My stream of consciousness has been stripped of its bark. Here it is anyway.
A sub contractors meeting. A Baby’s arm. The power struggle and transition from Bill. My wife talked to the woman in the tree all night. The schedule is overdue. All the trucks at the salvage yard. Daily reports. Free fuel. The doors are not onsite. The Church is thinning out.
The anger is back. There’s a Newsmax guy on the private property on the river with the volunteer guy yelling he’s going fucking shoot him if he doesn’t leave. The love. The hate. The questions and answers. The assumptions. Ugh.
An old boss, texting memories of Bill. Found Bill in a picture from the Christmas party from 2018 – is this him? 100%.
The memory of having a smoke with him and Jenn in the rain, tucked away in the alcove to get away from the corporate. Our people. A Harley guy showed up. Jenn and I left. Matt has been playing with his fidget spinners Bill made for him all week. I didn’t get to make this connection while Bill was here.
I’m a different style than bill. I’m real easy to get along with… until i’m not. I told Bill he’s being an asshole. He knew.
I’m an asshole. – No, you’re not, you’re Being an asshole. Bill led with authority.
I have never granted authority. I collaborate and partner. Relationship. I recognize decision makers. Sometimes that will be me, sometimes you. Someone has always had 51% of my partnerships. Sometimes it’s me. That is where the decision, risk, blame and credit come from, imho, that I live.
I’m 50/50 with Jenn. She owns some of it, I own some of it. We’re great partners.
I’m here to make money. It’s more likely we get this time together, then see each other in the stars through the atoms. The atoms through the stars. God. We’re somewhere in there. The small sliver between with bodies that can survive Ocean to Atmosphere.
That small sliver we kill for. Between. 50 cal to 45 being authorized. Two cells to 9mos. 40′ of water between US & Mexico. The 32% of the Pacific and 20% of the Atlantic. As little as 8 miles at the Strait of Gibraltar between 7 continents.
Separated by 3 words between heaven & hell. Demon or angel. Fear of each other.
Criminals. Manage. Agreed.
Unlimited nuclear weapons for everyone. Nah. Agreed.
Babies. Protect. Agreed. We fight to death defining sex to baby.
My mom died four years ago and is still alive. Dementia sucks.
We die on earth. Some bodies remain alive longer than others for some reason.
I am here. I want to be here, I don’t need to be. Everywhere.
Job – when it gets too bad, I leave. Everyone leaves if it gets too bad, or its slavery. When it feels too much like slavery, we leave … if we can.
I effectively won the lottery in 2001. Three houses, employee stock purchases & options, trading & saving & investing, 401k …
I said I won the mental lottery. You don’t care if I’m not wealthy. My slaving makes me look hungry. I do NOT Slave.
Be like Bill. Bill comes with his dog. If he’s onsite, he has his dog.
I bring my wife & kids. Somehow I look the idiot.
fuck.
I just can’t do it anymore. the news is droning on. The president is coming to my town. I’ve hated that mf’er since the 80s. He was Scrooge McDuck then. Nasty. Greedy. Playboy. I cringed when he told Kevin ‘that way’.
I never hated you… well. I love you now. It’s always been him. Or the idea that there is authority in fucking heaven? This is a belief. Agreed. A practice, a salvation, I get it. I was there once. I’m not now. So what. ‘if we can hate for no reason, we can love for no reason’. I can believe something. You can believe different.
Know this. It’s too tiny of a difference to hate. To be fearful. We just stepped up in a big, Texas way. We showed up. In love. I have that fucking Newsmax guy’s cell phone in my contacts now. I shook Chip Roy’s hand and had a civil conversation. Jenn gave him eat shit looks.
Bill loved hating democrats. I’ve voted that way, but he didn’t hate me. He loved his guns and freedom and pocket constitution. He loved me. I never did follow him on X, but I installed X and looked for him. I love him.
We can do this.
We have. We yelled at each other twice this year on the town square. We came from Boerne and Fredericksburg and Hunt and Ingram and Junction, Centerpoint and Comfort and Leakey, Uvalde, Vanderpool, Mountain Home, Harper and Blanco, and San Antonio, Rock Springs…
Then all of Texas, the United States, Mexico… we all showed up. We rescued and sweat and distributed and hugged and cried.
The media became the first enemy. Dressed in their nice clean clothes. The guns were collected and hoarded like diamonds or treasures – we have to verify the vin with the next of kin, and they’re locked away and safe now. Oh this, that’s a 45 on my hip. Here, go through his trucks on your word that you knew the guy.
Found: The pocket constitution. The Certificate of Occupancy. Business card. Fuck Offtopus. Fidget spinners still with the (CEO?) from 8 years ago.
He’s a LOT wealthier looking than me. A GC that had around 100(?) employees back then. So was the Torchy’s guy I worked with at the first food trailer. We got a wedding invite recently to his mansion on Lake Austin. The tv star that became our neighbor and campfire buddy one night in Warrenton, Oregon – You know I’m super famous, right?. He has RV hookups for us on his ranch in Santa Barbara. The rock star that took a liking to us. We were invited to hang out at his place in Australia. One of the crocs money guys we got to help build a tiny house camp at the gateway to the rockies. Or the CEO on the coast near Cape Disappointment. To the richest guy in the world in Seattle and his buddy from Austin.
Some of them will take my call. Most are likely inundated with 1000s of people they’ve hung out with managing calls from guys like me. I might be able to get back in touch with them, but there’s gotta be 1000s of people like me in their lives they’ll never get back to. How could you, rich and famous and all.
Just like you and me. We’re together for this sliver of time in our lives. It’s so very tiny. It was about three months and that smoke in the alcove in the rain that one time at the company party that we had to get out of for a breath.
And now I can go back to fighting and angry and blame. Or I can bring my dog to work and grow my hair however I want and live on the river… or the ridge. A breath.