A Storm of My Conscience

It came during darkness. In the late hours of the night, asleep, warm under my thick sheets. The darkness was thick, and cold. But I lay warm. The pounding of the wind upon my window, and whipping waves of rain scattering across the panes kept me wrapped like a babe in my safety. The deafening hiss and roar of the storm outside was nearing unbearable. But my tolerance was strong. My will, my fate. I would not go so easily.

All along, pounding at the gates of my spirit’s safe house, preaching at me the peril of being in its wake. To lie still was to give way to my fears. To move was to challenge it. I pulled tighter under my blankets and tried humming to myself. The louder the wind. I tried rocking. The louder the rain. The pounding was now so fierce, I thought it would surely overcome me. It was sure to break the glass with a touch more of its strength.

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Trading Picks with Patrice

Heather and I are very big fans of Patrice Pike and the Black Box Rebellion. We go see them every time they come to Dallas. We’ve often driven to Austin to check them out, too. They are that good. It helps that our sister, Yvonne, is the world’s biggest fan, (she turned us on to them) and she lives in Austin, so we can stay with her when we make the trip down there. She’s also friends with Patrice, so it’s not rare that Patrice will come to her house to hang out for parties and we sit back in the backyard round a campfire trading guitars and songs.

At one of their shows here in Dallas at the Gypsy Tea Room, we showed up a little early to catch the openers. It was Jason and Zelina and Heather and me. Shelley King was playing that night, if I recall, and I was standing in the middle of the floor, by myself. Jason was against the wall on a barstool, and Z and Heather had gone out looking for a bite to eat.

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Road Trip Exchange

I guess it was around June or July of 1995, and I was driving back from Dallas to Abilene where I was stationed on the Air Force Base. I had a friend, Jeremy with me, and we were flying down the highway at no less than sixty (60) miles per hour. That may seem a little fast to the common person, but keep in mind – I was driving my old 1990 Chevy Cavalier, which had over a hundred thousand miles on it. So sixty was no sweat. No sweat at all.

Jeremy was reclined in the passenger seat, catching some Zs. A black pickup passed me on the left side, but not too quickly, and I looked over at the passengers. Seeing they were a couple of guys about my age, I waved at them. The guy in the passenger seat waved back, friendly enough. Well, they got a few hundred yards ahead and I decided to do something crazy. We had a twelve-pack of Pepsi (God only knows why it was Pepsi and not Coke, or Dr. Pepper, or Diet RC) cans on the console between us, and having only drunk about two or three between the both of us, I figured we could share a couple.

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Gracie, the Iranian Sandalhound

I haven’t had a puppy in so long I almost don’t remember what their breath smells like. But now again, I’m constantly reminded. Gracie was thrown in a dumpster by someone who didn’t want Gracie, and when my uncle went to take the trash out he saw Gracie in said dumpster, and thus now Gracie belongs to me. How anyone can throw a dog away is beyond me entirely, but I’ve tried to look at this from two sides.

The one side is the obvious: someone was a heartless asshole who hates animals and has no love for anything other than himself. He threw a little bitty Iranian Sandalhound puppy into a garbage dump to be killed by trash and dumped in a foul-smelling pit. Anyone who could do this should be shot and thrown into a garbage dump to be killed by trash and dumped in a foul-smelling pit.

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