangerous southern sun, Dave kindly offering to shade them with his own naked body at much hazard). And to my chagrin he also bought in to the whole “Intimidator”, “Man in Black” thing, and so became a Dale Earnhardt fan (plus he knew I hated the driver whom many fans, myself included, referred to as Ironhead, rather than Earnhardt. You have to keep in mind that Dave was, as most maturing young men are with each other, a real butt-wipe).

Our front-stretch seats for that race were low down in the stands, a bit close to the track for comfort’s sake, but perfect to hear the sounds, sense the speed, and to get caught up in the drama of it all. Dave remained skeptical of the actual racing right up through the warm-up laps, looking at me like I was an idiot when I warned him that he’d best take off his brand new Earnhardt cap before they came around again or he would lose it. You see, it takes a minute at a track like Charlotte for speed to accumulate. Heavyweight American muscle doesn’t zip off the line like a sissy little European racer does. It gathers it’s momentum slowly, needing every bit of the mile-and-a-half, high banked speedway with the dog-leg rounding out it’s start-finish line to get it’s gears sorted out. Once that space and speed is gathered however, watch the hell out!

That first lap circled about like slow motion. I looked over, unsurprised by a cynicism on Dave’s face which only made me laugh, as I knew what was to come. Like two trains vying for supremacy the twin lines of cars drove away from us down the backstretch, circling bumper-to-bumper and side-by-side-by-side through turn three, the fans in the bleachers standing in salute before the onslaught. As they rounded through turn four you could feel a difference in the air, and in the crowd, and in the concrete seat beneath you as they came, the roar from forty-three, 600 hp engines screaming angrily towards you, the cars nervously jockeying for position like a boy at the movies on a first date. Like everyone else, Dave and I were also standing now as they approach us, me screaming and waving my driver forward, Dave watching them roar past in mesmerized wonder… and blissfully hatless.

It is not a difficult game, racing, though there are nuances to know. I recall at one point Eddie Bierschwale’s car got sideways and lifted completely up off the ground as if held there by a giant, invisible hand as it flew directly towards us. I was standing and could see the car’s undercarriage, exhaust system and all as it hung like a toy in front of me. Joyful, I turned to find Dave curled up in a humorous ball beneath his seat. Yet by day’s end my rookie friend was an expert, educated in every phase of racing; driver’s, strategies, and courtesies. Having hooked my fish, those Sunday afternoons watching races alone in our little apartment became parties of two when we were broke, which was much of the time, and roadtrips when we weren’t.

They say you can’t go home again. I found this to be true. Dave and I stayed in touch after I moved to Charlotte. I even bumped into him unexpectedly at a race once. I assumed that racing was something I would always have, and that my friend Dave and I would always share it, but time is fickle, taking Dave away for good and changing my beloved NASCAR into something almost unrecognizable, with ”Cars of Tomorrow” that all look exactly alike (some are even foreign, eee-gads!) and that are unable to pass one another without difficulty. And the racetracks are mostly as alike as the cars are, besides their being spread into far away geographies where there are no hardcore fans, hence the empty grandstands in Kansas, California, and Vegas most weekends. Ticket prices have become as ridiculous as those for NFL games, and then you have these drivers with midwestern names who whine when they lose, rather than fight. Nah, me and a hundred thousand other southerners will take a pass on that.

So I am pretty much done with racing. I still turn to some of the bigger races when I am home on a Sunday, but my attention quickly wanes. Gone is the Ford and Chevy rivalry, gone are the short tracks with their noon starts, gone are the drivers in open-faced helmets having a smoke at 200 mph, gone are the kids clinging to the catch fences, and the chicken bones and soda cans tossed down to the walkways, gone are the beer brands on cars, the cigarette brand on the trophies, and the pretty girls kissing the winner at race’s end (Well, the pretty girls might still be there, I honestly don’t know. Seems a bit sexist though, for this day and age?). It seems that, as everything does, Southern stock car racing has run its course.

But that documentary, now. I’ve got to say, that was pretty darn good. The racing scenes got me going, seeing the old guard strapped in again, hammer down and hell-bent for glory. It’s a shame my old buddy Dave and I can’t load up the truck for one last NASCAR roadtrip. I’ll bet he would like that, if he was still here with us.

I know I would, just once, for old time’s sake.

There are lots of words for it; egocentrism, arrogance, narcissism, conceit, vainglory, etc., but in this instance we’ll call it “smugness”. Our boy is looking and feeling “smug” … a wee bit repentant, of course, but mostly smug.

Because, yet again, he had been right! Mind you it is not easy being right, not with any consistency. Being right requires not only a mind guided by good old-fashioned common sense, but also a requisite, updated knowledge of the sciences, histories, philosophies and literatures. One must put in the work to be consistently right. A blow-hard cannot pull it off, though he will try. And Constantine Goolsby had been right once again! Ha, ha! And the look on her face when his rightness was proved to her had been golden, and had made it well worth the long, wintry ride Constantine had had to suffer just to show her that he was, indeed and again, right. Ha! Constantine’s chuckle was startling enough in the quiet stillness of the snowy afternoon to jerk his exhausted horse’s head up, and to cock its sagging ears his way.

Yes. “Smug” is the word.

And the December afternoon was quiet; so very, deathly quiet. Quiet as midnight, as if the whole world was asleep, or as if Constantine himself was asleep. It was the sort of snowfall where one could tip his head back, open his mouth wide, and catch flake after flake upon the tip of his tongue without hardly trying, so Constantine childishly did just that. The flakes were coming straight down and large, accumulating deep enough on the ground now to muffle the horse’s heavy hooves. Not even his saddle creaked to break the quiet. The snow muffled it all. Everything. It was as though he was lost in a snow globe with bits of frozen matter falling, falling, falling all around, and a glass dome to insulate him from the outside world.

It was also creepy, the silence, leaving him alone to think. Sometimes being smart was not so good. Being always right had its consequences, didn’t it? Sometimes Constantine wished he could escape himself, and this was one of those times.

She had been surprised! The wonder of his appearance had been apparent on her face; in her eyes. His heart had leapt at it… at her astonishment. And the way her astonishment had morphed into fear when he’d drawn his pistol, morphing so easily and readily that the expressions had almost been the same, and could easily have been confused for one another by someone who was not so sure of himself as Constantine. And “his” eyes had changed to… that guy’s.

“God,” Constantine thought as he rocked easy in the saddle, “what in Heaven’s name had the two of them been doing when he’d barged in with his, “Ha!” What exactly was that position they were in? Constantine had never seen anything like it, nor even imagined it! His neck grew warm at the thought of it. And his Laura Lee, too! Who would have thought?

Maybe he was not “always” right, after all. Maybe he’d been wrong this time… what he’d done back there. In any event there would be no one awaiting him at the cabin when he got there; no one to talk to. No one to admire his competence. No one to cook his dinner. The cabin would be as quiet as this snow globe he was in, and as lonely too. Maybe he should have been wrong this time. Maybe if he’d been wrong then his Laura Lee would could home. Maybe she would. Maybe.

Removing his glove from the one hand, Constantine pulled the pistol from its holster. The click of the cylinder opening was loud in the silence that was the snow globe. He shucked some shells one at a time from his belt and filled the empty chambers. He held the pistol for a long while, resting it in his lap, liking the way the butt of it felt in his hand, the ergonomics of it, and remembering how it had so violently bucked back yonder.

Without replacing his glove Constantine lifted the pistol’s barrel up to his temple, only somewhat sure that he was right.

Human footprints which date back 23,000 years have surfaced in White Sands National Park. Might the prints belong to a man spearfishing on the shores of some now extinct ocean? Or to a woman collecting shells there for a bauble? Or even to a child running at play, or from some ancient danger? Who is to say, except that a human was here, and once passed this way?

23,000 years? There are footprints found in Greece which scientists claim are +5m years old. “El Graeco” they call the owner of the foot who made them, though they cannot know his name, or even she had one. This is, of course, even older than the prints of “Lucy” found in Tanzania… twice as old, in fact.

Neil Armstrong’s footprints are not nearly that old, but they are still up there. With a strong enough telescope you could see them. It could be that Musk will send someone up who wipes them away in the soft dust, whether purposefully or accidentally. It will not really matter that they are destroyed, I supposed, as their significance will have been lost anyway, at that time. And maybe they already are insignificant, as NASA conspiracy theories abound.

Still, they are there. I know they are.

Well, “who are you,” some of you might be asking, and “how can you know”? Excellent questions these. I applaud you for asking them. They are questions I might have ventured myself, once upon a time, though they are also ones with no good answers, for my footprints (if any can still be found) are as irrelevant now as are those discovered in White Sands.

For you see, I am laid out. My body probed, picked clean, and wiped over; vanity’s and insecurities notwithstanding. With any luck my suit is gray (as I abhor black and blue) and my tie red. Other than that I do not care, nor do such trivialities matter anymore… not now, as the lid is being closed, leaving me safe inside my own capsule. Safe to wait 23,000 years. Safe to wait +5m years. Safe to wait an eternity until unearthed and opened, whence I can be marveled over by those who will cease to exist themselves, in their own good time.

But should that footprint of mine be found someday, it will be a clean print and honest, left by a man who passed this way with the intelligence to question what was told, and the courage to believe what was true.

It was almost as though the curse inducing stream of sod which trickled down on the boy’s head was a sign from God, christening him in humiliating despair immediately following the fading echoes of his father’s unearthly throat rattles. He believed he’d been a pretty good nurse up until the rattle, but he hadn’t known what to do for that once it started, and how could one so young know there was nothing he could do?

Brunner Tschudi hated this sod house with all of his being; he hated the mildewy smell of it, and the moist air of it, and the sifting dirt and dust of it, and along with all of that he hated his father for bringing him to it, and now here he was, stranded alone in it. Though his father’s death had been inevitable, it was still difficult to fathom that he was actually alone. The simple acts of caring for the dying man had afforded Brunner some sense of security, even if the feeling had proven a lie. Unable to withstand the face’s pallid gaze any longer the boy stumbled towards the veiled sunlight at it’s entrance, but outside was as dreary as inside the dark sod house, what with grass in every direction, colorless grasses restlessly churning under unrelenting winds. Desperate for someone the boy climbed to the top of the earthen cabin which housed his father’s now lifeless body. From up there he circled, scanning the seemingly endless prairies in the hopes of a savior, any savior, but his disappointed eyes saw nothing but low, gray skies for as far as they could see, a sky with clouds caught up in frantic, Easterly races. East, where Brunner’s family and friends were. Oh, if only this hut was tall enough that he could step onto one of those clouds and fly away with them! Though his body had somewhat adjusted to the prairie’s biting cold, still a shiver crept up inside Brunner’s too-light jacket. Scanning his eyes ever closer in towards the cabin, and at the corral in particular, he saw his father’s horse standing three-legged, it’s back turned to the harsh wind. Ol’ McClellan was no cloud, but he could be ridden away from here, couldn’t he? But where to ride was the question? And in which direction? East, of course? There was a bit of food put by, but not much. Brunner had his father’s rifle and had been taught to use it, but their steady need to hunt had pushed what game there was far away from the isolated, sod-house cabin. With nothing here but death, Brunner knew he must leave. If only he had someplace to go?

It was a lot of situation to handle for a boy just turned twelve. He had been excited initially, when talk began around the supper table of coming to Wyoming. Of course Brunner had heard of the “cowboys” out west. Who hadn’t? And if his family went west, perhaps he could become a cowboy himself? The excitement of it filled his dreams for a great while even before Father packed up their belongings for the journey, and the excitement had continued on the trip, but like his many other dreams he never saw a cowboy once they got out here, until he had to figure that cowboys were tall tales too, just like the other stories he was told from childhood.

Brunner climbed down off of the sod-house in discouragement. Having cried plenty in the past months, he did not cry now. Instead, he stood outside the door and gazed into the dark cabin without entering. Even if he was strong enough to drag his father out, he would then have to dig a grave. Having helped to cut the sod for the house Brunner knew how difficult that would be, and without his Father’s strength to lead? So he didn’t do that. Instead, the youngster went inside and collected what was useable and edible; an extra shirt of his own and another one of Father’s, a box of ammunition for the rifle, a hunting knife, a section of rope, a frying pan and coffee pot (though there was no more coffee), some smoked antelope, two cans of beans, and lastly a framed picture of his father and mother, taken back east, before they’d left home. The boy packed it all carefully into a tow sack which he set on the dirt floor before returning one last time for a final bedside look at the suddenly grayed, barely recognizable face of his father. The face he saw was not the face he remembered, nor was it the one he wanted to remember, so Brunner turned from it, aghast. He picked up his sack then and did not look back. Outside he stooped to fasten the buffalo-hide door to its pegs. The dirt cabin his father had been so proud of building would do for his crypt, a crypt which nature would soon enough melt down around his body into a proper grave.

Brunner paused at the wagon, though. Here was a decision to make. It was far easier for him to harness ’Ol McClellan to the wagon than it was for him to throw a saddle on the big horse, but the wagon was much slower, and was limited in where it could go. As much as he hated to Brunner would have to leave it behind, but the trade-off to that was to only make camp in places that had something Brunner could climb on top of in order to throw the heavy saddle up on McClellan’s back, a stump or some such thing, and those opportunities were not always so easy to find out on the prairie, though that was not really true either, Brunner knew. The prairies only looked level, when in fact there were gullies, depressions, and sometimes even entirely hidden canyons where a whole army of Cheyenne or Arapaho could lie in waiting.

Regardless, there was a perfect stump here in the corral for Brunner’s purpose. Using it, he soon had McClellan successfully saddled and bridled, the big horse proving patient through the boy’s struggles, as always. Once satisfied with the riggings, and with no place to put the rifle, the boy took it to hand as he climbed into the saddle. A simple touch of the heel led horse and boy out through the corral gate and onto the open prairie, the boy feeling a guilty twinge at leaving the gate open behind them, the twinge enough to show that his father had raised him right. The horse, for his part in this tragedy, felt absolutely nothing at all, and passed wind to prove it.

Four days later not much had changed as horse and boy continued their crooked ramblings. Non-raining rainclouds still raced across leaden skies, and dingy grasses still rustled quietly below them. The difference was that Brunner was hungry now, hungry and scared rather than hungry and sad. The beans and antelope were gone. He had the rifle, but he saw no game. The only signs of life he observed drifted high above him, black specks sprinkled on the gray sky circling, watching, and waiting. Where he stopped was not a particularly good spot for camping, but Brunner knew little of such things. There was a rocky copse, and that was good enough for him. It was the sort of place he needed, one where he could climb up to unsaddle or saddle Ol’ McClellan as occasion demanded, so he did so, unsaddling the weary horse before sitting himself down upon the same rock he’d just used for a ladder, finding it a satisfactory place to contemplate what to do next. With nothing here to break the wind he soon found himself shivering, nor was there water here for himself or for the horse. In fact, there was nothing here at all to attract a man, other than a ready supply of campfire fuel. Brunner wished he wasn’t here. He looked again to the sky, to its racing clouds, but his wishes brought him nothing, so he commenced to collecting the nearby fuel, taking care to reach for the dried buffalo patties, only.

Once collected the fuel pile was entirely too large for a boy alone out on the flat prairie, but it‘s blaze comforted him in the night. And having used neither reflectors nor windbreaks, the fire made by the pile was available to be seen or otherwise detected for quite a ways out on the wide-open flatlands. So naturally it was.

Brunner was awakened in the night with a start, and with a stomp. She looked quite lovely to him in the dying firelight, and the first thought she inspired from the hungry boy was quite naturally to find the rifle and shoot her, but he was not man enough yet to do it. She was too young and pretty for that anyways, and he was too lonely, so he named her instead, an unoriginal name for a cow… Betsy.

She was not really a cow though, Betsy wasn’t. Not yet. She was more obviously a calf, and a young one at that, which explained her curiousness at walking so brazenly right up to his campfire. But cow or not, she was someone besides Ol’ McClellan for him to talk to, so Brunner welcomed her into camp, finding some rope in his sack to picket her next to the horse with before falling back asleep.

When next he woke it was to the same gray clouds in the same gray sky, but that was not all. There was the neighing of a horse, one too far away to be McClellan, as McClellan was picketed in close, so Brunner sat up for a look-see. Fifty feet from camp sat a rider on a pony looking inward towards the camp the same as Brunner looked out, rider and pony producing the classic silhouette of a western hero stark against a rising sun. A cowboy! A real one. The first such that Brunner had ever seen!

A bit ashamed of his poor situation, Brunner did not immediately call out, but waited, studying the cowboy even as he was being studied. The rider’s pony was small, much smaller than Ol’ McClellan, and the cowboy himself appeared barely older than Brunner was, though his lazy self-assurance presented a more worldly attitude. The rider sported the classic, wide-brimmed “cowboy” hat along with a calico shirt whose bright colors made Brunner deliciously envious of its high style. Below the shirt canvas jeans were tucked smartly into sharp-toed, lace up cattle boots which were in turn stuffed into large, wooden stirrups, but what mostly caught Brunner’s attention was the empty, over-sized holster on the young man’s belt and the handgun which filled up his outstretched hand, a hand which happened to be pointed directly at Brunner.

”Whacha doin’ with that there critter?” The cowboy called out. “It’s our’n.”

Brunner stood up to answer. On a whim, he raised his hands, showing the rider that he was unarmed. “I ain’t doin’ nothin’ with her. She just wandered in.”

Seeing that his “rustler” was just a boy alone, the cowboy holstered his pistol. “Looks a mite suspicious, you havin’ her tied up and all.” The cowboy let loose a black stream of tobacco after that.

Brunner only shrugged. “I figgered she was somebody’s, but I didn’t know whose?”

The cowboy clucked his little pony on into Brunner’s camp without an invite, quickly assessing the pitifulness of it as he came. “What are y‘all doin’ out here all alone like this? You wanted somewhere’s?”

”I reckon not.”

”Not even a bedroll, huh? I think y’all had best come along with me. Wilber’ll have questions for you. He likes to know about ever‘ thang.”

”Wilber?”

”Wilber Kate, foreman of the Five Star.” The cowboy did not have to add “you big dummy” to the end of his sentence, as it was implied by his uppity tone. “Now saddle up, Soddy. I ain’t got all day.”

Brunner did as he was told, packing his gear into his sack, and then guiding McClellan up to the big rock he would use to get him saddled. “Can I bring my rifle?”

”I reckon, but don’t point it my way.”

Once aboard Brunner kicked McClellan forward. “Say? How’d you know I was a Soddy?”

”Hell! You must be. This whole camp smells like dirt, and it’s ground into you, too.”

Looking down at himself, Brunner did not argue. He reckoned it was so.

”You hungry?”

Brunner’s stomach growled at the question. “Uh huh.”

”There’s coffee and beans at chuck. I’ll see you get some.” The cowboy freed the calf of her rope and used it to slap her back the way they had come. Without a signal the pony began herding “Betsy” in the correct direction, forcing McClellan into a trot to keep up.

”How far is it?” Brunner asked.

”Couple miles.”

”Sheesh. How’d you ever find us?”

”Saw the calf’s tracks leading this way firstly, then I smelled your fire.”

They rode in silence for awhile. Brunner saw the dust first, off in the cold distance, then the bobbing shadow of a great herd beneath it. Excited, he rode closer to the cowboy, and stretched himself taller in the saddle to see. “Say? Did you really smell sod-dirt back there in my camp?”

”Yep.”

”How’d you do that?”

”Grew up a Soddy myself. I know the smell, Pardner.” With that the cowboy kicked spurs to his pony, leaving young Brunner hard pressed to keep up.

My friend Brittany Bridges is in a really tight spot, with the pressure on her mounting daily. Actually, the term ”tight spot” does not even do her situation justice. Brittany is in a damned bind, is where she is. You see, Brittany is into her third trimester and is terrified that her baby might come out with suspiciously light skin. The question of, “How light will its skin be?” haunts her, yet it is the one question she has about the baby she‘s carrying that her obstetrician could obviously never answer, even if she could gather the courage to ask it. But Brittany, a strong woman mind you, is plenty concerned with that question, as this is also the one question her husband Burns, a dark-skinned man, will likely find extremely important here in about five weeks or so, should “his” baby come out overly pale.

Understand, Brittany’s baby is not “a mistake” in the normal sense of the word, though that’s what she wants to call it. She and Burns had been trying for a while. Having long since foregone birth control the pregnancy could not, in any attempt at good faith, be termed an “accident.” Yet Brittany’s situation could certainly be considered “accidental” per se, as it was possibly the inadvertant result of a worse than questionable decision followed up by a steamy series of intensional, inappropriate, and ill-timed actions; “ill-timed” I say, because Brittany was perfectly aware when the inappropriate behavior was taking place that her ovular timing was right; her body was primed for conception, it was in essence her time to shine. She knew this for a fact because that very same obstetrician had told her so. In that context, the baby she carried could hardly be labeled a mistake, could it? So, perhaps her lack of judgement in a weak moment could be designated an accident, but should it be? No, I don’t think so. Mistake is the right word, but is it really a mistake when she would probably do it again? No again. It can only really be called what it is, poor judgement, but I’ll be damned if I’ll be the one to tell Brittany that. She is still my friend, after all.

If you don’t mind my labeling her situation as tragic (even though it produced a life, which is the very antithesis of tragic), then this whole tragedy began innocently enough several years ago, stemming indirectly out of Brittany’s love for music. She’d met Burns in college, where he was, even at that young of an age, already a popular hip-hop DJ on campus, famous on the frat party circuit. After graduating Burns followed his passion for music to Nashville, where his fresh ideas for turning good music into great music carried him quickly up the music industry ladder. And while Burns had followed his passion for music to Nashville, Brittany had followed a desire for Burns to Nashville, and therein lay the problem. Hers was a desire for Burns… not a passion.

Tyler Redding, on the other hand, had passions of his own. The music Tyler created would be as good if Burns, or any other producer for that matter, never touched it. Tyler Redding was a talented young man on the fast track to neon stardom, and was ready for all the perks that stardom entailed. He was not about to let anyone slow him down. Tyler Redding was in hot pursuit of “the life”.

There it is then, in a nutshell. My friend Brittany found herself irremediably pulled towards two musical men for entirely different reasons. Burns had given her a comfortable life of reliability, society, and love, while Tyler left her weak-kneed, as emotionally confused as a little girl every time she heard him sing. One had something she needed, the other something she craved. And worse, Brittany had allowed both men to love her within the allotted time frame... so that there was no way around the cold, hard truth of it. My friend Brittany, normally a smart and sensible woman, had allowed indiscretion to lead her into a sure enough bind.

Being a music producer, and with a wife who was not shy to complain about Burn’s already long work days, bringing the musicians home became the natural progression for him. The struggling artists didn’t care where they played for him so long as their songs were heard. And it was no great imposition for Brittany, either. In fact she welcomed it, as the young songsters offered her mind some stimulation after her long, boring days alone in their big, Sylvan Park home. Brittany also found that she had her own gift for softening the blow at the end of an evening, consoling the less talented artists through their “end of dreams” with a divine empathy which she truly felt, and which meant something to them coming from one who so obviously had her shit together. Most of those who came to play for Burns were struggling and hungry, their savings gone. Some were barely making it on the bar scene, awaiting a bigger break that rarely arrived. No matter their situation though, if they were good enough Burns would help them, if not bringing them in to his own label then getting them inside another door where he thought their sound might better fit. For her part, Brittany wined and dined them all, making them welcome and comfortable, cheering their successes, or grieving alongside their failures, the perfect queenly wife for her kingly husband... right up until Tyler.

Burns had called home ahead that night, as he always did. “I’m bringing company for dinner... no, just one, a singer/ songwriter named Tyler Redding.”

It was her first time hearing the name, and seemed inconsequential at the time, but Brittany had done this often enough to know the drill. On this Autumn night she’d brought in barbecue and its “fixin’s”; slaw, beans, a light Pinot, a fire in the pit, soft lights on the patio, though nothing over-the-top. Comfortable was her goal, though elegance was her nature. I can’t know it for fact, but I would assume that she dressed herself up a little on this night, knowing that Burns would not change out of his suit once home. The Brittany Burns I know was never one to appear lesser than, not even to her husband.

At first glance Tyler Redding seemed no different than any who followed Burns home, his hungry good-looks a match for the others, and promising some talent. Comfortable in his scuffed boots, blue-jeans, and a bicep revealing plain white t-shirt, Tyler had “the look” from the ground up; tall, thin, with an angular yet youthful jawline which smiled often, shining through the darker shadows created by his Stetson’s wide brim until Brittany was forced to tip her head to try to make out what the youngster actually looked like up under there. She suspected that she would be pleased if she could see. The curiosity of it pushed her closer to him in her attempts, though he seemed non-plussed by that, willing to play her game, tipping his head down when she got too close, keeping his eyes frustratingly hidden from her, but not his speaking voice, which while soft also remained so rich in tone that it produced a longing in her to hear it sing from their very introduction. Brittany found it amusing how his uncased Fender was always close to his hand, even through dinner, as if he was afraid to let it out of sight, similarly to a child‘s worn blanket. She even teased him by mentioning the “security blanket” analogy, but he only smiled that same smile with his hat brim tilted down in front to hide his face whilst drawling out a sing-songy “yes mam” to her in that honey-rich baritone that straight-up tickled her insides in such an exciting way. Since college she’d had zero interest in any man other than Burns, but what is a girl to do once she finds herself enmeshed in curio?

The patio was dark when “showtime” finally arrived, though the dim string lights above offered a pleasant halo around the flickering orange warmth of the fire-pit. Burns uncorked their third and last bottle and had hardly found his seat as Tyler’s quickly and expertly tuned guitar readily matched the fireplace’s warmth with it’s volume, the delicate plucks of each string singing out it’s own lonely, distinct tone while simultaneously bending and wailing their sad lives away in perfectly chorded harmonies whose resplendence completely captured their tiny, two person audience in a mere handful of progressions.

Brittany unconsciously rubbed at her bare arms when it began, surprised at the emergence of chill-bumps on such an agreeable night, the melancholy of the hypnotic notes pulling her into the young man’s era-less vibe… and then, God bless him, the boy began to sing.

From the first lyrical word it was obvious to her that what she was seeing and hearing was different than any who had passed through before, that it was much, much better. Burns was very good at his work. He had a knack for spotting talent. He had discovered, and been the first to record, several artists who were now radio staples in differing genres, but this time Brittany sensed that her husband had outdone himself. This time Burns had a legitimate star on his hands, a star so bright that, such as it was with the three wise of men of Christmas fame, this one‘s star begged following.

For at the same time that the guitar cried oh-so silkily, numbing her emotionally, Tyler Redding’s voice reached overtop its drones like a steady hand to lead her into some unchartered place that only he knew, lending a weakened Brittany to snatch at that hand hook, line and sinker; her curiosity piqued by some wondrous sense of the magical, because that was the bait, the piper’s magic in Tyler’s pluckings’, tones, and lyrics; an enchantment which drew her out of her emotional hiding place, pulling her towards him and away from everything else until she found herself tensed on the edge of her seat, her body leaned in for Tyler and away from Burns… and she didn’t even care, for in the orange half-light of the crackling fire-pit, and under the reassuring glow of the string lights, as the final resonances echoed away his tenebrous hat-brim finally lifted, presenting his eyes to hers, revealing to her a desire in them that matched perfectly with her own. Not so very long ago Brittany had willingly promised herself to Burns, and to Burns only… but here in this young and handsome crooner my lovely and talented friend had met her match.

Now, I hope I have not misconstrued my friend to you. Brittany is nothing if not a good woman, a heretofore honest woman. I had always thought of her as the very best of women in fact; smart, feminine, caring.… everything a woman should be. And even as she first confided to me this situation that she’d gotten herself into I could feel the pain she‘d caused herself in deceiving the man she loved, for she does love Burns. That much is obvious. And believe it or not, Britt is not the cheating kind. Hell, I’d taken my own shot with her (to no avail), and had settled, albeit unwillingly, into the dreaded “friend zone” with her, as she is not the sort a man easily dismisses. No, I am certain that Brittany loves Burns… but neither could she help herself with Tyler. She was not alone in that helplessness either. The Nashville “Woo-Hoo” girls are already lining themselves up in their short-shorts and pink cattle boots along the sidewalks outside the Broadway bars when his name is displayed on the marquee, the sunburnt girls vying with one another for a peek at those shadowed eyes lost beneath his wide hat’s brim. No, Tyler’s star is shooting, and even as she did it Brittany knew that she could never, that she would never, belong to Tyler Redding. But even knowing all of that the poor woman still could not help herself.

Isn’t it crazy how twisted up a girl can become on a road as black and white as Music Row?

But then, who am I to judge? I suppose none of us is immune to the magic of music, though I still can’t help feeling for my friend.

And I’ll just hope (for her sake, of course) that Beyoncé doesn’t come singing around me…

The kid next door and his little brother put up a lemonade stand on the sidewalk beside our street. It is not a busy neighborhood, so at the same time that I appreciated the boys’ entrepreneurial spirits I also doubted the possibility of their success, yet being the typical American suckers for consumables Pooky-Bear, General Sherman and I ventured over to check it out.

Being a man, and therefore logically brained, the first thing I noticed about the colorfully magic-markered “Lemonade” sign taped to the folding card table was that, while it proudly proclaimed “Fresh, Cold Lemonade” and in smaller print “we accept Venmo,” there was no price written on it? Before I could ask about it though Pooky-Bear, being a woman with other, more important concerns, was already bent over the table examining the pitcher whilst debating the nutritional aspects of the lemonade with the kid.

”Did you squeeze it, or is it frozen?” She asked him, in what to me sounded like a childishly condescending voice

”I don’t know. Mom made it.”

”Well, did she add sugar?”

”I don’t know. Mom made it.”

My wife’s face corkscrewed at this unacceptable answer. ”You should find out. Your customer’s will want to know.”

The kid was growing discouraged. ”Do you want some or not?”

Pook remained undecided. “I don’t see any ice. Do you have ice? I like ice in mine.”

The kid just looked at her with his mouth open, so I took it as my opportunity. “There’s no price on the sign. How much is it?”

He gave me the same astounded look. “It’s whatever you want to pay.”

”Great, but I don’t know what Venmo is. Do you take cash?”

The kid shrugged. “I guess.”

”Those the cups?” I asked.

The kid held one up. It was so small it could have been a Solo shot glass. “Yea.”

Hiding my own childish disappointment in the small size, I gestured for two. “I remember back when I was a kid I branched out at my lemonade stand, you know; cookies, candy, Kool-aid? Not everyone wants just lemonade.“

”You bought it.”

”Yea, well I guess I’m a sucker.”

”There’s lots of suckers.” He was smiling at me as he measured out our two tiny shots.

I laughed along about the “suckers” comment at the same time I was laying my five-spot on the table. He wasn’t wrong. I mean, if the “My Pillow” guy can make it?

“Thanks!“ the kid eagerly pocketed the cash. “But what about Billy?”

Billy was gazing up at me through sad, round, little kid eyes.

”I think five is plenty for two shot-glasses half full of canned lemonade. You guys can split it.”

Now both kids had sad eyes, which pissed Pook off. “Just give them some more, you tight-wad!”

Grumbling, I laid another five on the table. “This stand is nothing but a rip-off!”

”Shut up,” she cautioned, “and come on.” As she walked away Pook poured her cup out onto my lawn.

”Hey! That’s a five dollar shot of lemonade you just pitched onto a thousand dollar lawn!”

”Too much sugar and no ice.”

From behind me the kid yelled, “Thanks y’all! And come again!” Followed by the hurtful, souring twist of, “Suckers!”

Not being sure if my own face-twisting was caused by the lemonade or the shouted words, I went ahead and poured mine out alongside Pooks‘, no longer wanting it. “No wonder the schools are medicating young boys these days.”

”Yea, well, he’ll probably grow up to be just like you.”

On second thought, maybe the little rug-rat wasn’t so bad after all. Besides, it was about time for school to start back up anyways, ha-ha!