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“It’s a waste of time lookin’ over your shoulder, Buck,” Pop said. “You already know there’s a herd of folk behind you, better’n you at what you do, just waitin’ to pound you under their hooves, another competitor bites the dust. Speed’s the key Son, which you got, and cleverness, which you don’t, but long as you’re out there smilin’ ahead of the pack, you’ll seal the deal and no one’ll know they got took till the herd come through, and then, chances are folk’ll just be plain confounded by all the blather and tell’em to get the hell outta town.”

As I begin my reading, the crowd claps in offset clops, plops of loose pads of flesh, and I dare not look up. I soldier on as the crowd claps with encouraging snaps of taught hands, and so I peek, see their claps are accompanied by amused looks that conflict with the nature of my words, and strobe light visions of at least finishing this debacle begin to stutter and they stop abruptly with a unison jeer, “The word is CLASP, you idiot!”

Joe was a planter of peanuts, a Paraguay dirt king, come to Tennessee with his wife and pock-faced kids, farm hands all. They looked like peanuts, smelled like peanuts, ate peanuts–dry roasted and boiled—made peanut oil and flour and made a fortune. “Peanuts is the best thing God ever invented,” says Joe. “Next to peas and beans,” his wife added. Then one tragic day, their newborn went into shock after his first suckling of peanut milk. “Boy’s allergic to peanuts,” the Doc said. “You been foolin round, Wife?” Joe yelled. According to the DNA test, the kid was his but Joe had to deny it, lose his wife or lose his mind.

You’ve got to learn the language of weird, man.
And that would be…
That, Bro, would be triptific verbiage like broken toes oozing tangoes from past, sad lives and spurring on half-dead bodies along the Thames, dipping in and swirling around one last mouthful of fast living, before fizzling out in the violent fandangos of the holy black tide.
Whoa. I dig it.
Sing it, Dude!
Naw, man.
Why you wretched fowler of syncopated blissternation, you naysaying browser of doomed babes in a vestige of Valhalla, a wunderland of dead gone mirthful Vikings come to reap your dread parts!
Oh pop off your flap jack and dingle pling your jam dang, Assh*le!
Righteous, Dude!

They plays with my head theys do, theys tricksy theys is, bloody revenges, bloody for no other reason but bloody, cut-throat barbers, poisonous Andronicuses slitting, cutting, and severing throats, hands, and heads from necks, the roots of horrors runs deeps and gangly, underground, under the sea, under the radar, gruesome drones of dread, terror, atrocity…
They plays with my head theys do, theys chops it off, theys kicks it about in theys Grand Guignol!

Barry was just another hippy too old to be a hippy, growing marijuana in the back forty of his property in southern Oregon. He was just another enthusiastic collector of funky bongs and pipes and suncatchers and fun times…until he was struck by lightning and became enlightened and folks assumed that meant he’d be amenable to giving free advice. He spent much time lovingly explaining that the definition of “intensely aware person” is not “blithering idiot”…until their terminal insensitivity took its course and Barry saw that to kill one of them would bring him his current peace in prison, smoking dope with the guards and reading Nisargadatta’s “I Am That” on his back in his cell.

You could jump that wall if you wanted.
How you figure? I mean look at the height of it! I can’t see over it.
You could if you wanted.
I couldn’t, and neither could you, it’s way higher than you, even.
Oh I could jump it in a single bound. And so could you.
No. Look at it!
BELIEVE, Nala!
I do want to try, but I DON’T UNDERSTAND!
Watch what the human mind is capable of!
And with that Simon just walked through the wall. And there I was alone. It may be true, this thing about what you put your mind to and where there’s a will there’s a way, but I need it explained, detailed instructions, step by step, and I need practice runs and all, and Simon, he just ruined it for me, that’s NOT the way to boost my confidence! Now I will NEVER KNOW! He didn’t care! He just wanted to show off! I HATE him, I want to KILL him for this meanness, yes, I want him DEAD! Die Simon, DIE!
And from the other side of the wall there was a groan and a thud.