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1989, I think, is when I first met Silver City’s David Toll. Initial impressions were scarce, but as time wove its divine course, his tales proved a rare solace in a world bereft of narrative grace.

Toll, I discovered, was a man of genuine merit.

That year, just before the snows laid claim to the Comstock in a blanket of thick white, Toll told about Jack Robinson, who old timers said showed up one day in 1915 and stayed until he passed a decade later. The man was the antisocial kind but had shared enough over the years to say he had fought in the Civil War and escaped from Pancho Villa.

“He’s buried somewhere in Virgin Alley up behind the slaughter house,” Toll said, “But no one knows where.”

Not until perusing the Internet and reading about Ambrose Bierce and his writing style did the article “My Hunt For Ambrose Bierce,” by Leon Day, appear. In the second chapter of the Day essay, “The Tex O’Reilly Story,” the name Jack Robinson appears.

“He told his fellow officers that he was an American and that if they wanted to give him a name, they might call him Jack Robinson,” O’Reilly wrote in an article, first printed in Liberty Weekly, May 27, 1933, in a serialization of his autobiography, “Born to Raise Hell.”

O’Reilly’s account, written several years following the disappearance of Bierce, has the missing journalist dying at the hands of three Federal volunteers, who, with Bierce’s revolver, shot him to death.

“He squatted there in the dust of the road and began to laugh heartily,” O’Reilly writes, “The three men kept shooting him, hitting him, but they could not kill him, and he did not stop laughing. He sat there and laughed till finally, they shot him in the heart.”

Much akin to Bierce’s yarns and the enigma that shrouded his departure, this tale remains nestled in the folds of mystery. A relic of antiquity, concealed within some forsaken attic or shadowed cellar of the Comstock, must yet emerge to illum the path of truth.

Seeing a poster for the 1988 Super Bowl XXII in a room of Carol Ann in the movie Poltergeist is unusual, considering the film’s release in 1982. Furthermore, on the headboard, above the bed, is a Los Angeles Ram football helmet. Los Angeles translates to “The Angels,” while the ram represents the sacrifice.

Six years later, on the day of the 1988 Super Bowl XXII, actress Heather O’Rourke, who played Carol Anne in the movie, fell ill. The following morning, she collapsed, suffered cardiac arrest caused by septic shock due to intestinal stenosis, and died later that day at Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego, California.

San Diego is the same city that hosted Super Bowl XXII on Sunday, January 31, 1988.

The Las Cruces bowling alley massacre occurred in Las Cruces, New Mexico, on February 10, 1990. Seven people were shot, four fatally, by two unidentified robbers at the Las Cruces Bowling Alley.

I write about this because I just saw a rerun of Unsolved Mysteries, which featured the story.

The gunmen ordered the women and children to lie down while taking approximately $4,000 to $5,000 from the bowling alley’s safe. The gunmen shot the victims in an office, then set fire to a desk in the room and left the scene.

Police set up ten roadblocks surrounding Las Cruces within an hour and carefully screened anyone leaving the city. The U.S. Customs Service, U.S. Army, and U.S. Border Patrol searched the area with planes and helicopters but made no arrests.

Investigators believe the suspects were Latino or Hispanic with dark complexions. Both suspects were said to speak fluent English.

The case remains unsolved — which is why it was on Unsolved Mysteries.

His anger boils over in rage.
How can she do this at this stage?
She gets the house, the car,
He’s left wishing on his lonely star.

He works two, three, four jobs
To pay Peter, who robs Paul.
She works once, time, and again
Refusing to flex, refusing to bend.

Mow the lawn every weekend
Not a hand would she lend
Just to keep up appearances.
Manicured lawn, impeccable references.

So why does she ask these things?
Because happiness to her does bring.
And now, he is left out in the bitter cold
Feeling abandoned, unloved and so old.

He carries her picture in his wallet
Lest her face, he should forget
From time to time, he’ll pull it out
Recall what love was all about.

What was there, is suddenly gone
Like sunshine, dusk to dawn
And he doesn’t know what he did
What was wrong, how he slid.

Jus’ a former shadow of himself
Slowly decaying, losing his breath
He does not wish to live any longer
His heart’s true hope, is gone from there.

His soul is so darkened by despair
He no longer cares to have a care
She has broken his living, loving will
Leaving him nothing, death will fulfill.

Those around him have said again,
“Well, if you had not screwed around.”
He thinks, “Screwed around? But when?”
That they think this brings him down.

No wonder his wife thinks the same way!
If his coworkers have concluded this
The thoughts and their words lead to dismay
It’s goodbye to marriage with a sudden kiss.

Where the hell did he go wrong, he wonders.
Reflecting back on the total sum of his life
He can clearly see the mistakes, the blunders
That led to a goodbye from his loving wife.

“If God knew this,” he asks no one there,
“Why did he let me waste so much time?”
Of course, again, no answer from anywhere.
Appearances now appear to be his crime.

The last thing he wants to be angry
The woman, his wife, whom he loves
But with every twist, turn, and emotions betray
Realizing the destructive outcome.

Why will she not talk about her feeling?
It leaves him lost, alone in a dense fog,
Where do broken hearts begin healing?
The silence is distractive and destructive.

She has placed him in a holding pattern,
Like a prisoner, on death row’s final night,
Hanging in the wind, twisting and turning.
Death would be the welcomed companion.

Anger leads to fiery hate in human clay.
The last thing he wants is to feel angry,
But that is how he lives each lonely day,
And his soul screams to lash out at her.

Night-time comes, and I grow afraid.
Worry climbs into bed like a lover.
To get away, he would gladly trade
Every ounce of energy he has.

It pushes its way against the skin,
Making itself comfortable next to him,
Sleeping where once love had been,
Crowding for the comfort of the mattress.

Soon self-doubt climbs in on the top,
Followed by anger and resentment.
Two feelings he fights to make a stop.
They lay, tossed, and unslept in bed.

Unwilling to struggle come the morn,
Drifting uneasily into worthless sleep,
Waking with emotions spent, mind torn.
Night-time comes and I grow afraid.

There is little more room than a cell,
Personal purgatory, a heartbreak hell.
Night has fallen just beyond the door,
Daylight gone, evening sun no more.

The bare-naked bulb casts a shadow,
Beating down a figure beyond its glow.
His long-form, a hulk of unhappiness,
Stirs in the area where he must dress.

Personal effects lay about this place,
Filling in blanks, covering the space.
Still, he knows it ain’t home,
Not his tree and not his loam.

Here there is little more than survival.
A place where pain becomes delightful.
Where a broken heart lives in misery,
And only the criminals are set free.

He vowed to remain positive all day,
Not counting on seeing her eyes that way.
They spoke in gentle tones in the parking lot,
No harsh words, for they never have fought.

Each one unwilling to take that first
Step, the one that is clumsy, the worst.
They dance around each other’s careful space.
Keeping their distance, keeping their place.

He wants to reach out and take her hands.
But he can tell this is not in her plans.
Cannot force the situation without fear
That the meeting will create dreaded tears.

Finished, she drives off, he walks away.
Polite conversation, but not much do they say.
Yet, there is so much more to be said.
Too bad it remains inside his head.