Having lost my parents, my only brother and a sister, I tend to feel deeply for friends and family who suffer the passing of a family member. There is so much to do when a loved one dies, that the normal activities in life can feel overwhelming.  And since I’m unable to be present and act as a buffer between the family and those meaning well, I offered to help my friend, Frank and his family by doing the only thing I’m decent at, which is writing and I thank you for the honor… Lori Ann Love was born July 15, 1958 in Crescent City, California to Doris and Darrell Love. She passed away at the age of 60, from heart failure in Eugene, Oregon. Lori went to several elementary schools including one in Rio Vista, California, Gasquet Elementary and Lake Earl Elementary before attending Crescent Elk Middle School. She graduated from Del Norte High School in 1976 where she lettered in Varsity Basketball and excelled as a drummer in the school’s Marching Band. Following graduation, Lori went to work for Kacy’s Market, learning to cut meat under journeyman butcher, Dean Hupp. She moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, where she worked for Smith’s Food and Drug Stores. Once back in Crescent City, she took a position with Shop Smart Food Warehouse and often helped her brother Frank at Crescent Meats and Pacific Market. Lori leaves behind not only her parents, but brother’s Darrell Love, Jr., and Frank Love. She’s survived by many others including: Dan, Sara Bellinger, Megan Love Fears, Laural, Jackson, Elizabeth, Leya, Kyle, Tristan, Riley, Andrew, Emily, Taylor, May, Braedon, Julia, Max; Ann Cliff Cutter, Margie, Gordon, Jim, Marty, Maready, Kathy, Deborah, and Teresa. Aside from always smiling and being the greatest daughter, sister and auntie ever, Lori would help whomever needed it. She loved her many friends including Jean Rupert, Sabrina Custer, Kelly Doan, Lori Wilma Wilson, Shelley and Ti Davis, and the late Jayson Cantrell. And finally, a big thanks to Diane and Joe Stuart for tossing Lori a great 60th birthday party. The Love Family loves all of you that showed your support and generosity during our time of grief and we will forever be grateful for your prayers and condolences.

Charlie sat on the bench in the Walmart waiting to pick up his medication. Next to him sat an elderly lady, well older than Charlie, and she was a chatter-box.

He patiently listen as the woman talked about her life and all the exciting adventures she’d lived through. But what she mostly talked about was being one of the original Vegas showgirls, back in the day.

“Oh, that was a glamorous time,” she cooed. “And it was more than risqué as I dance the in midnight shows – you know – topless, letting the girls out to have a little fun on their own.”

Charlie smiled and without realizing it, glanced down at the woman’s breasts. He quickly looked up at the woman’s face, but by then he’d been caught and he knew it.

“I saw that,” she said with delight. “You men – gay, straight, or both ways – are all the same.”

“I’m sorry,” Charlie said, turning red from embarrassment.

“Don’t apologize. It’s only natural, especially when an old broad pushing 90 says something about her tits.”

“Ninety?” he questioned, realizing she must have had plastic surgery in order to appear so youthful.

“Damn near, honey. And I still got it.”

“Well, I would have never guessed.”

“The wonders of what a good plastic surgeon can do for a gal. By the way, my names Etna – like the volcano.”

She held out her hand.

Looking down, Etna offered, “Got the kittens a few years back. A girl’s gotta keep up if she’s gonna live the fun life.”

“You mean you have implants? Charlie asked.

“You betch’a!” Etna stated with a certain amount of pride. “And I’m proud of my girls, made me a lot of money in my day.”

“I can see that,” Charlie replied.

“I bet you wanna see them, don’t ya?” she laughed as she dug through her purse, pulling out a piece of an envelope and an ink pen.

She quickly wrote her telephone number on the paper and handed it to Charlie, “Here’s my number if you’d like to look’em over. I promise, I don’t bite, even though I have all my teeth. We can have a drink and some fun.”

The twice-divorced Charlie looked at the number, then back at Etna before lying, “I’m a married man.”

“I figgered so,” she returned. “All the good-looking, mature men seem to be taken and I certainly don’t want a twenty or even thirty-something boy-toy to run around with.”

Suddenly, the person behind the counter called her name. She stood up, revealing that at one point in her life Etna had been a real knock-out.

Another clerk called Charlie to the counter.  As he paid for the prescription, he thought, “There was a time it was me chasing the older women around; now the older women are chasing me. What a turn around.”

Etna stepped passed Charlie and loudly whispered before she disappeared around the corner towards the exit, “Keep the number – ‘cuz you never know, honey.”

Charlie stuffed the number in his shirt pocket as he left the store. Once at his truck, he withdrew it and balled it up, intending to toss it in the bed of the truck, but he hesitated, flattening it out instead.

“What could it hurt?” he thought as he picked up his cellphone, curiosity getting the better of him.

The dig was going along swimmingly for the old archaeologist. Soon, he’d have all the answers to the age-old question that science struggled with for eons: where did man come from?

Professor Horatio Goldfarb jus’ didn’t know it yet.

Evolution had long ago hypothesized that Homo Sapiens descended from monkeys or apes. ‘Old Farb,’ as he was known, had spent his entire career trying to disprove that theory which seemed so popular among his much-learned colleagues, as they continued to misinterpret Charles Darwin’s ‘Origin of Species.’

“There has to be a master designer — nothing simply comes into being on its own,” he often said.

In his exploration of both ancient texts and even older sites, he tirelessly searched the globe for what had long eluded mankind. But now it was found, uncovered and ready to be examined completely.

He and his team had found the real ‘missing link’ in the middle of a Kansas wheatfield and he was certain it held all the clues as well as all the answers to his quest. Tucked beneath a cavernous tent, shielded from the broiling sun and the prying eyes of the curious, he slowly opened the thing.

His flashlight pierced the long dark interior and what he saw turned his world upside down. It was mostly empty, save for two hollow sarcophagi and endless engravings and inscriptions, along what he supposed, were the walls.

Among the multitude of diagrams, he recognized three basic languages: Classical Hebrew, Sumerian Cuneiform and Egyptian Hieroglyphic, though each had a slight variance to what the University’s and Colleges taught. And by using all three, he quickly deciphered the texts and came away with a possible answer for what he’d discovered.

Goldfarb scratched a few words in his journal before continuing to investigate his find, “It’s the story of Kal-El, come to life and he had a companion, a female!”

After stuffing his journal in his back pocket, the old archaeologist rubbed his hands together, hoping to learn why Mars had become extinct and how Adam and Eve came to be the planet’s last survivors.

He rolled over, stiff and cold from where he’d collapsed the night before. The abandoned house, trashed from its misuses by the other druggies, left a fowl stench in his nose, making him gag.

Sid Clayton slowly sat up, hurting and dope sick. He knew he needed to find another fix soon or he’d really be in pain.

Money though was a problem for the 19-year-old as it often was for those hooked on heroin. Being a drug-fiend was an expensive occupation for a young man barely out of high school.

Once outside, he looked up at the cloudy skies and complained, “Gotta get some cash.”

Sid knew exactly what he needed to do to score both the money and the drugs. He would find an unlocked door to a nearby home and ransack it.

He had done it before and it was becoming easier. Sid never took actual items as he’d seen too many others in his situation get caught with cameras, cellphones and laptops.

“Plus, the pond shop always wants a photo idea,” he recalled.

After slipping into two houses undetected and finding nothing more than a few coins, Sid slipped back into the wooded area behind the residential neighborhood. By this time he was really beginning to feel the effects of his dope-sickness and it spurred him on to finding that ‘bigger’ score for the day’s high.

After rummaging around in a third home on the backside of the tract of homes he’d been at, and again finding nothing more than a couple of dollars and a pistol, Sid decided he must up his game. Then he remembered that down the street was Miss Drew’s home.

At one time the 87-year-old woman had been his Sunday School teacher, but that was years ago. What Sid was actually fixated on was the fact that in the past she’d been known to help those who asked her.

“And, all I need is twenty-bucks.”

He walked to her house, wiped off his dirt-stained tee-shirt and jeans as best he could, then knocked on her door. Seconds later the woman, jus’ as he remembered her, opened the door.

“Why Sidney Clayton, as I live and breathe,” she smiled. “Wipe your feet and come in. I’ll pour some coffee.”

Her home was warm and smelled of both fresh-baked bread and coffee. Sid realized that it had been a length of time since he last ate anything.

“So what brings you by?” Miss Drew asked.

Sid found it odd that she didn’t appear to notice his filthy, unkempt appearance or care for that matter that he still managed to track mud in across her living room carpet and into the kitchen, where she beckoned him to have a seat at her dining table. He suddenly found himself back in time, the seven-year-old in her class, as she placed a mug of coffee and two slices of bread, butter and jam on the side, in front of him.

“It’s so wonderful to see you, Sid,” she added.

He didn’t answer as he had a mouthful of food, and despite his drug habit, he still had some manners about him. As soon as he swallowed, he spoke, “Thank you, ma’am. I hadn’t eaten in a day or so.”

“Well, you eat up, there’s more where that came from.”

“Actually, Miss Drew, I need to borrow some money.”

“For more drugs, honey?”

She knew! Sid’s heart felt like it was going to explode from shame and he couldn’t look the old woman in the eye as he answered, “Yes. Yes, ma’am.”

“I’m sorry, Sid, but I don’t have but a couple of dollars and besides I wouldn’t give it to you so you can jus’ go off and fill your veins with more poison.”

She said it with such kindness, that Sid nearly got sick. He felt embarrassed and it angered him as he stood up and yanked the pistol from behind his back, aiming it at the woman.

“I need money. I’m sick and I’m getting sicker by the minute. Twenty-dollars is all I want.”

It were as if a there were a switch thrown in his brain, as the old lady was suddenly ramrod straight and appeared taller than he ever known her to be. As he watched her grow, be felt as if he were shrinking.

“You need to go, now, before you force me to call the sheriff,” she said sternly, as she lifted the telephone receiver from the wall.

“Twenty-bucks! That’s all I’m asking,” Sid pleaded loudly.

Miss Drew began to dial the phone and as she did Sid closed his eye’s tight, trying to rid himself of this self-imposed nightmare. He heard the roar of a thunder-clap as it ripped through his psyche and when he finally opened his eyes, to his horror, Miss Drew lay on her kitchen floor, still gripping the receiver, a red spot growing between her breasts.

Panicked, Sid quickly dumped the content of her purse out only to discover she had not been lying. She had only three one-dollar bills and a few pennies, nickles and dimes.

After going through her bedroom drawers, searching under her mattress and pilfering her desk, Sid walked out the front door and down the street. He quickly slipped between two houses and back into the woods where he’d come from.

As he hid behind a stand of trees, Sid felt a heavy drop of fluid land on his forehead. He reached up and wiped it away, looking at his hand in the process – it was blood-red.

Soon more and more bloody drops of rain struck him. He couldn’t help himself as he screamed and wiped the gooey residue off his skin.

Then he looked up to the sky and cried, “I’m sorry, God. Please make it stop!”

Sid bowed his head and cried until his sides ached. Still the bloody-rain continued to fall.

“What do you want me to do?!” he screamed.

By this time his tee-shirt, though dirty, had become stained a dark pink. He looked around and saw puddles filling with blood, thick and sickly looking.

Quietly, he dropped to his knees, removed the pistol from his waistband, and with tears streaming down his face, begged forgiveness as he place the barrel of the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. Sid fell onto his right side, dead.

The following day, Ed Johnson and his dog, Buddy were walking through the woods, when the dog darted off the trail and into the deeper bushes. After calling for Buddy to return, Mr. Johnson decided to go retrieve the animal.

“Probably found another possum, damned dog, anyways,” he complained.

However, what the dog found was the body of Sid Clayton. Quickly, Mr. Johnson put the leash he had with him on Buddy and dragged the animal home so a call to the Sheriff’s Office could be made.

Within minutes, a deputy sheriff met the shaken man near where the body lay. The pair carefully entered the brush together.

The cruiser’s AM radio played in the background, “Authorities say that yesterday’s rare red-colored rain is actually the spores of a green algae that’s become airborne. Official’s say this algae isn’t dangerous to humans or animals. They do, however, recommend washing any produce before eating it…”

My dog and I walk lazily along the lake’s sandy shoreline.
Screaming her warning, the crow flies in circles below the tree branches.
Looking closely, her fledgling chick’s on the ground, a snake gliding towards it.
A couple walk to a park bench overlooking the water.
They sit so uncomfortably close.
Then the young man kneels purposefully before the girl.
Tale is that the spirit of a drown man’s spending eternity at waters-edge making gentle surface ripples.
And while I cannot feel his ghostly presence yet, I listen.
My dog stops, barks abruptly at him, before returning to my side.

A rat swallowed his wife’s diamond earring. Upset, the husband hired a man to find and recover the jewel.

When the man arrived, he found there were more than one-hundred rats trapped in the cellar. He also saw one rat sitting alone and not interacting with the rest of the mischief.

He quickly captured it and returned the diamond to the man. Amazed, the husband asked, “How’d you know it was that rat and not any of the others?”

“Easy,” he answered, “when an idiot gets rich, he looks down on others and doesn’t mix because he thinks he’s better.”

The morning air was brisk as he sat in the old rocker on his porch, rifle on his knees and a tin cup filled with warmed coffee. It wasn’t unlike the countless mornings Seamus Dolan had seen in the many years he lived in the cabin on the edge of the redwood forest overlooking the Klamath River.

This morning, the scenery had changed somewhat – a scarecrow now stood in the vacant field, half-a-mile or so away. He thought it strange only because all that ever grew on that piece of land were blackberries, skunk weed and rocks.

He also took notice of it because it was a good place to find a rabbit or two for the dinner pot. And if he were fortunate enough, he’d get a couple more to trade for salmon steaks with his Yurok neighbors.

In the distance was the ever-increasing rumble of cars, truck and motorcycles as they raced along U.S. 101 from one end of the county to the other. Seamus didn’t own a vehicle, relying on his feet and legs to get him from place-to-place.

Two months earlier, Sheriff Deputy Andrew McAllister discovered an expensive car crashed in one of the deeper ditches along the highway. The driver, a doctor from Stanford University was the owner, but had turned out missing.

Why he was in Del Norte County, no one seemed to know and even less could be learned about why he would have samples of water labeled ‘Klamath,’ in a case in the trunk of his car. And now, another person had gone missing, vanishing from her home sometime in the dark hours.

Questioned extensively by law enforcement to the point that he began to believe he was a suspect, Seamus decided he would get ahead of the investigation by offering his services as a tracker. With that thought in mind, he drained his tin and slung his rifle over his shoulder for the trek into the local township.

Two hours later, he entered the small office that held the local constabulary. Behind the desk was Dianne, she looked up and smiled, “Hey, Seamus, what brings you here today?”

Unaccustomed to conversation and slightly taken aback by Dianne’s friendly greeting, Seamus stuttered a bit as he said, “I..I…I’m here to offer my help findin’ that missin’ woman.”

The smile slipped from her face, “Sorry, but she already been found.”

“Oh. She okay?”

“’Fraid not. Overheard she’d been shot in the head and tossed in the river. Scared off the killer before they could catch’em.”

“Damned shame – wonder if we got us a…” He paused, searching for the word.

“Serial killer?”

“Yeah.”

“Could be. Crap happenin’ in Humboldt could be movin’ our direction.”

“True,” he paused, “Well, okay then, they know where I am if they wanna talk to me again.” He made quotation marks in the air.

Dianne chuckled, “Okay, I’ll let someone know you dropped by. Be careful, Seamus Connor Dolan.”

He smile broadly. It had been sometime since he’d heard his proper name used, especially by a woman,

By ten that morning, Seamus walked up the steps of his cabin and found he had company. It was Deputy Andrew McAlister, whom he’d gone to school with.

“What’s up, Drew?

“Come to check on you? Why don’t you walk along the highway, be’d quicker than skirtin’ around like you do.”

“And get my dumb ass run over? No thanks. Coffee?”

“Naw, but thanks anyway,” he answered. “I hear you offered to help us look for our murdered woman?”

“Yeah,” Seamus responded.

“Can I ask why?”

“’Cause I figgered helping like that is better than gettin’ grilled over and over like the last time you guys hauled me into Crescent City.”

“Okay. Jus’ seemed kinda weird is all.”

“You suddenly tryin’ to claim you and everyone else don’t think I’m weird, living alone, off-the-grid and all that?”

“Well, now that you mention it…” the deputy smiled. “Okay then, you hear anything let us know.”

“Will do – but remember, if I feel threatened, even if you’re the serial killer, I’ll shoot first and ask questions later.”

“I know, I know,” the deputy said as he climbed in his cruiser and drove away.

That night Seamus couldn’t sleep. So he sat out on his porch in the darkness, watching the headlights on 101 passing, enjoying a roll-yer-own and a jar of home-made sour mash whiskey, a skill picked up from his grandpa years ago.

As he readied to turn in for the night and try to salvage some sort of sleep from the early morning, a noise captured his attention. It was a heavier noise, clumsy, unlike a bear or a mountain lion, and he quickly retrieved his rifle as it rested nearby.

He slipped from his rocker and kneeled on the wood of the porch, listening. There it was again, this time he was certain it was human.

Knowing that whoever was out beyond his field of vision, could see him as he remained on the porch, he swiftly ran towards the woods to the right of his cabin. He disappeared into the darkness and continued on until he had fully circled his place.

Seamus wanted to discover the person before they realized he was behind them. He squatted down and scanned the area towards the cabin, searching for the faintest of movement.

Living off the grid, with limited lighting or candles and a fire in the pot-belly stove gave him the advantage over most folks who lived on-the-grid. His keen eye-sight had found him a deer or two on a number of moonless evenings.

Again, the same noise came to his ear. And it was behind him.

Startled at the realization, Seamus began to drop and roll, certain that he was in the cross-hairs of somebody’s rifle sight. He was too late as a single shot rang out and Seamus fell to the ground, dead.

He never heard the shot of course, as Deputy Andrew McAlister stood up, the smoking rifle still trained on the now-cooling body, he flipped his night vision goggles up, “If only you hadn’t implied I might be the killer, Seamus. You were weird, but you were also too damned smart for your own good.”

The following morning, though no one was there to see it at sunrise, a second scarecrow appeared in the vacant field across from where the now cold and empty cabin stands. And like the Stanford doctor, Seamus Dolan remains missing.

Nine in the morning and the manager twists the knob on the door, officially opening the bank for that day’s business. James Atherton stands patiently waiting and is the first through the door once it’s unlocked.

“Hi,” the pregnant teller smiles as he approaches the counter, “How can I help you?”

“I need the services of a notary public,” he says.

“I can help you with that,” she replies.

Three minutes in and two more people, both women, enter the bank. They are immediately greeted and helped. Meanwhile the woman assisting James quietly and methodically looks through the papers he’s handed her.

“So when are you due?” he asks, breaking the quietude.

She looks up, “In about four-weeks.”

“Wonderful,” James replies, “And congratulations.”

“Thank you,” she responds. “There you are.”

James hands her a twenty-dollar bill for her services. She moves over to her window to put the cash away.

Six minutes in and three more people enter the building. These three have AK-47’s and one of them shouts, “This is a robbery!”

Across the parking lot, a large man is plodding heavily on the treadmill. He’s silently complaining to himself for having gain the excess weight as he watches the green four-door vehicle come to a stop and three men get out.

Seeing the weapons, he grabs his cellphone and dials 9-1-1. “Hey, this is Officer Larry Andrews, Badge Number 14-98 – and there’s a bank robbery in progress.”

He retreats to the locker room and pulls on his sweat pants before retrieving his service pistol, I.D. and badge. Without a word he exits the gym and casually walks across the parking lot towards the green car.

The driver never see’s him as he walks up beside the vehicle and places his pistol against the left side of the driver’s head, “Don’t try anything stupid. Turn off the car.”

The startled driver moves his head slightly towards the gun barrel and see’s gold-colored badge. Without argument, he reaches up and turns the keys in the ignition switch to the off position.

Officer Andrews, believing he has the situation under control, steps back and directs the driver to get out of the car. Without warning the driver lifts his right hand, in it is a handgun, which he points at the unsuspecting officer and fires.

Andrews also fires. Both are mortally wounded; the driver slumped sideways, part of his forehead gone and Andrews, a pointer-finger sized hole in his chest over his heart.

Eleven minutes in and several police and sheriff vehicles surround the bank. Other law enforcement personnel begin the task of clearing nearby businesses of by-standers and lookie-loos.

Inside the bank, the gun fire hasn’t gone unnoticed. “Shit, Black, there’s cops everywhere.”

The robber, known as Black is standing to the right of the bank door as one would enter. He’s directed the manager to lock the door as his two accomplices move both employees and customers into a back room.

James is sitting on the floor next to the teller that had jus’ finished notarizing his paperwork. He looks at her name tag which reads ‘Jennifer.’

A telephone rings. It’s the police and they want to talk to whomever is in charge.

Black takes the receiver from the manager, “Yeah?”

As soon as he hangs up the phone, Black calls out, “Mr. Red move to that room and keep an eye on the door from that direction. We don’t wanna have’em sneaking up on us.”

“But, what about the hostages?” he complains.

“Mr. White has’em – you jus’ do as I say goddamn it!” Black growls.

Mr. Red does as he’s told without another word. Meanwhile, Mr. White stands nervously over the seven people he’s got seated on the floor against the far wall.

James thinks to himself, “I’ve seen this movie before – “Reservoir Dogs” – everyone’s named after a color.”

He watches Mr. White as the young man paces back and forth, mumbling to himself. Twice, Mr. White stops and peeks around the door jamb toward the front door as if he’s wondering what Mr. Black plans to do.

As he sits, James quietly looks about the room. He realizes that Jennifer, out of habit, grabbed her purse and brought it with her and he smiles.

She frowns at James as he reaches into her bag when Mr. White’s back’s turned and looking towards the front door. When he removes his hand, he’s holding a small bottle of water.

Jennifer continues to frown at him as he twists it open. James winks and sets the bottle down when Mr. White turns back to look at them.

As Mr. White turns back to the door, James pours the content out of the bottle between Jennifer’s legs and under her floral skirt, then slips the bottle back into the puzzled woman’s purse.

“Hey, I think her water jus’ broke – she’s gonna have a baby,” James calmly states.

“Ah, christ, Mr. Black – there’s a chick here gettin’ ready to have a kid,” Mr. White screeches.

“Yeah,” Mr. Black answers, “That’s her problem…jus’ keep her quiet.”

Jennifer has begun to moan as if she were in pain.

“You know anything about babies bein’ born?” Mr. White asks.

James answers, “I do.”

“Then help her,” the half-frightened Mr. White directs.

“Are you comfortable in that position?” he asks the woman, whose now playing along, uncertain what James plan is, but willing to go along to get free of the robbers’ hold.

She half-mumbled, half-groaned, “Mmhhmmm. Ohhhh!”

Ninety-one minutes in and by then Mr. White is no longer paying close attention to the hostages. He is more interested in how the trio are going to escape the situation, and upset that ‘this isn’t how things were supposed to go down.’

Between caring for Jennifer and her faked birthing, James studies Mr. White’s behavior. He notices that the man rarely places his finger inside the trigger guard and using this information along with the knowledge that there’s a fifty-fifty chance that there isn’t a round in the chamber, he plots his next move.

With a quick wink to Jennifer, James withdraws a lock-blade knife from the right hand pocket of his jeans and quietly opens it. Without warning, he stand, steps behind Mr. White, and grabs him by the chin with his left hand and with the knife in his right, draws it aggressively across Mr. White’s throat.

As slight gagging noise comes from the wounded and soon to be dead man’s throat as a spray of blood washes over the door and wall. Deftly, James grabs the AK-47 and rips it from the dying man’s hands.

Quietly, he moved to the corner, away from the door and pulls the magazine from the receiver. Seeing that it does have bullets, he replaces it and by drawing back on charging handle, moves a bullet into the chamber.

Stepping over the cooling body of Mr. White, James waves Jennifer and the other hostages to lay on the floor. Next, he sneaks a peek out and towards what is soon to be his shooting gallery, and having calculated which robber is the greater threat as he stepped out, he empties his lungs of air and moves onto the bank’s open floor.

Mr. Red doesn’t have a chance as James squeezes off two rounds in rapid succession. Fatally wounded and spilling blood from both a wound to the left side of his chest and face, the would-be gunman drops straight to the floor, outside the door way from which he’s positioned himself.

In shock at the sound of gunfire, Mr. Black stands up and begins to swing his rifle into position. However, James has already fired into the man’s upper body and he keeps firing as long as the man remains standing and holding his weapon in a threatening manner.

Ninety-three minutes in and James lays the AK-47 on the floor along with his knife. The phone rings and without prompting, the manager swiftly answers.

She explains why the gunfire, hangs up the phone and races to the door, unlocking it. James stays with the bank manager, who is second to last to leave the building.

Despite her point-by-point explanation and praise, James’ is arrested and whisked off to the county jail where he faces charges of ‘open murder.’ During his initial interview he’s confronted by two detectives.

“What in the hell were you thinking? You could’ve gotten everybody killed!” the older one chides.

“But I didn’t, did I?” returns James.

The younger detective snorts, “Thinks he’s goddamned ‘Batman.’”

“No,” James responds, “Batman would have never killed anyone.”

“You mean murder…” the elder cop said.

“No — kill,” replies James. “I never murdered anyone.”

“What about the guy whose throat you cut?”

“That wasn’t murder, that was self-defense.”

“His back was to you!”

“That was his second mistake.”

“What do you mean?”

“His first was pointing his weapon at me.”

“Think yer smart, huh?”

“Smart enough to end this by saying ‘I want my lawyer,’” James smiled.

He spends the next four days in lock-up before the District Attorney drop all charges against him ‘with prejudice.’ Five-thousand, seven-hundred and sixty minutes in and James Atherton exits the jail, a free man, where he’s met by his wife and Jennifer, who invites them to be on hand at her child’s birth, a girl she names Jamie.

The Great War, better known today as World War I, came to an end 100-years-ago today at the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day, of the 11th month. The latest figures, which are still being debated show that 116,708 U.S. soldiers died with another 205,690 having been wounded.

My Grandpa Bill Shaw, having enlisted while still living in Ohio, was one of those wounded, having been gassed by the German’s near the end of the fighting. It left him with scars to his lungs, a difficulty breathing, a nasty greenish sputum, debilitating emphysema — and tales of memories he would very rarely talk about, even when asked.

As a kid he gave me the badge to his campaign hat and the wood buttons from his  woolen tunic, which he tossed away after finding it riddled with moth holes from years of being stored in an old suitcase in a shed. Unfortunately, I lost all the buttons over the years, but I still have his hat badge. He passed in 1973 at the age of 74.

My friend, Stella Bailey, who writes free verse poetry at ‘Simply Stella,’ wrote “Masterpiece of Emotion.” It really spoke to me and I envisioned this response:

When sleep comes not easily,
Scotch poured and at Baldwin,
My fingers lightly on the keys,
Playing a concert for none.

Perhaps…

Another one listens at this hour, too.
Her nakedness outshines a Texas moon,
As she writhes in her singular agony,
Grass-bound beyond neighborly fence.

Do I stroke her most tender keys
Till she’s a brilliant concert of one?

Perhaps.

Finished, I’ll politely bow, knowing
Her climax is my standing ovation.
She is the masterpiece I now play
When sleep comes not so easily.