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     I was walking around the creek bottom, looking for springs and a new path to access the knee-deep snorkeling opportunities available farther upstream, when I happened across what I thought, at the time, was the skeleton of a rustled cow.
     It wasn’t until much later that I found out the true story.
     A length of rotted rope was cinched loosely about the neckbones. About as loose as it should have been, had it been tight, when there was still meat on the bone. It wasn’t a cow, as it turns out, but rather a doe that had been sodomized by poachers before being slain for the finer cuts of meat.
     At the time, I was working on a big project, full of sculpture, short stories, computer graphics, and the attendant website postings, and, thinking I had a fine cow skull to further "the thematic unity" of my work, I mounted it on my gate. When I found out the truth, I smashed it, forthwith, with the large stone pried with bare fingertips from the soil of my Father’s field, that I use as a gate-stop, on the rare occasion that I leave the gate open for any appreciable duration of time.
     I may have been running around like a hillbilly, or Montagnard- barefoot- that day, I don’t rightly remember. I did find a few spots where the crystal-clear waters percolated over a white sand-and-gravel bottom, tiny fishes swimming upstream in a constant, strengthening, life-affirming battle against the swift current.
     I heard a new rap tune tonight, the refrain was something like, “get the f*** outta my face.” I kinda dug it. It spoke to me on a visceral level, in a manner that few things do, these days. This was after my 30-mile or so bicycle ride to the local township to pick up some supplies. Man, the people in cars talking on cellphones were out in force, turning corners far ahead, spotting me, then turning around in driveways and speeding off in the other direction. Maybe I really am being watched.
     Ha ha! They couldn’t see me earlier today though, in the woods with the chainsaw, cutting up deadwood, preparing for my first bonfire in weeks. I know for certain they could hear me! Ha ha! Lately, I haven’t been starting near enough fires in the backyard for my own peace of mind. I really need to lay some more stones on the old fire-ring I’ve been constructing for over a year now, but I’m veering off the subject, which is, of course, LRRPing around the neighborhood.
     Last week, I took a ride up to the river, for the first time in- God, how long? There was a huge logjam at the bridge, mainly cypress, and lots more trash and beer bottles than before they closed the place to the general public. Guess the wild boys and girls don’t care much for the owner’s edict against ‘free use’. Large piles of dirt block the access to the old roads that run along the riverside to the railroad trestle, but the ‘police line/caution’ tape that’s strung up once in a while never stays in place for long.
     The spring near the bridge was still flowing though, and it must be fairly nutrient-rich, because there were at least three different varieties of algae in full flower evident within ten feet of the mouth.
     On the way there, I found three of four half-stripped carcasses partially decomposed already, and one still hided and complete, that appeared to have been hit by a car or truck before it wandered off onto the side of the road to die. I wonder if the poachers are purposely leaving half-meated kills to feed the burgeoning feral dog and coyote population. Perhaps it’s not intentional on their part, the population explosion being a side effect of their nefarious behavior. Or maybe it’s a combination of the two, one causing the other, then overtaking its source and becoming the effect. It’s enough to make me want to go back to hunting down and killing stray dogs again.
     Not to mention what I’d like to do with the poachers. Maybe skin them out a little bit, just enough to make them scream and bleed, then chain them to a tree somewhere in the swamp and let the wild canines work on them for awhile, as a harsh object lesson.
     On a lighter note, today’s afternoon ride was full of the laughter and fun that only children bring to the world. I saw a little guy running laps around a practice field as the older kids tossed a football around. The first truly sweet smile of the day crossed my face. Coming back home, there was a Mom and her two younguns at a playground, one of them puttering around in a go-cart, bringing a huge grin to my ordinarily scowling countenance. Taking the shortcut dirt road to avoid a particularly nasty and dangerous hill curve, I saw a sandlot practice game in progress, Dads instructing the players in the fundamentals of baseball. One more smile in the bag, and a little farther down the road. Not too long afterwards, I came up with the idea of a heavy metal version of Mr. Rogers’ theme song. It made me laugh at myself.
     A few nights (or mornings) later, I made the ride again, a slightly different route, in the dead of night, misty, foggy to the point of visual fuzziness and NO air traffic, that I could hear- past the site of the King murder, remembering the red truck that carried a man to his death (they say from a heart attack) on that same curve, scant weeks before the murder, and tales of the demented molester, became national news fodder... remembered also, the leering, sick look on the face of a guy that could have been the dead man’s doppelganger (here we go again) in the parking lot of the grocery store just down the road, days after his death, days before the Terry King saga began...
     The house has long since been razed to the ground, leaving only a natural gas tank, and bad memories in the neighborhood.
     Very few cars on the road that night, all of them giving me a wide berth- odd, since, in this part of the county, bikers don’t usually rate much more than a hurled curse, thrown bottle or wet bag of trash. As with Bad Company, maybe they knew I was out on “Mean Business.”
     On a lighter note, the owner of the local liquor store and lounge, a sweet old lady that’s always been more than kind to me was wearing a beautiful dark wooden crucifix and said something about the bicycle making as much noise as a truck.
     “Well, when I hit the pressure hose,” (that rings the buzzer inside), “I guess it does,” I said, or something like that.
     We exchanged a few pleasantries, made our transaction, and wished each other a good evening. I rode off into the dark, misty night, smiling at the weird roof on the local fire department.
     I rode back over the same piece of ground where I thought I had seen an erstwhile friend’s mother driving, (the same specter, I reckon, that I had seen and heard in Tennessee, saying, “I’m gonna cut off both of those feet.”) earlier in the same 24-hour period, and had to restrain myself from doing too much cussing. Since the appearance of that specter in Tennessee, (along with another in a white Jeep Cherokee that stated, “You are the doomed-” a vehicle I’ve seen several times since), I’d had a couple of tractor “accidents”, where I barely kept my feet, while sustaining some serious ankle injuries, worse than the sprain I endured at the last Miami Grateful Dead show I ever went to see.
    Of course, thinking about it now, I realize I also thought I saw the wife of what was supposed to be a close friend in a white van while I was walking the neighborhood in Tennessee. Man, if these witches are as thick as it’s starting to look, maybe it’s time I take a cue from Rob Zombie, once again, and “dig through the ditches and burn through the witches...”
     Closer to home, stopping at the creek to splash some cold water over my head, there was a bent, useless piece of white PVC pipe floating in the water, and I smelled something distinctly DEAD in the air, before remounting my bike.
     Sniffing the air several times, and not being able to locate the source of the stink, I finally said, more to myself than the waters or anyone that might be lurking, “Whatever it was, it was most definitely DEAD.”

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blast from the past
blast from the past - #2

Bobzilla Production Sketches

"Strange Tales from the End of the Millennium"-
excerpts & ordering information

rangerbadger's lycanthropic phase

you want to know what happened?

DEAD MEAT IN THE MORNING

Odds'n'Ends

an e-mail I thot I'd share...

  From:  <rangerbadger@myrealbox.com>
 To:    [deleted]
 Received:  08/10/03  08:55 pm
 Subject:   prob'ly shouldn't laff @ this guy's misfortune, but...

Man sets house on fire, steals house mate's dog, truck, beats up co-worker, dies in police chase
[Florida Today - 2003-08-10]

sounds like a great idea for a C&W song!

 [talking blooz-style intro]
 Honey, I got fired from my job last week & our dee-vorce is final--
 I'm feeling so sad & lonely, I might do something crazy--
 iffen I didn't know better, I'd say the whole world's against me--
 but I know it's just this one rotten old town--
 [wailing C&W lament]
 I set my house on fire & stole my best friend's truck & dawg!
 I'm a sorry excuse for a man, lower'n a f*****' hawg!
 I know you hate me, darling, but not near as much as I hate myself!
 I went down to my old job,
 beat the snot outta BillyBob,
 now I'm on the lam, with the po-leece raht behind,
 I'm in a big ol' jam, I musta lost my mind,
 my place is burnt to the ground, BillyBob's beaten & bruised,
 all I've got is my best friend's truck & dawg,
 and the cops is runnin' me down like a hound,
 that's been kicked all its life, broken & abused.
 [sotto voce finale]
 They threw down the stop-sticks, and blew out all the tires,
 all I'm runnin' on now is burnt rubber, rims, & wires--
 skipping 'cross the median, heading straight for a patrol car--
 leavin' this world of thieves & pimps & liars,
 iffen I ever thot I'd get to heaven, it 'pears I didn't make it that far...