Author: Tom Darby

Whilst I don’t aim to write tragedies—as life already writes enough of those without any help from me—some tales fall so hard and sharp upon the public ear and private heart that they demand telling–and this is one. It is a story soaked in blood and sorrow, tangled in madness and mystery–and its telling is not to sensationalize but to record the truth as plainly and honestly as possible.

The accused in this tale is one Carson Gonzales, a youth of but twenty years, now sitting in the Washoe County jail under a no-bail hold, his soul heavier than the stone walls surrounding him. On a Saturday evening in the high desert, in a quiet home on Powder Drive in northwest Reno, a horror unfolded that folks in Sparks and beyond won’t soon forget.

The dead is his mother, Miss Carla Gonzales, aged 52, a schoolteacher of art and photography at Sparks High—a woman I had the pleasure of sharing a few words with from time to time in Virginia City, usually over an Old Fashioned and a discussion about lighting or composition. Whether we were friends or acquaintances, that is water under the bridge now.

For my part, I call her a friend because it hurts more that way.

When officers arrived, summoned by a flurry of 9-1-1 calls, they found her friend—Miss Angela Clay, age 46—bleeding in a neighbor’s driveway, her face torn open, neck gashed, body broken like a child’s toy after a tantrum. That she survived at all is a testament to the fortitude of the human frame and, more importantly, to a neighbor who pressed his hands to her wound and held her to this world by sheer grit and the mercy of Providence.

Inside, the scene was too dreadful to set fully to paper. Miss Gonzales lay on her side, her neck so savaged that her spine got exposed to open air.

Death came quickly–but not cleanly. Carson was found in the garage, stripped near to nothing, soaked in blood, muttering of madness, of Trump and queens, and other things that spoke more to a fractured mind than a wicked heart.

He told the police he got attacked. He said he acted in defense.

He said he could bring his mother back. And then he asked his half-brother how many years he might get for “this stupid sh–,” which seems to be the only moment of clarity in the whole ghastly affair.

The court has ordered a competency evaluation—which is fitting, for it is no small thing to ask whether a man is guilty if he no longer grasps the shape of right and wrong. Whether this is a tale of murder, madness–or both tangled together like fishing lines is yet unknown.

What is known is that Miss Angela Clay, described by her family as light-hearted and close as kin to Carla Gonzales, is slowly recovering, though she has many miles to go. Her brother-in-law, a plainspoken man named Chris Battenberg, said the family is pulling together, catching each other when they fall, which is what families are for in times like these.

He also gave thanks—tearful and true—to the man who saved her life in that driveway. Of Carla Gonzales, he said, “She was like the family mom.”

I reckon there’s no better epitaph for a woman.

It wasn’t a story I wished to write. But now that it’s finished, I hope you’ll remember the victims before the headlines fade and hold tight to those you love. Because the night is long, friends, and sometimes the devil don’t knock—it comes through the door wearing a face you already know.

It was 108 degrees in July 2006 in the Diyala Province, northwest of Muqdadiyah. We sat, baking in our MRAP, waiting, feeling like sitting ducks, while the lieutenant decided what to do.

There were a few shots in the distance–small arms fire, scattered and thin. The Skipper thought it was worth a look.

The platoon was light—two squads instead of three or four. We had two Iraqi Army trucks and two Iraqi Police vehicles, all RVing toward the noise.

A bad decision, but no one knew that yet.

They came to a small village, not much more than a handful of buildings strung along a dirt road. A canal ran to the right, a ditch to the left.

There was only one way in and one way out.

The lieutenant didn’t wait for the drone he had called in. He didn’t think about the blocked alternate route, didn’t think when the Iraqi Police left them, warning of an al-Qaeda stronghold ahead.

The lieutenant ordered the convoy forward anyway.

The Iraqi Army took point, our truck next. The others followed.
Halfway in, the lead truck stopped.

No radio call. No warning.

The driver pulled up behind them, where he saw the ditch across the road. The squad leader jumped out, spoke with the Iraqis, and then jumped back in.

That’s when the shooting started. I had no time to write, no time to take photographs.

Three men in the grass, fifty meters away to our left, with AKs.

Then we saw a bongo truck roll into the village, mounted with a DShK M1938, a Soviet heavy machine gun. The kind that tears through steel.

Stuck in an L-shaped ambush. No way forward. No way back. Just lead in the air and the sound of the big gun hammering.

The turret gunner fired back. The M240 barked beside him.

Our driver sat, hands on the wheel. Nothing to do but wait for the next bullet to find us.

Then, the explosion. A bang. Fire. Smoke. I thought it was an IED.

My ears rang from the blast. Knock out of my seat, I checked myself for wounds; nothing. Then, our driver felt something sharp on his cheek.

Touched his face. Blood on the glove.

Red. Wet.

“I’m bleeding,” he said calmly.

Then, the cab filled up with thick gas from the fire suppression system. Everyone’s voices dropped, low and strange, because of the gas, the opposite of sucking on a helium-filled balloon.

Time moved differently. It always did in moments like these.

He threw it into reverse. Hit the truck behind him.

No room. No give.

He hit it again. And again.

Finally, the convoy started backing out. It was slow, ugly work.

He had one mirror, no rear camera, and could barely see, blood filling his eyes. Then the Corpsman came, running under fire, climbing into the truck, hands on him, stopping the blood.

The squad leader took the wheel as the Corpsman and the driver got out to meet the Medivac. Air Force Black Hawk to Balad Medical, where we learned the truth.

It was not an IED. A DShK 12.7×108mm round.

It had punched through the armor, hit the roll bar near his head, shattered, and sent shrapnel across his face. A few inches closer, and perhaps none of us would be there to know any of it because of internal vehicular bounce around.

The Cherubini Brother’s Reunited

If this don’t warm the heart and sting the eyes, then you may be made of stone or servin’ as a bureaucrat. After eighty-one revolvin’ orbits of the sun, a soldier long thought lost to the green jungles of Burma has found his way home, carried not by the footsore march of war but by a Southwest Airlines flight touchin’ down in Reno.

U.S. Army Private Roman Cherubini, one-half of a pair of twins born in the fair town of Bridgeton, New Jersey, in the Year of Our Lord 1923, went to war and never returned–at least not in the usual way. Twenty-two, when he perished in the thick and sweltering wilds of Southeast Asia, he was part of a fierce and wiry crew known as Merrill’s Marauders.

These weren’t your average parade-ground soldiers. These men hiked, sweated, and bled their way through the dense green wrath of Burma, outnumbered, outgunned, and altogether unafraid.

The Marauders were the kind of fellows who’d spit on the Devil’s boots and keep marching. Pvt. Cherubini was among ‘em, making his stand on June 16, 1944, when the War Department says he fell in the service of a cause greater than any one man.

His mortal remains were buried once in a temporary grave, then again in a military cemetery in India, and later still transferred to the green slopes of the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu–until science and diligence exhumed his story from the soil. It took the quiet work of men and women in white coats with sharp eyes and steady hands to set the record straight. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, bless‘em, got the job done, and now Roman’s back to the land of his birth, borne on the wings of an airliner.

When his casket came off that plane in Reno, it wasn’t just a box wrapped in a flag. It was eighty years of prayers, grief, and hope.

Passengers on the flight remained seated in a respectful hush, airport firefighters and police lined up in solemn salute as the Cherubini family, quiet and resolute, bore witness to it all.

Come Saturday at noon, down at Big Pine Cemetery south of Bishop, Calif., Pvt. Roman Cherubini will get laid to rest beside his twin brother Raymond–who wore the badge of a military policeman in the same world war and went to his rest in 2005. Two boys, born the same day, joined again in the long sleep, side by side beneath the California sun.

They say Pvt. Cherubini will receive the Purple Heart, Bronze Star, and likely a handful of other medals. But I reckon the real honor is that after eighty-plus years of silence and searching, one soldier came home, and the other was there to meet him.

God rest the Cherubini twins–and bless all who never stopped waiting.

Now, I don’t reckon there’s a more jittery breed of creature on this Earth than a Wall Street investor with a fresh chart in his hand and a nervous tick in his eye. Why, a squirrel in a thunderstorm has a steadier constitution. And this week, those fellers got it in their heads that Tesla, that electric chariot outfit run by the ever-combustible Mr. Elon Musk, was teetering on the very precipice of doom because its profits took a tumble quicker than a greased pig on a marble floor.

Let me lay it out plain–Tesla’s profits for the first quarter dropped some 70 percent, down to a meager $409 million, which in most counties still counts as a pretty pile of money—unless you’re Wall Street, where anything less than last year’s loot like a funeral dirge. Revenue dropped to $19.3 billion, enough to make a banker flinch but not enough to call the undertaker.

Now folks are all aflutter, saying Mr. Musk is spending more time politickin’ with Washington bigwigs than tending to his fleet of battery buggies. There’s hand-wringin’ about his support of firebrand politicians and his moonlighting in the Trump administration, which has some buyers stomping off in protest or burnin’ showrooms like they’ve seen a ghost.

But here’s the rub, and it’s worth remembering–one bad quarter, or even three, does not sink a ship, particularly when that ship’s still hauling cargo and dreaming up self-driving carriages. A drop in the stock market don’t mean the company’s gone belly-up.

That’s just the stock market being what it always has been—an excitable fellow prone to fits and spasms, dancing like a cat on a hot stove. The market ain’t the business; it’s the gossip about business.

For all its stumbles, Tesla is still building cars, planning robotaxis, and scheming up cheaper models for the commoner. And while Mr. Musk may be half-mad and wholly occupied, he’s also the sort of fellow who can summon more headlines with a post than most kings can with a war.

So before you write Tesla’s epitaph or light the funeral pyre, take a breath and remember–in business, as in life, fortunes rise and fall like a river in Spring.

And there’s more to a company than a red number on Tuesday.

The Tale of Two Gents Who Couldn’t Take a Hint

Sit a spell and lend an ear, for I’ve got a yarn fit for these curious times—a tale fresh outta where dice roll and luck breaks like cheap china. It’s about two gents—one from Mexico, t’other from El Salvador—who’ve found themselves once more in the unwelcome arms of Uncle Sam, and this time it ain’t for the buffet.

One Heraldo Neftali Gomez-Jacobo, aged 54 and seasoned in ways best left to the imagination, was once shown the door back in the fall of 2003 after gettin’ caught in the most shameful sort of mischief—four counts of attempted lewdness with a child under 14. That there’s not just bad behavior–it’s the kind that curdles milk and turns angels away.

After that, the government gave him the boot and said, “Don’t come back now, y’hear?”

But sure as hens scratch dirt–Mr. Jacobo came back anyhow. ICE scooped him up on April 5 like a bad penny that rolled back underfoot.

His companion in calamity, a spryer fellow of 38 years, goes by Ismael Perez-Reyes. Now Mr. Reyez, for his part, had a bit of a tipple and a tangle, winding up charged with DUI in Vegas.

It seems it wasn’t his first dance with deportation, either—booted in December of 2022 and again just last November, which tells you something about persistence and a strong distaste for staying gone. He’d also seen the inside of a correctional facility, not as a tourist, but on account of having a fondness for illegal substances. Add to that a prior felony for slipping back across the border and now an open warrant out of Utah for violating his probation by returning like a ghost that don’t understand it’s dead.

The Department of Justice, not known for its sense of humor, has drawn up charges on both gents–one count each of being deported aliens found in the United States, which is a long-winded way of saying, “We told you not to, and yet you did.”

If convicted, Mr. Gomez-Jacobo may find himself with a twenty-year sentence, three years of government-sponsored supervision, and a fine that’d make a banker wince–$250,000. Mr. Reyez, being a slightly less frequent flyer but still a repeat offender, faces up to ten years, the same stretch of parole, and a matching fine.

The moral? If the government tells you to stay gone, you’d best not treat the border like a revolving door at the local saloon.

By a Disbelievin’ Observer of Modern Wonders

Well, now, would you believe it? The highfalutin’ Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles—known far and wide as the bastion of long lines and stern looks—has finally opened the doors of the Internet to the proud owners of yesteryear’s iron steeds. That’s right–folks can now renew their classic car plates right from the comfort of their rockin’ chair, using somethin’ called the MyDMV portal, which is a kind of electronic post office for people who ain’t got time to line up behind twelve other souls and a fellow tryin’ to title a go-kart.

“This enhancement is a big milestone for the DMV,” said Director Tonya Laney, with all the pride of a schoolmarm whose class just recited the Gettysburg Address backward and in Latin. “We’re givin’ the people what they want,” she said, meanin’ less standin’ in stuffy government rooms and more clickin’ and tappin’ from home.

That sounds mighty fine.

Before you go thinkin’ this is some free-for-all, hold your hosses. Online blessings only apply to classic, old-timers, and classic rods—vehicles with more character and chrome than a pawn shop. The DMV still insists that these wheeled antiques be insured, and they best not be gallivantin’ more than 5,000 miles a year, or they’ll find themselves back in line quicker than you can say “Model T.”

“We are excited,” said Laney, with a grin I can only assume was real, “that our customers with this plate now get the option of online renewals.”

Well, bless their hearts. The times are a-changin’–and if the DMV can shed its molasses pace and step into the modern age, maybe there’s hope for us all. So pour a cup of Sassafras tea, tip your hat to the new century, and give your old roadster a loving pat.

By all accounts, Nevada has hitched its wagon to the sun and made a mighty fine show of it. The Silver State, once known chiefly for its silver and gambling dens, now boasts the second-highest solar electricity production in the nation—enough to make its neighboring states look like they’re still rubbing two sticks together to light a fire.

One out of every four electrons in Nevada is born from the desert sun, and as of 2024, solar is growing like a weed after a rainstorm, thanks in no small part to Washington’s generous hand. But here’s the rub–the hand that giveth is the taxpayer’s, and that hand is getting mighty tired.

Nevada’s solar boom didn’t come from pure grit or gumption. It came from Uncle Sam opening his wallet wide and emptying it into what ought to be a private enterprise. Through the Inflation Reduction Act—passed by one party while the other stood back and rolled its eyes—the federal government has lavished the solar industry with tax credits, subsidies, and grants as if it were a newborn baby needing swaddling.

These tax credits cover everything from manufacturing solar panels (45X) to installing them on suburban rooftops (25D) to helping companies build clean energy facilities (48E). The credits have made it so that companies hardly have to sell their wares the old-fashioned way—by earning their keep—but instead rely on tax breaks like a drunkard leaning on a lamppost, more for support than illumination.

Industry folks like Mr. Stephen Hamile of Las Vegas’s Sol-Up say, “Without the tax credit, those players in the market… would be unlikely to stay.”

If that ain’t a red flag, I don’t know what is. Imagine running a business that only survives because the government pays the tab. That’s not free enterprise; that’s a government-sponsored pageant.

With a Republican Congress sharpening its budgetary knife to carve $1.5 trillion from federal spending, the solar sector is sweating under the collar. And rightly so, as the tax credits weren’t supposed to be a lifelong pension. They were sold to the public to jumpstart clean energy, not to underwrite an industry indefinitely.

Supporters argue the tax credits build factories and create jobs, and that’s all fine and dandy until you realize those factories and jobs are on a shaky cliff of federal largesse. Let one Congress with a mind toward fiscal sanity come along, and poof.

There goes the whole edifice, like a sandcastle when the tide rolls in.

It gets worse. Even programs like Solar for All, which sounds noble on paper—helping low-income Nevadans harness the sun to slash their electric bills—are built on this same taxpayer-funded quicksand. Without 48E and 25D tax credits propping up the industry, the program would lose a third of its impact. That’s not a stable program; that’s a taxpayer-backed balloon, ready to deflate at the first sign of prudence.

Now, I’m all for innovation and clean energy. If Nevada can turn sunlight into prosperity, God bless’em. But let the sun do the heavy lifting, not the taxpayer. A business that needs perpetual subsidy is a charity in disguise, and the American people aren’t signing up for more donations—they’re asking for relief from the taxman.

Solar ought to stand on its own feet. Let it shine or sputter on the merit of its technology, its cost-efficiency, and its ability to serve the market—not on the whims of Washington’s political winds. When the government props up one industry over another, it’s not picking winners and losers. It’s just picking favorites—and sending the bill to the rest of us.

So if the sun is so mighty, let it pull its weight. Let the solar barons dig into their pockets instead of yours and mine.

Energy’s future ought to be bright—not because Washington says so–but because it works without Washington having to foot the bill.

How to Become a Public Spectacle Without Tryin’

Now I reckon it ain’t often that a man can sink himself with both feet in the Walker River mud of his mouth, but Edward “Owen” Dickie done managed it with the flair of a vessel goin’ full steam into a sandbar. Mesquite, that warm little Nevada town better known for golf carts and retirees than scandal, found itself the unwilling host of a barnstormin’ sideshow when Mr. Dickie stood up to speak and fell to infamy.

The whole affair came to light when a passel of townsfolk gathered at a regular city council meeting—not irregular–though the tone soon was. They didn’t come with torches or pitchforks–those are for other times and places–but they brought a fine stew of indignation, and rightly so.

One resident, boiling over with plain talk, said, “We went from the safest city to the racist city.” That’s the kind of sentence that’ll get stitched on a protest banner quickly.

Mr. Dickie, whose tongue has been out on parole without supervision, had previously confided to the now-former Police Chief Maquade Chesley that he might just head on down to Louisiana and hire himself a “6’5” Black woman chief”—whom he called an “Aunt Jemima”—to “whip” the department into shape.

His words, spoken in a “private conversation,” were about as private as hollerin’ across the river with a megaphone, got recorded and spilled to the press quicker than a pot of second-rate gumbo.

To his credit, or perhaps his confusion, Dickie admitted his folly. “I am sorry, those words were not right,” he said, which is what most folks say after hoisting themselves up the flagpole of public opinion and are fixin’ to get lowered without ceremony.

When a goodly portion of the townspeople called for his resignation, Dickie replied, “I am good with that,” which is the kind of resignation that sounds more like someone orderin’ pie than quittin’ public office. But a motion was made, votes were cast–including a delayed vote by Mayor Jesse “Blink and You Missed It” Whipple–and Dickie got booted with a firm 5-1 majority.

Let us not forget–Dickie is a man who said, “The gist of what I was trying to say was that maybe the department needs some diversity.”

But, before you get to waggin’ your finger too hard, remember–they’re still tryin’ to cancel Mark Twain for using a word that was common coin in his day—used not to glorify, but to expose a sickness in society.

So Mr. Dickie, in his fumblin’, foot-shootin’ way, finds himself in good company though a poor Huck Finn.

So take this as a lesson, young and old–if you find it tempting to make remarks that might curdle milk or ruin your career, keep your mouth closed. You can always fix your opinions later, but you can’t recant once it’s out, recorded, leaked, and dressed up for Sunday news.

And as for Mr. Dickie—well, I reckon he’s free to head on down to those Louisiana parishes, though he’d best go quiet and leave the metaphors at home.

Now, gather round, you sovereign souls, and lend your ears to a tale both bewilderin’ and familiar, concernin’ the land of dust and dreams they call Nevada. The good folks in Carson City have been stirrin’ the pot, hopin’ to make stew outta land, law, and justice—though whether it’ll fill any bellies remains to be seen.

The foremost of their recent ambitions is a proposition so bold it’d make a gambler sweat–a call to the federal government to loosen its grip on some of the Nevada territory it clutches like a miser his coin purse. Uncle Sam owns 88 percent of Nevada—an arrangement more suited to monarchies than democracies–if you ask me.

So, with all the pomp of a parade and half the fanfare, the Assembly passed AJR10, askin’ Congress to release enough of that sacred soil to patch up the growing hole in the housing supply.

Senator Jacky Rosen stepped forward to support this plea, pledging to balance growth with preservation—protectin’ the wilderness while makin’ room for folks who’d like a roof that don’t flap in the wind. Her plan would release 25,000 acres for buildin’ homes and barbershops while setting aside two million acres for Mother Nature to do as she pleases.

But no plan worth its salt sails smooth as conservationists, led by the Great Basin Water Network–a name more longwinded than a preacher at a potluck–raised a ruckus about water.

They say, “We ain’t got the wet stuff to keep up with this dry hustle!”

With the Colorado River lookin’ like it’s on a permanent diet and climate change tossin’ more heat than help, they’d prefer infill development—buildin’ where buildings already sit—lest we plant homes in the desert and forget to bring the water.

Meanwhile, the legislature’s been busy cleanin’ up other corners of the barn. Take AB 503, a bill with enough teeth to bite a bandit. Copper wire theft—a mischief most foul and devilishly—is now punishable by law with increased vigor. Stealin’ under $500 gets you a misdemeanor.

Over that, it’s a category D felony. But if you knock out someone’s lights—literally—it becomes a category C felony. The law even outlaws the mere possession of used utility wire unless you can prove you didn’t swipe it from a telephone pole or transformer.

If your heart’s grown heavy with such harsh talk, let me soothe it with a tale of canine kindness. Cindy Lou’s Law (AB 487), named after a little pup who met a tragic fate in a pet store, passed with enough votes to make a dog wag his tail in heaven. It outlaws the sellin’ of dogs and cats in stores, puttin’ an end to the puppy mill racket and codifyin’ what many localities already took into their own hands. Break the law, and you’ll be meetin’ a misdemeanor.

Then there’s Lizzy’s Law (AB 198), born of sorrow but aimed at salvation. After a tragedy involving a runaway inflatable in 2019—one of them bounce castles that seem innocent till the wind gets frisky—lawmakers said enough. Now, every inflatable must be licensed, insured up to a million dollars, monitored for wind speeds, and anchored as if Paul Bunyan swung the hammer.

Local officials may impose further demands, as governments are wont to do. This bill becomes law in 2026, should the governor lend his signature.

Lastly, there’s the tale of a unanimous agreement—a rarity so uncommon it ought to get preserved in a jar. AB 176, the Right to Contraception Act, guarantees Nevadans access to FDA-approved contraceptives and shields the hands that dispense them. It cleared the Assembly like a greased pig at a country fair and now heads to the Senate. A similar effort was vetoed in 2023 by Governor Lombardo, stirrin’ no small amount of ire among folks who prefer choice in their medical matters.

For those unfamiliar with Nevada’s legislative cookpot, here’s the recipe–the bill simmers in committee, is stirred on the Assembly floor, tossed into the Senate’s cauldron for another boil–and–should it survive carried to the governor’s desk. Senate-originated bills take the opposite path, like salmon swimmin’ upstream.

And so, dear reader, Nevada marches on, pullin’ together laws like a quilt in winter—some patchwork for justice, some stitched for growth, and some designed to keep the wind from blowin’ too hard on the commoner.

An outsider in a world with no place for him. No kin, no blood to call his own. His wife was gone, cold in the ground, and his son absent on purpose, leaving him hollow.

Old now, his bones creaked with the weight of years, and he wondered how to slip free of it all.

“How do you die when the heart keeps beating stubbornly against the ribs?” he thought.

A man’s got no people, no reason to stay. He’s just a shell waiting to crack. Suicide was a coward’s game, too quick, too sharp. Starvation gnawed slowly, and it hurt, and he’d had enough of hurt.

So he turned inward, willing the spark to fade, to let the dark take him quiet. For weeks and months, he hunted for a way out.

Something clean, something soft, he told himself, and I’m tired of its company. He found nothing to ease him.

The French had a name for it—l’appel du vide, the call of the void. It was a pull to step off the edge.

The Native Americans spoke of Ghost Sickness, a wasting away when the spirit broke.

“That’s me,” he thought, “broken, wasting.”

But still, no answer came.

Then, on the flickering screen of his phone, a stranger’s words caught him. Sencide.

An old rite, elders stepping aside for the young, for the tribe. A name, he thought, for this ache I carry.

Maybe.

And it steadied him, like a hand on his shoulder. Others felt it, too.

“I ain’t alone in this,” he thought.

The weight lifted, just a hair, but enough. The man woke with a flicker of something—life, maybe—and stepped outside.

The lawn stretched wild, a tangle of neglect. The man gripped the mower, its rumble a pulse in his hands, and cut through the mess.

Sweat stung his eyes, but he kept on, alive in the motion. Neighbors peered from their windows, shadows behind glass, watching him move like he hadn’t in years.

They see me now, he thought, not just a ghost in a house. The mower growled, and he felt the sun sharp on his neck. Then came the roar of a car–wild, tearing down the street.

Tires screamed, the curb buckled, and it leaped toward him. No time to run, no time to think.

It struck, and he was gone, a crumpled heap in the grass. The neighbors stood still, witnesses to the end of a man who’d found a name for his pain, only to lose it in a breath.

From the car poured his son–he had come home after all.