Not the cloudless night, or a moon like chipped ice wedged against the horizon, but the vacuous stare in her pale blue eyes filled Dick Watson with helpless dread.

 

Ten inches of snow formed a wall around her maltreated corpse. Gusting wind, heralding an approaching storm, dusted her bluish flesh like confectioners’ sugar.

 

Watson squatted to examine the bruises on her slender neck and prominent collarbones, then stood, lifted his hat, and scrubbed his hands through his thinning brown hair.

 

There was something so brutal about how her remains were disposed as to make him question his decision to join law enforcement in the small upstate farming community forgotten by outsiders.

 

He had spied a distinct and recently formed footpath through the knee-high snow that was now filling with wind-drifted flakes.

 

Maybe I’m too damn curious like they say, he thought and turned from the young woman, let the wind claw his back.

 

The woman had reminded him of his nieces making snow angels, which elicited a deep sense of gnawing grief. Watson tasted the acid of regret in the back of his mouth, and glanced quickly over his shoulder, eyes filled with a fear of recognition, then relief at the verification that she was indeed a stranger, and finally regret for his selfish response. He lifted his cellphone and called in her death.

 

Forty minutes later, flashing blue and white strobes bounced off the haze of night as two deputies helped an assistant coroner carry her bagged body through the glaring light. Watson waited for them to finish, and then followed their truck in to town, wondering if he’d ever learn who she’d been in life, and if his could ever be the same as before he’d discovered her dumped amongst the trees and the new year’s snow.

Let’s talk about Christmas. Not the corporate America version. The one founded on the birth of a man who lived 2000 years ago.

No, I’m not about to attempt to promote the religious aspect of the holiday. There’s another reason to re-evaluate the growing opinions that the season is nothing more than an occasion for gift giving.

2000 years ago one person who was born and his activities as he lived changed human history forever. Not one living person can explain the events back then, but no one can deny the results.

Were it not for that man and his life, it’s quite likely our world today would not exist as we live it.

Yet as with any life altering event, there were, are, and always will be people who decide to use it for personal gain. Power, as we all know too well, is addictive. So through the centuries thousands of religious and political leaders, kings, and queens, took advantage of what that man created and used that power corruptly.

Yet there were also millions of men and women who followed that man’s teachings and helped so many people who would never receive assistance elsewhere. They asked for nothing in return. And too some of them died for what they chose to use their life to accomplish.

And as decades turned into centuries the number of Christians grew exponentially. Why? It’s simple really. They had a belief that guided them through the most difficult times as well as the best of times. They practiced behavior that in this time of social media is mocked and ridiculed by people who refuse to think anything or anyone might be better than themselves. People who require a nod of internet fame they gather using videos of themselves doing “good” to feel like, well, I don’t know what.

The people you never read or hear about that daily reach out to help anyone in any type of need are the ones doing good. They don’t give a hoot about how anyone thinks or feels regarding the help they give or the actions they take.

So yeah, you can walk with the growing mass of humanity that believes in nothing much beyond self-gratification, and laughs at and condemns those who still believe that Christmas is about something far more important than gift giving.

Yet at the end of the day, saying Merry Christmas without passing a gift too, means you’ve gone beyond the modern traditions and are wondering if there isn’t really something more important, something more fulfilling. Because there really is.

Merry Christmas

Covered in writhing dreadlocks like Medusa’s snakes greeting dawn each time Hatchen Verochy shook his head, his denials felt too emphatic.

I kept my eyes locked on his as we dueled for supremacy jabbing each other with verbal interruptions. That Jacobs was the worst of suspects became pitifully obvious. There were worms of guilt that pinched his face, yanking small muscles that twitched the corners of his eyes, pulled at the edges of his mouth. Like snarls of silent rejection for each of my suggestions. Yet he skillfully ignored my prods, answering each with one of his own.

When I left him standing on his porch, fists planted on his hips, glaring, I knew at my receding back, I had exactly what I had when I found him an hour earlier. Nothing.

Verochy was an unrepentant pimp, about six feet tall, skinny like a starved rat, pale white flesh covered with street trash tats, blue eyes, blond hair, teeth too big for his mouth, and smelled like an unwashed dumpster.

He controlled underage girls using drugs, threats, and occasional violence. I, like local law enforcement, wanted him gone. Dead preferably.

The desire to lodge a soft tipped 9mm slug into the useless gray matter slopped between his ears, felt right and necessary. Not that it would’ve made any difference to his personality. And another shit would replace him or a worse bastard within a day.

I stopped when I opened the BMW roadster’s door and glanced over my shoulder just in time to see Verochy lift, aim and fire a semi-auto handgun in my direction. Looked like a Beretta, but I didn’t have time to examine it carefully.

First reaction was to drop, or dive to the ground, but the round arrived a microsecond before I heard the gun’s report. It tore through the muscles of my left shoulder with enough force to twist my torso. If he took a second shot, I’d given him the center of my back for a target.

He didn’t. Instead he said, “Consider that fair warning asshole. You come back looking for me bring an army. You’ll fucking need it.”

I was too busy trying to stop the blood to answer him, knowing by the flow that he likely nicked an artery, which gave me precious little time to reach a hospital.

I fumbled the cell, but managed to punch in 911, told them the problem and sat slowly on the edge of the driver’s seat trying to stay conscious, watching him walk past me without looking my way and continue around the corner.

The more the population grew here on the coast, the more it attracted men who wanted women when they were in town, and other bastards only too anxious to provide the flesh. And then there were the cowards who convinced the young they were the right ones.

Kidnap and kill after seduce and rape, I thought feeling my rage riding the edge of a razor, but it might’ve been consciousness fading quickly.

 

The ride to the ER was loud, with some woman working hard to pressing a needle into my arm. Bumps in the road made her job more difficult, and my arm feel like a practice target. She finally found a vein, and began dumping a saline solution into me, to replace the blood I lost, I supposed.

With a mask over my face, talking was out of the question, and every time I started to drift off, she said, “Stay with me sir. Can’t have you sleeping on me.”

Wouldn’t be that bad, I thought, but nodded weakly to let her know I could hear her.

I awoke to darkness, flickering lights and occasional voices. When I opened my eyes, Sarah stood a bit too close, but only said, “You fucking jerk.” Her green eyes filled with relief and I could only reach one hand for hers.

“Sorry,” I whispered when she took my hand and squeezed hard enough to rely several emotions. “I have to find her.”

“Thomas told me about Hatchen, said you went to talk to him. I thought you might shoot him not him you.” She brushed a strand of red hair out of her face, pushing it behind her ear.

“Wouldn’t make sense if he has her or knows who does.” I knew from the knit that moved her brow that she had just thought, If she isn’t dead already.

I refused to go anywhere near that thought. If my daughter was, dead, I would never find her remains. Cops gave up weeks, or maybe it was months ago with the usual, ‘we’ve run out of leads, have other cases we gotta deal with.’

I heard, except the obvious, she’s dead and gone.

Happy for the first time ever that I lived in a stand your ground state, I applied for a carry permit and bought the biggest fucking handgun I could find. A long barrel .44. Yeah like those old time “Dirty Harry” movies but meaner, and I had no inclination to hand out second chances. After I found her, I would deal with each person from the one who kidnapped her off the little kayak she had so desperately needed, to the one who held her now.

Combat trained, I knew how to make bodies disappear permanently, without a trace. I looked at my scarred hands, fingers thick with muscles and scar tissue, mentally compared them to Sarah’s and then my daughter’s.

Hands hold all our secrets, I thought, knowing damn well mine did. Ones I’d take to the grave, but not today apparently.

I gave her a squeeze. “I know the worst case, but you know who I am better than anyone. Should I, would I quit?”

She shook her head. “No but you shouldn’t die trying, dammit.”

“Hatchen had a chance to work with me. Now he has no chance but to talk.”

“After they release you,” she said firmly.

I nodded hiding the weak smile that would’ve really pissed her off.

Sarah was close to my age, thirty-seven, maybe an inch shorter then my five eleven, and loved gym time, weighing a healthy 145 to my 186. She had a couple black belts, and was the only woman I knew that I thought capable of kicking whatever ass needed it. She could handle any weapon I knew about.

She stood as if she read my thoughts and said, “See you in the morning.”

I felt her kiss on my cheek and desperately wished I could return it. “Soon darling,” I said softly and watched her face soften as she nodded.

“I know, just please be careful.” She turned and left and I fell asleep as the evening dose of whatever washed through my mind like a gentle tsunami of forgiveness.

 

I walked out the middle of the fourth night. They wanted me to stay another week, maybe longer. The air was mid-summer hot and humid, felt like a hug from an old friend who’d been missing for years.

My beachfront cottage was dark, the key under the fake rock where I left it, inside felt cool and empty. Showering took time while I avoided wetting the bandaging. Loading my .44 after a thorough cleaning and oiling smelled and felt complete. I dressed for the night including a long sleeve tee to put on at my arrival. Black is midnight’s friend.

Hatchen was smoking weed on his rear porch. I finished preparations, held the .44 slightly behind my left leg since I’m left-handed, always an advantage in a right-handed world. Before Hatchen finished the last pull on his joint, he felt the press of steel at the base of his neck.

“Sit and relax, you fuck,” I said. “Or I shoot you here,” I pressed the barrel harder, “and pieces of your head will be in the neighbor’s front yard.”

He grunted and ground out the joint. “What now?”

“You tell me where she is and I let you live.”

“You ain’t gonna fire off that cannon here. Every cop in town’ll here it.”

“I don’t give a fuck, but if it worries you…” I switched to a knife, letting the blade nick the flesh just below his fifth vertebrae. “A slice here will leave you paralyzed from the shoulders down. And it won’t make a fucking sound loud enough to attract bottle-nosed flies.” I slid the blade until blood ran down his back.

“Okay,” he spoke with real fear, but I’d dealt with madmen and their fear before. It’s usually bullshit. So I cut deeper and heard him gasp.

“Half inch an inch deeper is all I need. After that it’s softer, easier, and quicker.”

“Jesus fucking, I said okay. Last I heard she was with that traveling pimp show from over on twenty-third. The big black guy with the pink patchy skin on his back. Know him?”

“Know him. Watched him burn after he was doused with gas by his competition,” I said. “This turns out bullshit asshole and I’ll be back in the middle of the night, you’ll wake up needing a wheelchair and a tongue.”

I hit him with a blackjack and watched him sag to the porch floor out cold. God I wanted to kill him.

A trip to twenty-third would require heavy weapons and at least one partner.

I’ll see if Sarah’s got a job lined up, I thought and sent her a text.

Meet you there in thirty. She texted back to me.

I smiled and climbed in the car.

Her bike was rolling along 22^nd street in the opposite direction. I waved her over and parked in a small, unused parking lot at the corner of 22^nd and Main.

“We should walk over,” she said after cutting the motor, leaving a silence that made her words sound louder.

I watched her check the magazine from her 9 millimeter, and when satisfied, she jammed it back it, loaded a round.

I’d done mine previously, and patted it affectionately.

Both of her dressed in black gave us the ability to used shadows and darkened doorways for cover. That late no one was on the streets, and no lights were visible in any windows, but stealth usually prevails.

The pimp’s name was Dean Williams, and I saw him with a couple of his regulars sitting on the steps to his building. He was smoking, chatting, grinning. I heard voices in the distance, but felt that they were not Williams’ people. He wasn’t known for enjoying the company of more than two or three at the time.

I pulled my .44, and raised it, but didn’t pull the trigger when Saran tapped my shoulder.

She leaned in close and said, “Let me get closer to distract him. Then you take him out and I’ll get his posse when they react.”

I nodded and watched her strut along the sidewalk.

Dean saw her a moment later, stood and said, “What the fuck are you doing here white girl?”

She raised her left hand shoulder high. I pulled the trigger and watched the explosion of red, brains, and bone that replaced what was once the useless head of Dean Williams.

Sarah fired off two quick rounds and we were finished.

Moving quickly, she entered the building, knowing we had minutes before the cops arrived.

Deep in a corner of the basement, I located my daughter and five other young girls.

I couldn’t delay to respond to her words, but scooped her up and with Sarah got them all out and into my SUV before we heard sirens.

Thirty minutes later, we were at my farm, listening, watching, and I knew I had one more task that had to be completed before sunrise.

A man is only as good as the threat he keeps.

Two nights later, I stood behind Hatchen Verochy again. This time he knew I arrived. I had screwed a silencer onto the .44 and blew out his kneecaps as I stepped onto his walkway the moment I saw him.

Now he was flat out on his stomach with me kneeling on his spine. I counted down from the base of his skull. When I located the vertebrae I wanted, I jammed the knife in deep, wedged it side to side, and severed his spinal cord.

He could no longer feel the pain in his legs.

I rolled him over, dragged him so he sat with his back against the column supporting the porch. Squatting to look in his eyes, I said. “I’m leaving you your tongue. But if you use it to rat me out, my partner will come for it.”

I stood, stepped back. “Enjoy the rest of your sexless life asshole. They’ll put a tube on you so you can piss.”

Leaving him felt right as the night softly wrapped darkness around my shoulders like a tender reward for justice served completely.

Distressing thoughts don’t burn brightly when I step into the night. It’s welcoming embrace with blank grays and deep shadows surrounding.

Once I walked the night with no more attention than a commuter riding a train with an iPhone’s emotional extension between his hands, thumbs dancing their absurd irrelevancy, meaningful to none but he.

Yet after daylight extinguishes where is the commuter? Still tapping clicking, still searching for connectedness, meaning perhaps where such are brief wisps of moments passed.

The day belongs to him. The night is mine as I rise from my daily slumber. Few who are out when I walk the city cares whether I exist as I pass without acknowledgement. So much pleasure gained by pure anonymity.

The urge of hunger comes slowly as I welcome its return after days without a presence I’ve live with for so very long. The hunters took her. Now my hunt begins.

Humanity seems driven to self-annihilation for one reason only. We believe humanity is the most important species on the planet.

Therefore we continue over population as if the planet will adjust around us and continue to provide our needs as if bequeathed us in perpetuity.

When the day arrives, as it surely will if we do not change, that humans become the endangered species I suspect there will be many among the survivors who will still few as if humanity is the most important species on the planet. We might wonder what those few will do under those circumstances but perhaps we already know.

I’m not certain extinction of humanity is totally possible. After all we don’t need much to survive. Just the basics – food, shelter, water, and clothing. All of that except water can be gotten from plant life. And if the survival number is around 5000 they will have enough genetic diversity to avoid caustic mutations.

But honestly how can we avoid this? First we need to strive for zero population growth. Nations that are unwilling to comply should be quarantined allowing them to seek self-sufficiency. I doubt much time will be needed before they decide that zero population growth is obtainable. Then the quarantine can be lifted.

I smile as I write this. Some will think the last idea is well inhuman, cruel, awful. How do those same people think life will be when humanity has added a couple billion more mouths to feed?

The true problem I see with this is simple. No one really cares. Like Australia blaming feral cats for the decline of the wild bird population. Cats? How much wildlife habitat has Australians destroyed for human population growth in the last fifty years? Tens of thousands of acres.

Or like social media users who do the blame game for fame. Blame the past, people who lived then not now. It’s funny how they blame others for the plastic problem while using a device made in part out of plastic. Blamers want fame only. If they wanted to fix the problem they’d put as much effort into finding solutions on a local level as they do blaming people who like them just wanted to live a happy life.

The previous post ended with two examples of recycle and waste. All cardboard should and must be recycled. It’s up to you and I to recycle and also to insist that companies like Amazon use ONLY recycled cardboard.

Amazon is all about profit. Using recycled material will cut into profit. Amazon also uses boxes far too large for what’s being shipped. Again this has to do with profit.

Clearly Amazon’s board of directors and CEO care very little about climate change and a lot about profit. I know they state otherwise but if they truly cared they would fix the above.

Now Amazon is not alone with this problem. If you buy from them then you too are part of this problem.

Perhaps if you shopped locally instead of online that might help and also help local businesses which also create jobs that companies such as Amazon and Wal-mart are gleefully destroying.

By now social media, print media, and news media have created an atmosphere of fear over what they are coining as the end of the world. I used the word coining for a reason. They’re making millions of dollars with this media frenzy.

They will not also discuss what each of us can do to slow down and eventually stop the progress of climate change. It’s not as if there’s nothing we can do. The opposite is true. There are many things we can do. Small things that if enough of us do them will add up to a significant amount.

Today I want to talk about boxes. Shipping boxes. Since millions of us buy online now. All non- recycled cardboard is made from trees. Okay recycled cardboard began as trees but each time it gets recycled that’s less trees being cut down to create more cardboard. The benefit of this is obvious. Trees create oxygen and are habitat for birds and other animals.

This box is from 100 percent recycled cardboard.

This is an Amazon box. 100 percent not recycled. The millions of boxes Amazon uses for shipping every day are not from recycled cardboard.

Each time I read or hear that we are killing the Earth with climate change I’m stunned by the ignorance. When a U.S. astronaut states the same I wonder about said astronaut’s thinking. If the meteorite that killed off the dinosaurs 65 million years in the past didn’t destroy the earth how is it possible humanity is killing the earth?

We are not.

We are causing climate change with over population and by doing so we are destroying the environment we need to survive. If we succeed, earth history proves the planet will survive and new life forms will evolve to replace billions of ignorant and selfish humans.

I suspect if Earth were a thinking being it would let out a sigh of relief heard throughout the galaxy.

There is a significant problem that it seems every person who discusses climate change ignores. They may do so out of ignorance, or because the problem is so powerfully significant they fear speaking it aloud.

Humans have convinced themselves they are the most important life form ever created whether though evolution and natural selection or through the religious definition of creation. The latter claims that man is made in the image of god. Seriously.

Because of this grandiose opinion of self-worth, humans reproduce with no regards to the consequences. And since the only predator capable of lowering human population is humanity or disease well the situation steps outside natural selection.

No I am not advocating elimination of human lives. But think of this. Since 1970 when the world’s human population was 3.7 billion the numbers have increased until in 2019 human population is 7.7 billion. in 50 years it will be more than doubled again.

The only solution to climate change is to reverse this out of control population growth. Hahaha. Never happen right? Therefore climate change will continue until the earth itself deals with the problem through food shortages, insufficient drinking water, blistering heat and devastating weather.

Yes, humanity will survive and so will many animal species but at what expense? And why does humanity what to bring life on earth to that point? Because sex is the most important aspect of life, and the concept of zero, or better yet negative population growth is unthinkable. And as long as that remains true, severe climate change is inevitable.