Haints

Halloween at midnight. Legend has it that Dead Time runs between midnight and three a.m., the time when all deeds black and evil in nature should be done. A time when foul things of worlds beyond our understanding have the power to break through the bonds keeping them in check.

We pride ourselves on our ability to recognize that which is real and separate it from what we understand to be our imagination. To come in contact with what we know to be impossible is to challenge the very fiber of our being....

Having traveled to many places in search of a true haunted house, I had become quite cynical over the years. I would hear stories of things that could be heard walking in attics, voices that would speak in whispers that you couldn't quite understand, images peering down at you from windows of rooms seldom visited, yet I seemed to be let down time and again, never seeing or hearing anything.

I was thinking about these things as I was burning some brush across the road from the driveway. The evening was settling in and night was about fall, a cool breeze was blowing as the smell of wet leaves and decay wafted about me. I had thrown a few loads of limbs onto the fire, now billowing smoke from the damp leaves, when I stood and leaned on my rake. I looked down across the small field of high grass swaying back and forth in the wind to the yellow lights burning in the windows of my Grandparent's house.

I had heard my Grandfather spin many tales about ghosts and strange things he had witnessed over his life. I could see his figure outlined in the dim light from the house as he sat on his porch.

I made a decision.

When the fire had died down to a manageable pile of embers, I walked through the field toward his porch. I remember looking back at the fire, the slight wind making the coals heat up to a dark red glow. The moon hanging low over the horizon looked uncharacteristically large, its light casting everything around me into the dull black and gray of its world. The colors of this season were wiped away as easily crumbs of bread from a shirt.

I stepped onto the porch and sat down next to my grandfather, never speaking a word. He was looking toward the edge of his yard, just past the huge tree that he had put a fire hose swing in so many years before. After a few minutes he tossed his arm up and pointed in the general direction of the tree.

"Back over in there on the other side of that acorn hill is a spot you shouldn't go..."

I was always intrigued as to how he could seem to read your mind. I decided not to say anything, so I sat back in anticipation, ready to be spun a tale I was sure I would relish for years to come. He had a pace for talking that you had to set yourself up for, so I waited for him to continue.

"We came up here once when I was young, back when all this was a big farm. I remember that man we saw told us about how this was a plantation back around the Civil War. We started down the road from the other end." He hooked a thumb over his shoulder toward Macedonia Road. "We had been told we could come out here and hunt for deer, the foreman over at the mill told us about where to look for an old camping spot they used down in a hollow. He said that when the road started back down hill toward panther creek we would see a little road off to the right, about where ya'lls driveway is. We stopped the pick up truck just inside that road and got out to go look for it."

He leaned over the porch rail and spat tobacco juice out into the yard, then rocked back in his chair, turning to face me. The look in his eyes was deadly serious, it made me sit up and take notice.

"Now I ain't ever been one to be scary, but let me tell you... when you start walking off into those woods up there with a lantern late at night, you can get to feeling like there's something watching you... We walked all the way out in there with just one lantern, that was all. I was carrying the tent and food, the fellow ahead of me had the guns and that old boy from the loading dock was in front with the light. We topped that acorn hill and stopped up there just to listen. It was god awful quiet and the wind was blowing about like it is right now. I knew that place was eat up with haints because of all the things I had heard at work, but I just kept myself calm and said there wasn't anything to worry about.

We started down the backside of that hill, headed north east, when we heard the awfullest racket you could imagine coming from near the creek. We all stopped short and stood stock still listening... It sounded like somebody was getting burned alive in a fire down there, I hadn't ever heard screaming like that. We didn't know what to do.

After a while of nearly pissing our britches we decided to walk on down there. It had got quiet again, but we noticed that it was a bit too still. I guess we all sort of decided just not to mention what we had heard, because we walked in silence. When we reached the creek we found the little log bridge he told us about and we set out over to the other side. We went around some big rocks and found the spot he was talking about, there was a ring for a fire set up in the middle of a clearing and some wood was still piled near an old tree they had built a plywood table on. I put the stuff down and we started picking through it to get things set up, it was late and we wanted an early start on the deer.

We hadn't been there ten minutes when we heard that screaming again. This time it sounded like it was right on top of us. We all started backing up to the trees behind us, heading away from the noise. We started looking at one another but were too scared to say anything. When it got quiet again that boy from the loading dock said that we just needed to go home. I turned around and he was white as a sheet... I told him it wasn't anything to worry about , probably some old bobcat or something. He told me that the folks down on the village told him there was a witch that lived over here somewhere and he wasn't about to mess with a witch. As soon as he said that the other guy started yelling and came up with an axe in his hand from behind the loading dock boy, he screamed and threw that axe right past me, and started yelling, 'There she is! There she is!'

We dropped everything we had and started running back toward the creek. When we crossed over that bridge, that yelling started up again, it sounded like whatever was yelling was snapping right at our heels... We didn't stop running until we were back at the truck...

We threw that thing in gear and floored it, heading back down the road right toward that old bridge that used to be down there."

He pointed deeper into the woods where the old road bed lay from before the road dead ended at his driveway.

"When we hit that bridge, there was somebody standing right off to the side, right on the creek bank, holding a lantern. It was an old woman, dressed all in black, wrapped up from head to toe. She was pointing at us when we saw her. We nearly went off that bridge, that boy driving was yelling, I was yelling, and that other fellow was yelling louder than either of us.... But I'm telling you, we could still hear that screaming even though we were all yelling as loud as we could. That truck didn't slow down until we hit the highway..."

We sat in silence for a few minutes, then he reached down and picked up a piece of wood that he had been whittling on and started up where he left off. He stopped after a few minutes, and looked my way...

"I ain't never been back over there past those rocks since that night.. not once."

As I was walking home I kept looking over my right shoulder.. Directly toward the spot he had been talking about. It was dark and still, the light from the moon was bright, but I knew I would need a flashlight..

I was standing at the edge of the driveway, flashlight in hand, staring at the old road bed. I pondered things for a few moments before stepping onto the pine needles. I knew exactly where he was talking about. The problem was that the entire area was all boggy now. A swamp had crept up over the years, with many springs bubbling out of the ground... Yet I knew I had no choice but to go in search of this campsite.

I walked down the road bed toward the old bridge, no easy feat. The way had become treacherous over the years, pig trails and the edges of beaver dams held the surest footing. When I got to the creek I searched in both directions until I found the remnants of the bridge. The county had been doing road work out here and had driven an old tractor onto the bridge, causing it to fall in. They pulled the tractor out of the creek, but never came back to repair the bridge... over the years the road was swallowed by the woods. My grandfather bought the land from the mill owner and built his home near the start of the downhill slope toward the bridge, over time the road just came to end at his driveway.

I crossed over the creek and stood looking out through the woods toward the place where the campsite would be. The woods were deadly still, you couldn't hear a sound except for the running water of the creek. I would look back toward home then out in the woods again, I went back and forth like that for a while until I plunged deeper into the woods. I followed the creek for a good while until I was at the back of the hill he had talked about. This was the most menacing part of the walk. The moon was behind the hill, causing it to be a mass of blackness to my right. I was still unnerved by the complete silence of the woods.

When I reached the bend in the creek I looked out to my left and started walking in a northeasterly direction. I had not gone far when I walked up on several large rocks sitting close together at the lip of a hollow. I went around the far end of the rocks and found myself in a clearing. I stood there for some time looking around with my flashlight, investigating my surroundings as meticulously as I could. I began to walk in circles around the area spreading out as I went.

That was when I noticed some nails in a tree. The tree was large and about six feet or so from the ground there were several square nails sticking out from its trunk. I stared at them, wondering if that had been where the table had been nailed to the tree... a bit high, but the tree would've grown. I continued to stare at the tree with the flashlight moving slowly over its surface when my blood ran cold. About four feet above the nails, there was an old axehead buried deep into the wood.

My heart began to beat rapidly, I shook my head a few times as I kept refocusing on the old rusted metal poking out from the side of the tree. Surely not... I was looking around the clearing for anything I could use to climb up to the axe head when suddenly the most earsplitting, high pitched noise I've ever heard ripped the silence around me to pieces... At once I lost all thoughts about reclamation of relics as the flashlight flew into the air and I headed in the opposite direction.

I was at a dead run toward the creek, tripping over roots, banging into trees, and damn sure that the cry that was following me held voices in it... all calling for my death.... I hit the creek with three knee deep splashes and made it a few steps on the other side when the cry began to waver and morph... It dropped its high pitched screaming and gave over to the throaty curl of an owl.... I stopped running and bent over, attempting to catch my breath. With my hands on my knees I began to laugh at myself for getting so caught up in the story and in the moment. When I had gathered my wits I started back toward the creek to retrieve my flashlight when I noticed something odd. The beam of light was casting odd shadows from the other side of the rocks. There was just one problem... The light was moving around.

All the blood drained from me completely as I stood still and watched the light moving. I thought to myself, "That's nice..." as I turned on the spot and began walking up the hill as fast as I could. The faster I walked the more sure I was that I could plainly hear footfalls in the woods behind me. Before I knew what was going on I was running as fast as I could. I went straight over the top of the hill and directly toward my grandparents house. I thought I would never reach anything recognizable and was sure I was lost forever when I broke out onto the old road bed just below their house. I made my way up the dirt road until I saw the light from their house coming through the trees. Still at a dead run, I ran across their yard and skidded to a stop in front of the porch and grabbed the rail, spun around it and landed in the chair I sat in to listen to his story...

I was sitting there breathing heavily when he looked over at me and said, "You just couldn't leave it alone could you?" I took a few more deep breathes and replied, "No Sir... but you were right.. There's definitely a spot back over in there that I shouldn't go..."

NPR is just full of shit

I have been listening to the chatter over juan williams getting fired from npr for admitting that he felt apprehensive when boarding a plane with muslim people.

Coming from a point of view that is right of center, I'm not surprised that he was fired. He gave fox news too much face time for the powers that be at npr to be comfortable with him.

The funny thing about all of this is that the folks over there that gave him the boot are guilty of the same thing that most of the more enlightened of our society that lean to the left are guilty of... They do exactly what it is that they bark about right wing nuts doing, but then deny it.

I've listened to talk radio for years, watched fox news for about the same amount of time... I've read democratic underground, huffington post, newsmax, etc etc and an amazing thing has taken place... I haven't been brainwashed yet.

What I have noticed is that most people on the right are willing to listen to what others have to say while our brethren on the left don't give a shit about an opposing view point. They hear the name of a person, group, or network and begin the usual diatribe of bullshit without simply lending an ear to the actual words that are spoken.

In all matters of opinion, common sense is usually the first victim. Take the tea party for example. The message is pretty simple, less government intrusion, less money taken from us by government and more freedom from government. Yet they are attacked almost hourly on websites and twenty four cable news as being xenophobic, racist, homophobic, illiterate people. When the truth of the matter is exactly the opposite. It's easy to watch a television program that depicts these people as such and believe it. If you were to subscribe to the talking head and blogosphere point of view of "tea baggers" you would think the entire group consisted of sarah palin, christine o'donnell, joe miller, and rand paul.

I've spoken with tea baggers, worked with tea baggers, been to political meetings with tea baggers... but wait!

I've also spent time around the enlightened ones on the left....

Democratic meetings, green party meetings, socialist party meetings.... Down through the years I've spent time with them all. I can say with absolute certainty that people that lean to the right hold far less vitriol than those that lean to the left. Besides, the parties of the right leaning people are far better....

I've said this before, reality versus popular opinion is never what people think... Skewing someones vision is easy business, give me a production company and budget similar to what michael moore spent on his last film and I could turn out a hit piece that would have you afraid to set foot in amish country, a nasty place full of serial killers, pedophiles, and cannibalism...

I went to a dinner with tea party members and all they discussed was political theory and proposed policies, while a similar dinner with democrats was nothing but a bitch fest about rush limbaugh and sean hannity...

I live in georgia, just south of atlanta.. This is hick central right? Home of abortion provider killing, knuckle dragging, racist, sister fucking, inbred mouth breathers right? You want to know something strange? I have not yet once heard race brought into any discussion about president obama.. not once... Policies about taxes, imports/exports, jobs, etc yes.. but not one mention of race.. strange that...

I'm not concerned with party affiliation or labels at all. I do however listen to what people say, and then I look at what these same people have done. Would I vote for christine o'donnell? Hell no... Why? because she's a fucking idiot. Sarah palin for president? You have got to be kidding....

But the thing about it is this... I'm not afraid of these people either. What jon stewart or bill maher says about them doesn't matter to me. When a discussion ensues about any of these people and the first thing that happens is an insult you know its going to be useless... a complete waste of time...

I recently enhanced my parlor game.... I have always enjoyed being in a group of people that are rabidly to the left and are depicting the right wing as nazis and destroyers of the earth, then introducing policy discussions to the conversation. It never fails.. if you talk policy without mentioning party or politicians names.. they always agree with what you say. Always. The new twist is to then discuss policies that the candidates they actually back endorse.... They actually get mad about it, aggressively so. "You believe what?"

The eye opener comes when people drop the hate, drop the junior high attitude, drop the fad and fashion and get serious. When people have an actual discussion about what the real time outcome would be if a president were to drop favored nation status in trade, charge fair taxes on imports, replace the internal revenue service with the fair tax, make all elected officials adhere to a restriction of two terms in office, get rid of most of the federal government's spending on everything except military (which could be cut in half), you would find an actual civil discourse taking place...

It's far too easy to toss up pictures of tea baggers in ridiculous poses and title them with drivel about witch hunts or nazis.... It's easy to call people hypocrites when they talk endlessly about family values while nailing their illegal housekeeper who gets drugs for them. It's much more difficult to come out of the closet of the twelve year old mindset who is looking for nothing more than ratings and validation and discover what people are really like. Spend time with people that you know you disagree with politically. You will find that corporate media has brainwashed most of us to keep us confused, because we all agree on more than you would believe.

Trigger issues are easy to toss out there, things that are comprised solely of opinion. Abortion, gay marriage, religious theology... You will never change my opinions... just as I will never change yours. Enlightenment begins when we all realize this and discover that its ok to spend time with people that think differently than you do.

The noise of the global media is loud, violent, turbulent, and frightening, but just under its surface is common sense. Common sense is calm and smooth. When you move away from people who live with a personal agenda (which is always about them getting money, attention, and laid) and get serious about changing the landscape of politics in this country you will discover as I have... It's a sad state of affairs when we all agree on things that actually effect us, yet want to kill each other.

Murdered

I thought about this one... I thought for a while about it...

Earlier tonight as Patrick was on facebook he turned to us and asked if we remembered his friend that he used to hang out with a couple of years ago. We did...

He told us that he had died, we asked how and he told us that he was shot in a hunting accident and died this morning. He was getting reports from other people on line about it and was giving us details as he learned what had happened.

After a while he googled the names of people they were talking about. Turns out that the boy was shot Saturday afternoon during a dispute. He and his older brother were both shot. The younger child died this morning at a hospital in Atlanta. The nineteen year old that shot them has been charged with murder.

Patrick and this kid were friends for a long time until a little over a year ago... He was at our house a lot. He went places with us, we carted both of them around all over.... Patrick had just started running around with him and his older brother... When Patrick's fifteenth birthday rolled around last year he wanted a camp out type party in the front yard with his friends. During the party there was a bit of a falling out and they really haven't spoken much since then.

We saw him not long ago in town. I don't know any details as to what happened, but the impact has been profound. I have sat here this evening thinking about them together at the renaissance festival watching them act silly and play around.

I keep thinking about his mannerisms and the things he talked about. I have ran the last conversation we had through my mind over and over all evening. This is just beyond reproach. The child was too young to die. He was the same age as Patrick. He wasn't given the opportunity to live. I read articles on line about it and it appears there was a some sort of argument going on and other people showed up and gunfire broke out.

Many thoughts are swimming around in my mind, the injustice, the horror of their parents, the kids voice, and would Patrick have been with them if they had not have had the falling out they did.

That last one has weighed heavily on me....

Hand carved cypress knee with Santa and tree

I have completed the second piece of cypress that I got from my mother.... A couple of posts ago I spoke about going to my father's shop with my mother. While there I came across two pieces of cypress. The first piece, featured here, was painted a flat brown, the second piece was painted a bright red.


Dad had painted this one red with the idea of painting a Santa face and Christmas tree on it. He never got around to finishing the piece.


The first step was to strip the paint from the piece, which proved to be a long process... The bark was still in place on this one, which added to the over all frustration of the beginning steps. Once the bark and paint had been removed I had to hand sand the entire knee, being as old as it is, there was no way I could use any sort of power sander. The wood was so dry that it would have been damaged beyond repair.

Once the piece was ready I carved the Santa, then the tree.... I carved the tree resting on top of a brick wall, why I did that I have no idea, it just seemed appropriate...


I hope that I have grasped something of the vision my father had for the cypress knee...

The cypress knee stands twenty one inches tall and features a single stain and is coated in varnish... I decided to stain it a solid color rather to paint it, again, it just seemed appropriate for some reason.

If you are interested in purchasing this piece, the price is $150 You can contact me at 678-423-6541 or email me at crickhollowcarving@gmail.com

Studying with my Dad

Many years ago I was having one of those late night discussions with my father, this one was about family tradition... We had covered the basic points in bloodline historical moments such as moonshiners, thieves, soothsayers, preachers, mill workers, and carnies...

The lesson I was being taught then switched over to the Creek and Cherokee ancestry in our family. He began telling me the history of these people as if he had lived it. Names, dates, and places all rolled off his tongue as if he had been there. This was a disturbing thing that he could do, his recall was frightening.

The hour grew late and he was well into the story of the retaliation brought down on Red Eagle for his attack on Fort Mims in 1813. He told me about the slaughter of the people at the fort and how most Creek towns were decimated in the aftermath. He ended with the statement "When Red Eagle surrendered and shook the hand of that son of a bitch he sealed their fate..."

We talked well into the wee hours of the morning when he brought up a book he had and suggested I read it. He retrieved it from his shelf and handed it to me, making me promise to return it as soon as I was finished with it. I made the promise and headed home. He called me several times over the next few days asking me if I was finished with it. The second I read the last line I took it over there and handed it to him, when he asked after a book with such perseverance you knew he was concerned about it and wanted it returned in good condition.

A few months ago my mother and I were talking about his reading habits and I asked her how he retained such vast amounts of information.. She told me that he didn't just read a book, he studied it voraciously.. She then told me to go through the books that were left on the shelves and pick out any that I may want. I looked around for a few and saw several that dated back to my childhood. Then my eyes landed on the book I had borrowed... I picked it up and asked if I might have it.. She said I could and I took it home and placed it on my shelf.

I haven't touched the book since I sat it in line with the Bibles and Tolkiens that I hold dear... Earlier this evening I was lamenting that I had nothing new to read, a situation briefly assuaged by revisiting Tolkien and then the Harry Potter series... I began looking through my books hoping for something to jump out at me, much the same thing as standing in front of a refrigerator for the third or fourth time in an evening thinking its contents would have changed in the past twenty minutes...

I noticed the little book sitting there and absentmindedly picked it up from the shelf and began to read. I thought about the discussion my father and I had that evening as I made it through four chapters before closing it and heading over here to the computer... For some reason I thumbed through the book before placing it back on the shelf and a piece of paper fell out. I picked it up and looked down at it, the paper was written over by my fathers hand... There were names, dates, and quotes written on it... I sat for a while and thought of him as I looked over the paper and read the things he had chosen to write down...

I knew he had read the book before he let me borrow it and this piece of paper wasn't in it when I had it, so he had read it again and made notes for himself... I am amazed by how he treated history, he held it in such high regard. He always told me that you could never learn enough about anything and that "most people talk too damn much to learn anything..."

I smiled to myself, folded the paper back in half and placed it where I had stopped reading... Over the years I have acquired many bookmarks, this one I shall keep with honor, I can assure you it shall not get lost or damaged.. it's funny that this is the only book I have ever had that I haven't dogeared a single page in..

Late night ride

I was sitting there on a Friday evening with nothing to do and had run around the channels on the television for the four hundredth time when I tossed the remote aside and headed for the car. I was feeling on edge, had been for several days and needed something. Back then I had 1985 pontiac fiero gt, a purchase I made in direct response to having been chauffeur for a group of friends for several years... I was actually surprised I could fit in the damn thing. It was small, fast, and only had two seats. Having driven that thing for a few months my habits behind the wheel had changed.. I moved from a 1981 chevy malibu four door piece of shit that topped out around sixty five on a good day to the fiero and my average cruising speed went from forty to seventy.

I was working north of Atlanta at the time and driving in the interstate free for all every day had honed my abilities quickly to an almost professional level. We've all been there, late night runs on the interstate just to feel the wind blowing and have the radio loud. I headed for I-85, but when I got on the bridge I did a U-turn in the middle of the road and headed back to jump on the south bound lanes... I drove the north bound side every day... time for a bit of a change..

The fiero had a six cylinder engine in a car that weighed next to nothing, the speedometer topped out at eighty five but with the power it had it would run smoothly around one hundred and twenty. When I reached the middle of the ramp I floored it and hit top speed with the needle quickly passing the eighty five mark to drop straight down and shimmy with that "you might be able to push out a little more speed" wobble.

I had gone up to what was then exit ten and was headed south. When the sign came for the Newnan exit I moved over to the left lane and maintained the gas peddle to the mat. When I reached the Moreland exit I suddenly had a destination in mind... I exited and hung the right turn with hardly losing any speed as I headed for sixteen toward Griffin. Normally that is a deer killing route to take late at night, but for some reason I never thought of either deer or police as as I pushed the car back to interstate cruising speed.

The only time I slowed down was when I reached the city limits of Griffin. I made the first stop at the gas station there by I-75 to fill the tank, then I hopped on and continued my way southward... The radio was loud and the wind was screaming through the cockpit of the little airplane I was flying down 75. I remember thinking "I will go to jail if I get caught" as I never once slowed down going through Macon.

I felt my front pocket as I exited onto 16 to make sure I had enough supplies, and it was full of quarters... excellent...

The next stop came in the town of Dublin when I exited to fill up the tank again, Dublin has the cleanest restrooms on 16 so it's the only place I stop. Once back on the interstate my senses got back to normal after having been assaulted by the fluorescent and neon harshness of the gas & sip.. My speed got back up to a good level again as the smell of the pines wafted in and mixed with Mr. Marley's songs coming from the cd player. As the median became wider and the land flattened to its monotonous soul sucking desolation, the trees began popping up between the north and south bound lanes. I thought about the way the cops liked to hide in the trees all through this stretch, yet I said fuck it and kept the speed going.

The signs started the count down as I headed south and with each one I would look at the clock and time the next few hours out in my mind.. It was looking good. The air coming in through the windows was growing more humid with each passing mile and I was starting to relax. Then I saw it..

The interstate dropped me off on the familiar streets and a sly smile broke across my lips when I saw the first palm tree my eyes had beheld in months... With no thought at all I traversed the well worn path over to Bay street and started the twenty mile per hour ride down to the islands expressway..

I took in the smells and sounds of my surroundings but didn't look at anything except for the tail lights of the car in front of me. When I was next to Bull street I put the windows up in anticipation of what was to come. I spared a look and quick nod to the old haunt on my right as I dropped off Bay street and started on the ride over to eighty... I actually laughed out loud when I went over the little grated bridge that raises straight up for the boats to pass under.. I was almost home...

I made the left turn onto eighty and gassed the car up a bit faster than I should have, but I was ready to get there... The first bridge came into view and dropped the windows to let that salt marsh smell fill the car. I breathed deep as the one hundred percent humidity and ocean water smell washed over me.. damn this was nice...

When I reached the traffic light I looked to my right and saw the flood lights on down at the shack and laughed again.. they were coming in.. perfect timing... I swung the car to the right then back to the left and drove down the little road to the dock. I got out and stretched, then walked over to the little building, Knocking once as I walked in.. I was met by the blood shot eyes of a man that had skin the color of a walnut and almost as wrinkled..

"You got anything in I could get?"

"How much you want?"

"Give me five or so.."

He reached in a cooler and handed me a bag, I tossed him a few bucks and headed back to the car, dropping the bag in the styrofoam cooler in the little trunk, I looked at the threadbare quilt next to it & smiled again...

I got on the road and headed back out. I crossed onto the island and took a deep breath just to let the world get tossed off my shoulders with the air coming out my lungs. I stopped in the first "chu's" I came to and got a bag of ice for the cooler and a single red stripe for the wading. A street or two to the left later I pulled in and parked next to a meter... I got out, fed all the quarters in, grabbed the quilt out of the trunk and started up the wooden walkway over the dunes.. I laughed again as I shook all the sand out of the quilt, there was no reason at this point... I made my way half way over to the pier and tossed the quilt on the ground next to the swing.. I kicked off my shoes and walked down to the water.. I didn't stop until I was knee deep. I took the red stripe out of my pocket and popped the top off. I stood as the sand slowly moved from under my feet and I drank deep of the beverage, almost as deep as I drank of the smell of the water and the womb like sound of the waves breaking around me. I stared up at the brightest moon I had seen in a while, then would look out as far as I could see to the tiny lights of the ships coming in from all over the world...

When the drink was gone I turned around and made my way back to the swing... I sat down and timed my movements with the waves coming in. When I began to nod a little I stood up, stepped over and dropped into the old quilt on the sand, that's a sleep that you can not beat...

I was awakened a couple of hours later by the sounds of people making their way out to the end of the pier for fishing. I stood up and brushed the sand off me as I sat back down in the swing and waited for the show.... A little while later I watched as the sun rose over the horizon... There is just nothing to compare... When the sun was blazing and the morning joggers started to show up I grabbed the quilt and made my way back to the car...

I drove down the street to the arby's and parked the car. I grabbed the cooler out of the trunk and started down the little side street, passing by all the rental properties until I saw the old two story house I was headed for.. I laughed as I always did when it came into view.. People passed out on the porch, Nets and shells all over the place, cars parked haphazardly with no thought of geometrical arrangement.. I walked up the steps, moving through the bodies... The smell of coffee met me as I dropped the cooler on the porch by the huge kettle and propane tank, then I walked through the screen door... The laughter that greeted me was full of cigarettes and a long night as I reached for a cup..

"I thought I would see you soon... You got the shrimp?"

"They're on the porch ready to go..."

"Well, lets get at these eggs before those fools wake up then we can put them on and wait for lunch..."

Damn... it was a good idea to go for a drive...