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See You Soon

"Why didn't you call me?" His voice sounded hurt.

"I don't know," she sighed, tired from being up all night and hoarse from crying. "I was afraid to tell you," she let out another watery sigh, "I was afraid to tell anyone." She kicked at the loose asphalt under the pay phone.

"You can tell me anything," she could hear the smile in his voice and she closed her eyes, happy to finally be past it all. She hadn't slept for three days and wanted nothing more than to curl up next to him and fall into a blissful sleep.

"Can I come over?" She asked, stealing a glance over her shoulder.

"Of course," his voice was already having a soothing affect on her, "Where are you, can I come pick you up?"

"No, I'm over on Avenue A. I can just walk it, won't take me more than a few minutes."

"Okay, see you soon."

She hung up the pay phone and wiped her face with the palms of her hand. With one last sniffle, she turned around.

She never heard the man come up behind her. Her brain didn't even have time to recognize the gun barrel staring down at her before he pulled the trigger.

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The Gift

I'm 23 and will die in prison but I have to attend group therapy sessions in the rec room anyway. The ceiling in the far left corner of the room is caving in and so we all crowd around in a small circle at the front of the room because no one will give us a straight answer as to whether or not there's asbestos in the ceilings. The rest of the prison is real new and modern and clean. I don't know why the rec room is so shitty.

We are discussing Tobias, who died that morning. Next week is Tobias' birthday and everyone starts talking about bad birthdays and crappy gifts. Claude tells us he got an easy bake oven as a kid and we laugh. Mike shares about the time he caught his wife screwing some guy on Christmas Eve. All of us have a story to share and we all laugh, each of us trying to appear more bitter and jaded than the rest. Everyone tries to top everyone else's story, which is always what happens in here.

I am never getting out of prison alive and I hate group therapy. But everyone is sharing their story and I know mine will top all of theirs so I only pretend to not want to share. I light a Marlboro and try not to smile to myself as begin to speak.

"When I was 18 I was still a virgin," I take a deep drag off my cigarette, "and my brother worked down at the Crazy Horse Saloon."

"The stripper bar?" White Mike interrupts me.

"They're exotic dancers," I answer wryly and laugh until I wheeze. After a minute I recover and then continue, "So anyway, my brother paid one of the dancers there to fuck me for my birthday."

"Was it any good?" One of the new guys asks.

I laugh and nod deeply into my chest, "Yeah, I guess so."

"So then why was it a crap gift?"

I look at the do-gooder facilitator of the group, a shrink named Davis who already knows this story but says nothing. While I'm still staring at Davis, I let what I hope looks like a jaded grin snake across my thin lips before answering, "Bitch gave me AIDS."

There's silence for a minute and I can feel the air getting thick with tension and the fear that always comes out when you tell people you're a walking disease.

One of the newbies pipes in then, his voice as quivering and weak as he is, "Is that why you're in here? Did you kill her?"

I shake my head, "Nah, that bitch'll be dead soon enough. I killed my brother, man. He's the one who gave her to me and so he's the fucker who gave me my death sentence. I just returned the favor."

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Salvation For Sale

I once spent the better part of an afternoon writing about the obscene commercialization of religion, of how salvation can be procured as easily as a hearty laxative, both resulting in the same end: a load of shit. Televangelists have stopped being the joke they rightly are and have become the new prophets. God and Jesus have been reduced down to theological salt and pepper shakers with gluttonous sheep taking what they want and conveniently leaving out anything they don't.

I'm not a Catholic and, chances are, never will be. But I haven't rejected Catholicism for its good messages, its wise lessons about respect for all living creatures, the innate goodness of men or the idea that we should all respect and care for one another. I've rejected it for its arcane dogma and I don't believe that religions are an a la carte endeavor. You can't say 'I'm a Christian, but I think gay people and abortion doctors should be shot' or 'I'm totally Catholic, but only the New Testament part' or 'I'm Jewish an all, but I still love Jesus'. Finding a religion isn't like finding a TV Dinner - you can't work around the parts you disagree with or don't like.

Anyway, the original rant went on and on like that for pages. It became very circular and frustrating so I just made this instead:

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The Borders Incident

Drugs make me a better person. I've become convinced of that. They provide me with the balls to act on the moments of painful clarity which have been known to plague me from time to time.
A few years ago I found myself walking into a Border's Bookstore after taking an obscene amount of acid. I had just returned from San Francisco and had managed to procure some unbelieveable gel caps from a friend. For any of you not fortunate enough to live near a Border's, let me tell ya...it's a magical land where there are more books than people, where there's a coffee shop INSIDE the store, a lot of soft comfy chairs and couches to read on...a perfect little place. Well, in a perfect world it's a perfect place. Border's, like any other place, needs to make money, and they do have customers.

Well, you can see the problem already can't you?

In spite of the acid -- or perhaps because of it -- I felt like the world was mine, I felt strangely sure of myself and my place in the world. That regardless of whatever things I chose to do in my own time, I was no better or worse than anyone else on the planet. I wanted to go to Border's tripping my ass off so I did...I wanted to be around and perhaps even buy (gasp!) books. Anyone got a problem with that? So I went.

Border's is a good twenty minute drive from my house so I had sometime to think and listen to music and make sure the road was on the ground. By the time I got there I was pretty gone. A few more hits off the old "emergency" bowl and I was in. The way the store is set up -- well, at least the store by my house -- it's a huge open space, first separated into four really vague areas: music, videos, coffee and books. Now they're separated within those confines of course and the way it's all set up is that if your in the New Age area of the music section, you can't hear the Rap music coming from over in that section. The levels of sound are carefully controlled so that you can walk within the entire store and never hear what you don't want to hear. All the music areas play their specific music, but it's only within earshot if you're _in_ that section...does this make sense? I must admit, that it does have to be experienced .. it's just a nice little extra that the nice Border's people bring us.

Now, in the coffee area I have never really paid attention to the music, which tells me that it is most likely something incredibly universally appealing, In the book section, however, there is only classical music. Beautiful music. Soothing music...I think it was my catalyst. I had bought a cup of something French I think (the one down side to Border's coffee shop-within-the-store is that they don't have PLAIN coffee) and I was walking toward all those books. It's across the store from the coffee -- hey, readers need to exercise somehow -- I was walking through the Literature section of books -- the "classics" regardless of whether or not they deserve to be there -- on my way to the "arts" section, which is where they put all the books when you wish you could write but wind up buying books that teach you better ways, better research, better everything and succeed in making you realize what a fucking loser you are, I mean, after all, when was the last time YOU sold an article or got something published, I mean for god's sake you're buying books that teach you how to write books....but I digress. Where was I?

Oh yes, on my way to that section. Well, snuggled right next to the looming bookcase that holds all those writing books is the photography section. Once you've been in any store long enough you realize that things are set up the way they are for a specific reason....for example, at a grocery store, all the sugar cereals are right at the eye level of say a 7 year old. Coincidence...no. After being in Border's a few <grin> times, I eventually decided that the only possible reason that photography section is so obscenely close to the "how to write" section is to serve as a nice little escape. A fucking distraction...words got ya down? look at the pretty picture. Not to take anything away from photography, mind you. I'm grateful for the seemingly simple escape photography offers, I realize how much talent photographers have and how hard they work to make it look so easy....so lay off.

Anyway, I usually do take a side trip through the Photography section, and, through my journey today my eye caught a display of books that were targeted toward homosexuals. I paused, kind of surprised. There are a lot of assholes in the world and I'm always a little taken aback whenever a group that has been dicked over as often as the homosexuals say "what the fuck" and do whatever they want regardless of what others think. It was a couple of different books, stacked up. I stopped and flipped through one which was just pictures of men with men. Nekkid mens. I sifted through the pages and wasn't really paying attention...the acid was nice...and it made everything so pleasant.

I probably had a fairly blank expression on my face, just some chick flipping through a book full of gay men in the middle of Border's. I'm not sure what idea I gave this woman and her friend but....

"That's sick." The voice came away from me, somewhere to my left.

I looked up. "Huh?" I looked at this woman and what I presume to be a boyfriend standing near me and looking at the same stack of books I was.

"I said, that's so sick." she almost was smiling and talking to me in an almost conspiratorial tone, as though I were one of her friends. I looked at her hard then, and noticed the WWJD? bracelet on her hand, the clean wholesome polished look, the way her boyfriend looked as though he was a young and much more dashing version of any other conservative I've seen. I knew where this could go. I knew what they were assuming about me and what I thought. And I resented it. I resented these people coming into this store and saying those things. Border's was always a place full of losers and outcasts......people so sun deprived because they spent all their spare time holed up in their apartments reading that they were almost fucking blue. And now these people were coming in with their tanning booth skin and fucking with my little world. I was pissed.

The acid surged through me, soothing away my initial desire to simply ignore her and maybe deliver a disapproving scowl. Noooo, the acid hissed through my veins, teach her a lesson. I was smart. I could do this. "Who says?" I let my eyes drop again to the book. If she said anything I would be fully within my rights to unleash on her. I'd give her this out. Drop it now, bitch. Move on and drop it.

"Homosexuality?" She looked at her boyfriend -- oh what the hell let's call him Biff -- and then back at me. Dude, I wish I could tell you that she was old....that she wasn't someone young, too old to worry about, someone who didn't have a chance of running the goddamned world. But she couldn't have been older than me. "It's against nature. If we were all gay, there'd be no procreation." Ah, the old science idea. As I've come to understand it after hearing it for years from high school and, sadly, even at times within my little "hetero" world is that if we were all gay we'd just die out. The thought to bite the bullet and fuck each other in order to maintain the species would never occur to anyone. The basic premise -- behind all the bullshit -- is that gay people are stupid.

I shook my head and said, "No. Eventually people would start sleeping with each other in order to avoid extinction. Self preservation. Plus, eventually we'll just be able to harvest some fertile eggs from militant lesbians and we can make babies in jars." I looked at her now and smiled. Then back down to the book.

Leave now....let it go.....

"Well," she was already visibly upset, "It's not morally right."

The hot button. "Who says?" Clenched teeth.

"The Bible", it came out sounding like "DUH", as though it was a given that I should know. The truth is, we all know what it fucking says in the god damned Bible. I'm sick of having that book rammed down my throat all the time by people who have -- more than likely -- never even read the fucking thing, just memorized handy verses for when they "witness" to the heathens.

"The Bible." I repeated.

"Yes", she smiled again now, Biff smiled too, maybe they thought I'd come back to their place and we'd have a little soul saving on this fine evening. "God has it all spelled out for us...and homosexuality is wrong." She spouted off a Bible verse right then...and while I think I remember it I can't be sure. Things were moving along too well

"So then they'd be sinning, right?" I motioned toward the book again and looked at her.

"Yes" she nodded and looked at me again. I knew she was getting her panties in a knot, she had that look...you could tell this girl was gonna be marching in a pro-life rally one day. She had a self-righteous smugness about her that I wanted to rip out of her little 90210 body and feed to my dog.

"Sinners" I repeated, letting the word roll around in my head for a second.

I grew up Roman Catholic....the idea of sinning was nothing new to me. She interpreted my silence as actual thought and said, "Yes, sinners. It's sad. They're violating the law of God. They'll all wind up in hell unless they repent." Now, granted, that wasn't a direct quote...I'm paraphrasing here, but let me assure you that this is no exaggeration. She actually said "...burn in hell..." Those words came out of her mouth. Burn in hell? What the fuck is THAT about? Where does it say that if you don't wanna play the christians game you still have to put up with their storybook punishments? And who was this bitch to be doling out the afterlife assignments?

I looked at her again and just said it: "It's your god, they're your rules, YOU burn in hell."

We locked eyes for a second, hers wide the fuck open and mine dilated to all hell and then I smiled again and left. In the back of my mind I thought about Biff, but knew somehow that he wouldn't do anything. We were in a public place. I had just made them feel small and stupid.

Besides, by the time they stopped staring at each other I was sliding into my car and getting the hell out of there. It wasn't a huge scene. No crowd gathered. No one ever probably knew that the exchange had happened. To everyone else it appeared to be three people talking. Only the three of us -- me, that girl and Biff -- knew. It was a small step. Not a big thing.

But oh GOD did it feel good. And, as I drove home it reminded me of something a friend of mine did. Matthew moved to California a few months ago and he was on a bus going to work and someone made a comment -- dick sucking faggots or something like that -- and Matthew's response was "there's nothing wrong with sucking a good dick" or something equally great. Now to know Matthew is to know that he not only said it but said it right to the guy's face. And if we assume that much, and if we know Matthew (which I am aware the majority of you don't so trust me here) he not only said it but most likely screamed it. I'll have to get the details on that story again, it was a great one.

And what if we all did shit like that? What if we all shook our collective finger at those narrow minded, right-winged, conservative, book burning, pro-life, gun control, TV-G watching, censoring assholes and said "Hey you...OUTTA THE GENE POOL!" What if we all took steps like that. Little ones with no real consequences. Sure Biff could have beat the shit out of me but he didn't. And, most likely, never would have. Chances are the only thing that will ever come of it is that I'll ride my little wave of glory a few more moments, and two more people will be praying for my damned soul.

Now, the down side is that sometimes taking a real stand can fuck your life up. Matthew and I haven't talked in a long time. We haven't even e-mailed each other. He took a stand. He made a claim. I never knew how serious it was until I met up with his mom one night for dinner. But now I do know. And this is where it all gets a little weird. Matthew wants to be a woman. Not just a gay guy, not just someone on the fringe of society. He wants to be a chick. Matthew took a stand and a lot of people jumped ship on him. I'm sad to say I was one of them. In a way, I still am. Matthew isn't Matthew anymore. He's someone else...someone with a new name -- legally. He's changed his entire persona. He's not the same person I knew. And I don't know what this new person is even like and while I have my own ideas on what's going on with him I don't know everything. He's happy. He knows what he's doing. He looked at his life and said "Nope, this isn't right. Let's fix it." And he seems to think he has. And who am I to say? Who are any of us to say?

My trip (no pun intended) to Border's made me a little more aware of what I had been doing. I had been treating Matthew -- my fucking friend...someone I hung out with a lot...one of my nearest and dearest -- the same way people treat me. I passed a judgment on him based on my rules, my understandings, my ethics. I was wrong. I'm not saying I agree with what Matthew's done or is doing. I have a lot of problems with it that I won't get into here. But, when it all comes down to the bare bones, it's none of my business. In one of his last communications with me he said that "Matthew is dead." In a lot of ways he's right. I'm sorry about that. I couldn't be more upset about losing that person than I am now. He was a lot of things I wish I were. And there are a lot of things I should have said to him that I never did. But if he's really gone -- and he says that he is -- than all I can do is mourn my friend and see what this new person is like and judge her on her own personality. I don't see it happening...I see Matthew and I always will, but it would be nice to be able to see him...her for the first time all over again.

I didn't mean to get off on a such a tangent, but I guess I've made my initial point. If we all made steps to not be suppressed no matter how small or big those steps were; if we all made it our point not to allow the Religious Reich to get a foothold it would be a better world. The danger is not becoming someone who begins to judge those around us when they get away from our own parameters of what is right and what is not. Because when we do, when we start saying "you're wrong" we're no better than a bunch of book-burning and banning bigots. The whole point of making a statement is that at its heart is the idea that if you don't like it you can kiss my ass and get out of my fucking way. I forgot that. I lost a friend.

But that I was hopeful. Maybe things will start to work out. I don't think I'll ever be as close to Matthew as I was tonight. It's sad that it had to come at the expense of a friendship but I'm smarter now because of it and perhaps he is too. My defenses are back where they should be, my judgment calls are reserved away, the crass remarks saved for those wanting to repress not those wanting to break the fuck out.

Lesson learned.

Read the epilogue to this story.

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The Borders Incident: Epilogue

A few months after that Matthew and I did reconnect. I tried to accept him for what he had become as opposed to what I had been used to him being. He moved back to Ohio for a few months and we both to salvage what friendship there was left. Turns out I didn't like this new person. As much as I wanted to like 'her' I just didn't My taste in women is pretty straight forward: they can't be whiny bitches hung up on makeup and clothes. Matthew, of course, loved make up and clothes - they were what he considered girlie things and so they were what he built his new life around.

It could never have worked with me and this new persona. The very existence of her was a mirror to how Matthew saw women - how he saw me.

I've been friends with men my entire life. I'm used to overcoming that initial "she's just a girl" barrier. I learned how to hold my booze and my drugs and still keep my head on straight. I learned how to give in to sex without relinquishing my footing with them. I fought hard to get on equal ground without resorting to the all too common female techniques of crying, sulking and pouting.

And I did NOT like what was staring me in the face when I looked at a man I had once believed I was equal footing with. He giggled and blushed at everything. Tried on clothes and bought strangely colored underpants. This is NOT what women were. A pair of tits and an underwear collection do not a woman make. If it did, then every guy with bitch tits and a penchant for knickers would be awarded an honorary set of ovaries.

The woman Matthew became was my worst fear made corporeal. Every time I saw him (her?) it was like looking at a huge FUCK YOU!

In the end, it didn't work for either of us. I couldn't handle this new woman thing and, in the end, neither could he. A mistake easily rectified since he hadn't yet gone through with surgery.

Why, you may ask, am I telling you this.

Well, for two reasons, actually. New Life Lessons to add to the ones you already know.

Life Lesson #1: Just because it's controversial doesn't make it right. When this part of Matthew's life journey first began to unfold, I fought it. I eventually came around, thanks to the help of some Bible thumping bimbo for Jesus (See Incident at Border's post) After that I wanted to make it work. I didn't want to be yet another voice of ignorant dissent amongst a sea of critics. I resolved to take a fresh look, sure that I'd still be able to connect with the person I once knew. I convinced myself that a change of gender doesn't mean a change of personality. I was swept up in a wave of blind eagerness.

I was wrong.

It's true that Matthew had chosen a difficult path, one that he should have been able to expect support on. As someone who dared to label myself a friend of his, I should have one of the first people to stand and applaud his brave choice. What I didn't realize at the time, was that I was under no obligation to be okay with it once I had taken the initial step of acceptance. I accepted what Matthew had become. I had simply realized I didn't like it.

Which brings me to Life Lesson #2: Just because they're your friends doesn't make them right. This has got to be one of the most important lessons I've learned to date. I'm the first to admit that when it comes to my friends, I'll often side with them without really thinking about it. I feel a fierce loyalty to jump to their defense. This has proven to be problematic in the past when I've come to realize my friends are well and truly fucked up.

That in and of itself isn't a bad thing. After all, hanging out with strung out psychos, zealous conspiracy theorists, fledgling mad scientists and suicidal slackers is what life is all about isn't it? But I had to learnt hat they're all completely whacked in the head. And I'm under no obligation to agree with them on anything. If anything, it's my job as their friend to argue and squabble with them at every opportunity. If your friends aren't there to challenge your thinking your brain will eventually get soft - blindly accepting everything that gets thrown your way. Before you know it you're checking online for Big Brother updates and develop an addiction to text messages on your mobile so severe that normal people will no longer want anything to do with you since you'll begin to speak in abbreviations.

These are important things.

And so I thought I'd let you know <smile>

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fcuk is wnak

I am so sick of fcuk. Every time I have to go into Oxford I see at least a dozen people with those damn tee shirts, bags, jackets, etc. For those of you lucky enough to now know what fcuk is, it's a line of products (jeans, shampoo, body spray, etc) by French Connection UK (fcuk) They make a kick ass shampoo which I can't bring myself to buy anymore because of my growing seething hatred for the company's logo which is using the logo 'fcuk' in a myriad of none too clever play on words (i.e. 'lets' fcuk')

The fcuk 'joke' (and I use the term as loosely as a gay porn star's o-ring) is funny for about ten seconds the first time you see it. Almost immediately your brain downgrades it to 'mildly amusing' and there it could stay indfinitely were it not for the fact that it's everywhere you look. Now it's gone past annoying and into the realm of truly irksome. I find myself instantly hating anyone I see with an fcuk shirt on. I'm even beginning to hate the people who smell like their body spray (which I actually used to like)

They've got to be stopped. Or at least firmly informed that the only joke they're putting on display is themselves. spread the message: fcuk is wnak!

Buy the shirt!

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Uncle Kenny

My Uncle Kenny was a POW in Vietnam for three years before he was shipped back home. Uncle Kenny watches 'Deer Hunter' and 'Apocolypse Now' all the time. He says the boys in that movie had it easy. He lives down the road about half a click, in the trailer park where all the trailers have rusted out tops. His place is blue and white and sits on uneven cement blocks so the whole place shifts when too many people are in the back bedroom.

Mom says Kenny is a victim of the American Army. Dad says he's just crazy. The guy next door, Jerry, says Kenny is 'crazy as a shit house rat'.

Kenny can't work - says he's too busy smoking cigarettes for The Government. He thinks everything he does is for The Government. Sometimes he picks up the phone even when it doesn't ring and just starts talking into it and he acts like James Bond all the time. Except for Kenny don't have all those neat super spy gadgets.

Sometimes he tells me about what the prison was like. I think he tells me to scare me but I just keep making toast so he won't stop. Bread makes Uncle Kenny talk a lot. No one knows that but me. I'm the only one in the family who goes to see him. Even my mom, his sister, hasn't been to the trailer in a long time. The last time she went over was 2 years ago and Kenny was doin' all the same stuff - ranting and raving about The Government and what they done to him and all the tortures and stuff from being a POW and how it was The Government who was keeping him there. Uncle Kenny talks in circles a lot. He talked and got so worked up that before long he was spitting while he went on and on until he started screaming at her and finally she ran out the side door. That was before Kenny had put the milk crates there as a step so she fell right into the dusty ground. Kenny followed her out of the trailer and down the street a good while, insisting she come back and rest and how she only came to check on him because The Government had filled her teeth with mercury.

After that, Mom didn't go see him anymore, but she used to give me stuff to take to him. Anything I brought from there, Uncle Kenny would inspect. Shampoo, Conditioner, Liquid Soap and lotion all get strained through colanders to check for surveillance equipment. Food that wasn't in cans got inspected, squeezed and ripped apart. Canned stuff usually just got a cursory glance around the seams and then he tears the labels off and writes whatever was in 'em on the sides in black marker. When he opens cans of food he inspects the contents before and after cooking. Uncle Kenny says he knows my mom wouldn't ever hurt him or try and plant bugs around, but The Government might make her do things she don't mean to do. He says I have to be careful to make sure The Government don't brainwash me either.

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Linda's Last Flight

He'd started the letter to his brother twice now. He opened the bottle of Southern Comfort an hour ago and already it was half gone.

Jesse Wagner lived in a squalid ground floor apartment with floor boards so old the floorboards were the color of dirt. He never cared much about the place, it didn't matter to him where he lived, he was out on the road most of the time anyway.

Not that it mattered much now anyway.

Jesse took another long pull from the bottle before shrugging into his coat and heading out the door to buy some more before the liquor store closed. He made his way down the uneven sidewalk not caring how steady his walk appeared to passers-by. Shep was behind the counter when Jesse finally made his way down the street and into the distressed looking storefront. He bought another bottle of Southern Comfort and snatched up a bottle of Scotch as well. Shep raised an eyebrow but didn't say anything as he wrapped the bottles up in paper bags and handed them over. Jesse recognized two other men loitering off to one side but said nothing. Usually, he enjoyed his trips down to the store when Shep was there and had spent more than one long afternoon in the company of the other customers there. But today Jesse said nothing and the other men treated him with arm's length compassion, watching him quietly as he skulked out the door and into the early evening street. No one had said much to Jesse since he'd returned from the bike show.

Since the accident.

Four days earlier he and his girlfriend, Linda, had jumped onto Jesse's bike for the ride back into the city after spending a weekend at a camping site along with dozens of other bikers. The weekend had been drenched in alcohol and laughter. The show had been a particularly good one and Jesse had been relieved to see Linda laughing more than once, something she hadn't done in the months preceding the rally. Jesse had tried to get her out of her funk several times, but no dice. She kept insisting she was fine, that she was just distracted.

Jesse let himself back into his apartment and tossed his keys onto the nicked wooden table inside the door. He shuffled back to the wooden bench he used as a worktable and sat down, placing the bag down with a heavy thud and staring out the window. Linda loved sunsets. Often, they'd wander the streets together as the sun went down, circling the sprawling city blocks well into the night. Jesse sighed again and rubbed his red rimmed eyes with a shaky hand. He realized his first bottle of Southern Comfort was empty and he set about opening the one he'd just brought home. Once he had the cap off and another pull, he got out a piece of paper and, for the umpteenth time that day, started the letter to his brother.

The brothers had been born to a tough woman who'd grown up in the dusty slums of West Virginia before moving to the gritty streets of Detroit. She'd named both her sons after famous outlaws, christening them Jesse James Wagner and William Hickock Wagner, in a poor but proud Irish Catholic Church. They'd been a surly pair as youths, graduating from terrorizing neighborhood girls with worms and snails to terrorizing them with fast cars and fist fights. Jesse had elected to go to a Vo-Tech school and had fallen in love with mechanics, eventually earning a degree and securing steady, albeit hard, work in a local garage. William, called Billy by most, had never lost his love of crime, the temptation of a easy buck proving too strong too often. He was currently serving a three year stretch in prison for a botched burglary he'd carried out in a drunken stupor. He had no idea what had happened.

Linda and Jesse had met soon after he'd landed his job. She'd come in to have her bike tuned up and she and Jesse had gone off together to a rally two weeks later. As they were getting ready to leave it began to rain. Jesse had his leather jeans but Linda hadn't brought any and the prices the vendors were selling them for were nothing short of highway robbery. Linda had solved the problem by wrapping her jeans in several thick layers of duct tape. As Jesse watched her rolling the tape over her legs he knew he'd found the woman of his dreams.

That was two years ago.

Jesse took another long drink and began writing.

This past weekend had been perfect. They'd explored the woods together and made love near a small stream they stumbled upon one afternoon. They'd sat up all night watching the stars and lying happily on the grass. When they were preparing to leave Linda had hugged him tightly, kissing him on the lips and smiling into his eyes. Jesse had been thinking of getting home and into bed.

Jesse had always loved riding with Linda snuggled close behind him, her legs gripping him around the hips, her arms crossed tightly over his chest. She leaned into him until they were almost one person. He never worried about going around tight curves or dodging in and out of traffic when she was on the bike. She leaned with him around turns, tightened her legs around him as they dipped around cars and swerved around trucks. Jesse often got lost in the sensation of her body against his, gripping him tightly, literally holding on for dear life as the needle of his speedometer wavered past 100. Fuel injected exhilaration, she called it.

As they got on the bike Sunday, he'd felt her hands sliding over the back of his jeans, tucking her fingers quickly into the waistband. Jesse had smiled, happy to feel her soft flesh against him, if only for a moment. As they set off she braced herself around him as she always did, squeezing his body tightly for a moment as the bike roared to life.

Jesse drained the bottle of Southern Comfort down to the quarter mark and steadied his hands. He stood and stretched, walking over to the stereo and flipping it on, letting a stream from the local radio station fill the apartment. He walked into the kitchen and searched for the bag of dry roasted peanuts he knew he had. He finally found them in the refrigerator. He ate a handful without thinking about it as he walked back to the table and sat down again.

Around five miles or so before their exit on the highway, Jesse had felt Linda squeeze him tightly. Her strong thighs pressed against him and her surprisingly strong arms seized him tightly for a moment. Jesse smiled to himself and wished he could return the gesture. He squeezed the accelerator, instead, even more eager to get her home. But then, in an instant, everything changed. He felt Linda's legs pushing down, felt the resistance of her arms spreading open and then the bike fishtailing, the sudden absence of weight. A morbid symphony of squealing tires and honking horns exploding behind him.

Jesse managed to control the bike long enough to pull over and throw a desperate glance over his shoulder. Behind him a truck had come to a squealing halt, throwing its back end across the other lane of traffic. Among the spattering of cars stopped infront of the truck, stood a small, yellow VW Beetle.

Linda was sprawled across the dented hood and shattered windshield.

Jesse didn't look at anything else. He stumbled off his bike, letting it crash onto the ground as he made his way through stopped cars and people running towards him. He barrelled through them, shoving them easily away. By the time he made it to Linda, he could already hear the approaching sirens. He took his helmet off and fell to his knees beside the small car, his chest heaving, his mind a blank.

Other motorists gave the description required by police. Linda had launched herself off the bike in one fluid movement, spreading her arms wide and pushing off with her legs. The wind had picked her up and sent her sailing directly into the windshield of Robert Mitchell's VW Beetle. She'd never looked behind her, never waved her arms. Robert had described it as a bird taking off into flight to the investigators as he shook under the scratchy green blanket an EMT had placed around his shoulders.

Jesse sat with an anxious looking patrolman, watching as medics zipped Linda up into a long, black bag. Eventually, he was taken home in a patrol car, his bike delivered later that day with silent condolenses from his boss.

Jesse hadn't spoken to anyone since the day of the accident and he didn't feel much like starting anytime soon.

But he wanted to tell Billy what had happened. Linda had sent Billy regular letters updating him about the rallies they went to, complete with pictures. She'd been the one to remember the care packages on his birthday and at Christmas. Jesse wasn't sure how to tell him those regular acts of thoughtfulness would be ending.

Jesse opened the Scotch.

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