My Cousin Elmo says, “I self-identify as a conspiracy theorist. My pronouns are they/lie.”

The witches sat in their sewing circle, stitching together skins of whatever flesh they had gathered since the Wednesday midnight meeting of the week before.

The oldest of the coven asked, “Have any of you eaten at that new spoonery, ‘The Cockroach and Cauldron?’”

Several of the knarled grotesques answered ‘yes.’

“How was it?” she continued, adding, “My sister is coming in from the East, and I’m thinking of taking her there for dinner one evening.”

“It was delicious,” one harpy said.

“What did you have?”

“Eye of Knute, with a blood Lambeau soup. Exquisite.”

“I had the Baked Bat Wing Ala Mode,” said another. “To die for.”

“And their French-fried Fingernails under Glass is remarkable,” added someone.

“I tried the Broiled Ghost, sauteed in Ectoplasm Juice,” someone on the far side of the cavern shadows said. “But I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.”

“Why is that?” the eldest hag asked.

“Tasted like sheet,” she answered.

She and her husband had purchased the three-acre farm in the early Spring, and she was still exploring its features the morning after the first heavy rain swept through the area. With her dog, she set off towards a large tree with a newly formed pool of water next to it.

The water filled a rather large divot in the land, and she found it interesting as she looked at it from her kitchen window while doing the breakfast dishes. Less than 10 feet from the edge, the dog started barking and refused to go any farther.

The water was a deep inky blackness that left her somehow transfixed as she knelt next to it. Gently she laid her hand upon its smoky-glass-like surface and swept it back and forth.

A memory rushed into her mind with a violent jolt, and she quickly stood up and stepped back. It was a recollection she had forgotten about until that moment.

She was six and riding her princess bike in the open parking lot of the big red building that rose beyond the small water-filled gully in front of her home. She saw the older boy who always teased and tormented her, crossing the field.

She turned her bike up the nearby hill and tried to ride away but had to abandon it because it was muddy and steep. To escape, she ran around the back of the red building and, using the jutting edge of the foundation, started across the gully to safety.

She moved slowly. She was near the footpath and safety when the boy appeared at the corner and started after her.

A year before, she had been playing near the water in the gully when her mother caught her. Her parents had told her not to go there, but she disobeyed.

“But the lady in the water said she would always keep me safe,” she cried as she received a spanking for her disobedience.

Still, the memory persisted of that long-ago chase.

Frightened, she jumped and raced up the slope to the flatter ground and home. She turned to look at the following boy, but he was not there.

On the side of the red building was a life-sized splash mark revealing the outline of her pursuer but nothing else.

Once again, she heard a female voice whisper, “I will always keep you safe.”

My Cousin Elmo says, “Jehovah Witnesses don’t celebrate Halloween. They don’t like random people coming to their door.”

My Cousin Elmo says, “The worst thing about getting up at four in the morning is knowing some people do it jus’ so they can exercise.”

My Cousin Elmo says, “Properly inflated tires can save three cents per gallon, but properly counted ballots can save three dollars a gallon.”

It is odd that I should think of Lily and miss her after so many years of doing neither.

We worked the swing shift as security officers and were often paired up on the casino floor or the hotel hallways. She is a petite Latina, born in Nicaragua, but tough as nails when push comes to shove.

One evening, three out-of-town thugs cornered her near the elevators in the back area. She had caught them in the employee area and had asked them to leave.

Instead, they pounded on her till she was on the ground. Not knowing what was happening to Lily, I came around the corner, having relieved the lead dispatcher for her lunch.

Without thought, I aced the first woman in the head as she stepped back into me. She did not see it coming, toppling over unconscious.

Then I stomped on the outside back of the guy’s knee as he kicked Lilly. The crunch was immaculate and satisfying.

The third person, another woman, tried to get her thumbnails in my eyes, but I upper-cut her, and she fell backward, unconscious.

Finally able to radio for assistance, Lily and I retreated to the safety of the security office, leaving other officers and our supervisors to give aid to the trio of criminals. Once safe, Lily asked me to check and treat her injuries.

“We should have a women officer do that.”

“Are you kidding? Too many lezzies, and I certainly don’t want G-String touching me.”

She removed her blouse and unfastened the front snap of her bra. There was a dark black and blue bruise on most of her left breast.

“You’ll need to get that looked at by a doctor. Could be damage under the skin.”

“Okay.”

I held up my finger, “Be right back.”

Exiting the room, I retrieved a first aid kit from under the counter and a Polaroid camera. Back inside the room, I removed an ice pack, popped the fluid bag inside it, and shook it up.

Handing it to Lily, she placed it on the bruise, which was turning darker than I had ever seen one turn before. Next, I loaded the camera and had her place her fingers over her left breast, and I took three pictures from different angles to document her injury.

“Put your shirt back on, but don’t worry about your bra.”

“But…”

“No, buts — you are not returning to work tonight, and if you have to, it’ll be light duty.”

“Not the employee desk.”

“No, front desk.”

A knock came on the door, and Lily quickly buttoned up her blouse before saying, “Come in.”

“What are you two doing?” our supervisor asked.

“I had Tom collect evidence for my report.”

“Get the hell outta here, Darby,” he commanded.

“No. I want Tom to be the reporting officer for this case. After all he stopped them from killing me.”

Our supervisor glared at me, closing the door behind himself as he left. Later, he wrote me up for insubordination.

The three creeps got hauled off to the local hospital and then to jail. Because charges got filed late, all charges got dropped, and the hotel/casino paid a hefty amount of money to make all lawsuits disappear.

Lily went to her doctor the following Monday. There, they discovered a benign lump of fat.

Shortly after the incident, they fired me, and I lost contact with Lily. I saw her one last time while working at a pizza shop.

“You know I’m single now and I know you like my boobs,” she teased me in private.

“Yeah,” I said, turning bright red with embarrassment, “And now I need an ice pack.”

We laughed and hugged before she got in her truck and headed east down the street. I returned to work.

My Cousin Elmo says, “Had Adam and Eve been Rednecks, they have ignored the apple and eaten the snake and we wouldn’t be in all the trouble we’re in today.”

Batman bought Catwoman a drink. She spent the rest of their date slowly pushing it off the table.

Virginia City unveiled a statue honoring a woman with a unique place in Comstock history.

“True, she was a woman of easy virtue. Yet hundreds in this city have had cause to bless her name for her many acts of kindness and charity. That woman probably had more real, warm friends in this community than any other,” the City Attorney of Virginia City, eulogy for Julia Bulette.

Bulette was a prostitute who worked in Virginia City in the mid-19th century, but she was found brutally murdered on Sun., Jan. 20, 1867, and became a folk hero after her death. John Millain was arrested, charged with the crime, and hanged on Fri., Apr. 24, 1868.

Alexia Sober, the owner of the Canvas Cafe at C Street and Sutton, where the statue is on display, approached chainsaw artist Paul Buelna about creating the figure.

“Once I get kind of a picture of what we are going to do, then I will look at other things like how a prostitute in 1867 would have dressed, what she would have looked like, what her hairstyle would be like,” sculptor Paul Buelna told KTVN.

Buelna carved the statue from a tree on Sober’s cafe property. The tree, listed as over a century old, was no longer thriving, and its felling was already being planned for safety reasons.