KS:

Been about a year since we reconnected.

The reason I won't write fiction anymore is because it is an absolute unwarranted plunge into the subconscious. http://snakedoctor.blogspot.com

You gonna have to pay me money to do that shit.

I think my Daddy's favorite book was THE RAZOR'S EDGE by Somerset Maugham.

"The man I am writing about is not famous. It may be that he never will be. It may be that when his life at last comes to an end he will leave no more trace of his sojourn on earth than a stone thrown into a river leaves on the surface of the water. But it may be that the way of life that he has chosen for himself and the peculiar strength and sweetness of his character may have an ever-growing influence over his fellow men so that, long after his death perhaps, it may be realized that there lived in this age a very remarkable creature."

W. Somerset Maugham, THE RAZOR'S EDGE:
http://www.angelfire.com/electronic/bodhidharma/mentor.html

Here's the stab I made in Snake Doctor http://snakedoctor.blogspot.com
at the meaning of unrequited love.

Grover needed to smoke some reefer.

Opening his unlocked front door, Grover reached up to the
foyer closet’s door casing. Pulling down his little tin box, he
returned to the front porch, pulling the cord on both ceiling fans
as he strode across the cypress planks toward his green porch
swing. After checking the horizon to see whether the coast was
clear, Grover Moss, known affectionately to his friends as “Fur
Trader,” leaned back and took a hit off the pipe he made from the
antler of a twelve-point he’d killed at Ft. Rucker almost 40 years
before.

After five tokes of his favorite blend, Grover gazed out over
his grassy field and accessed his progress.

“Boy, I miss that dog. I’m gonna have to find a little Zero
soon.”

It was lonely without his dog. Walking back to the front
door, Grover reached inside to the corner bookcase that held his
photo albums. Returning to the swing, he poured over the pages
looking for pictures of his beloved pit bull. Sure enough, he
found photographs of Zero, but he also found more than he was
looking for. Grover found the pictures of Florrie. There she
stood, a Southern angel, in that aquamarine bathing suit her
mother sewed wearing Grover’s Wekiwahatchee High School class ring
on her left hand.

Keeping with his morning’s horrible memories of Zero’s death
in the enormous jaws of Old Tom, and the gas explosion on
Tustennuggee’s riverfront, Grover thought of monsters again. Only
this time the monsters weren’t giant flesh and blood, red-eyed
reptiles. These monsters were made out of strong emotions. These
were green-eyed monsters; disturbing feelings Grover could not
deny.

He was still in love with her.

“How in the hell could this happen?” Grover asked himself.
“What kind of bond could connect me to a damn woman I haven’t seen
or heard from in twenty-seven years? I’ve got to get over that
cunt. Man, I need a drink!”

Back on the swing with a cold bottle of India pale ale,
Grover looked at Florrie’s picture once more and it hit him. There
was his answer in full living color: so simple, so plain and
simple. Her hands! Grover’s whole world was right there in
Florrie’ s fingers!

Suddenly, stoned and rocking in his porch swing, Grover
Milton Moss, Esquire, made a miraculous discovery. Now he
understood the monster; not Old Tom but his other monster.
Grover’s monster was the thought of never being touched by Florrie
again in his lifetime. Here Grover found his greatest fear and as
any redneck knows, the best thing to do when scared is to go ahead
well armed. At that moment, Grover completely embraced the
unrequited love he held for his old girlfriend, Florrie Walker.

“Good God, this feels good” Grover yelled.

It felt good to have Florrie on his mind. Those thoughts were
more precious than gold. For the first time in almost thirty years
Grover fully grasped the joy and virtue contained in the
recollections of his youthful love with that beautiful woman.Memories
of Florrie were his most important possession, and the
determination to become the man worthy of Florrie's affection now
consumed Grover's soul.



CHAPTER 10


Blow ye the trumpet of Zion, and sound an
alarm in my holy mountain: let all the
inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day
of the LORD cometh, for it is nigh at hand.

Joel, Chapter 2, Verse I



Leon Walker never named one of his saurian progeny “Old Tom,”
however, the tag certainly fit. Old Tom had gained quite a
notorious reputation over the generations. He had been credited
with every crime imaginable, so why not blame this explosion on
him too?

Leon knew better. He knew Old Tom was nothing more than a
convenient myth country people used to blame all their misery on.
Leon’s big babies weren’t legends. His gators were tools in the
hands of the Almighty God, and their bellowing would be the
forewarning of mankind’s coming doom. Every April morning brought
a warming of the waters and soon melancholy Leon, a hick Dr.
Frankenstein, would hear his monsters barking at the moon;
ferocious creatures who even their demented creator could not
control.