In the photo above, I am disguised. Those aren’t actually my own glasses either.
***
My voices usually just tell me, go ahead, try it, you’ll never get caught.
The next voice, well, hell no, your ass is cooked already. Don’t! For God’s sakes!!
Last voice says, what the hell were you thinking and how do we get out of this?
Finally lived long enough to figure shit out.
Bottom line, he was sane and everybody else – mostly – was all fucked up.
Know you think you have your own truth, but you are wrong.
If you put all the pieces together, there he was maybe eight or nine or ten, thereabouts, and he was living at The County Farm off Gypsy Trail Road. Back in the day, in the country, in the woods, if you didn’t have family or a home or money much, you could go live at The County Farm. Mostly, old stinky old men who drunk and squandered and bad-lucked their way into old loneliness. Too old to hobo. Old.
Hank wore denim shirts over blue jeans and could practically call the fish into his net. Great whittler and a spectacular liar. Of course, the old man didn’t know that back then. Hank was a story teller.
When he left, that boy gave Hank his dog, MacDooDah, a young Welsh Terrier who’d been raising havoc and chaos – deep in the woods – at every opportunity of his life. Mac wouldn’t be happy squeezed into a half-acre on Kelly Ridge. Later, Mom got a miniature French poodle, Mimi. Wasn’t the same.
That eight-year-old boy decided then he wanted to be a storyteller, too. And be tall and lean and wear chambray shirts, faded and thin. Spinning tall tales. Old. Real old.
Turns out getting there was the problem, the journey, you might say. But you got there. Faded and thin. What then?
Learn to whittle maybe.
Become your own hero and you soon discover there’s something super about being who you really are.
His current hair style was a combination of Connor McGregor and Ragnar Lothbrok. The young redhead was not entirely on board with the look. He liked to feel high and tight.
The old man looked about as good as he could with his clothes on. In a soft light.
The elderly Sam Elliott or the senior Sam Shepherd. Torn between writing skills and the voice. The young redhead got all tingly at the sonorous growl of Elliott selling a gas-guzzling pick-up truck.
That reminds me of a story. The old man was undercover at an alcohol/drug Rehab center at Dartmouth. His cover was he was broke and not allowed to drive or leave the state jurisdiction attending well, never mind. The estate’s owner was abroad, doing whatever it is rich people do. Great to have gazillionaire friends but meanwhile, the old man felt stranded, stuck and alone in a twelve-thousand-square-foot bachelor pad with bars upstairs and downstairs and an indoor lap pool. Fifty thousand books. 50,000…not a misprint.
Couple times a week, this young couple comes in a army-green Jeep CJ-5 and cleans the entire joint, takes most of a day. The old man was rattling around all alone all by himself, anxious for a conversation, you know how you get when you get a little stir-crazy and need company, anybody.
They wouldn’t talk to him. Nothing. Mono-syllables. Not even a second opinion on the day’s weather.
Turns out, we later learn – old man’s host returned – cleaning crew had thought he was something strange, must be IMPORTANT. Who the hell goes off for months and leaves this guy all alone in a place like this if he isn’t somebody special?
They decided after not a little careful consideration, discussion amongst themselves and some family, they decided only one answer made any sense. You guessed it!
Tom Skerrit.
How can John Glenn die when we are still grieving over Robin Williams?
Crap. This is not good. Letter just came from the Feds.
Turns out the old man was no longer in Witness Protection.
Starting January Twenty, it’s House Arrest.
First they come for the story tellers.
Because there’s two kinds of people in this world.
Those with guns and those who dig.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLhn9tc8Dvo