Run (807 hits)
Category: Quotes & StoriesRating: 1.88 on 20 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by EatMeCompletely (View user info) at 2005-11-29 10:38:33 EST
The name's Blake. Ed Blake, but I've gone by Ed, or Edward and Eddie. There have been some folks that just call me Blake. They were always the ones that I have pissed off in one way or another. I make it look easy; it's quite a task being pig-headed and never backing down from anyone.
I was working a 10,000-acre farm in Ayuda, Kentucky. The owner of the farm, a great man who saw only the good qualities in me, was my friend. He's dead now and so are the men that killed him.
As I am writing this, it's been 5 summers passed since Dave hired me. I am difficult on the eyes, with a scar running down my cheek and coal black eyes. I didn't find much reason for smiling because I had a tough life. I'm about six-two, 250 pounds of pissed off looking hillbilly. I don't bitch about it because nobody wants to hear someone bitch about things that can't be changed. I'm going to tell you about it anyway. I'm not bitching, it's not an excuse and I don't want no pity. It just gives you an idea of who I am.
I got myself an abusive step-dad when I was about 6. He liked to beat the shit out of me and my mom; he liked to do other things to my sister. This all lasted for about 10 years. I have forgiven my mother for staying with him while this was all going on. She died hating me for bashing his head in with a nine-pound maul. I look back now and wish I would've ended that miserable sack of shit's life sooner, before my sister's heart exploded from a meth overdose. She died at 19, pregnant with his kid.
At 16, I was convicted of manslaughter. They tried me as an adult, but gave me the minimum sentence of 4 years. That was back in Arkansas, back when the state decided that I was dangerous enough to spend 1,460 days with the finest they had to offer. My first week there, I got the shit beaten out of me by about 4 guys. I spent a month in the infirmary. When I got out, it happened again, but with 8 guys.
I remembered their faces. There was no way that I was spending another day in prison, than what I was sentenced to. So, I took the beatings, among other things, but waited patiently to pick them off one by one. The first was nothing but a nigger-thug wannabe, only tough in his little gang and in there because he raped some poor girl and left her for dead in a ditch on the interstate. He begged for his life in the shower, after I broke all of his fingers and both his knees. When I looked him in the eyes, I know that he saw me for the uncaring bastard that I am. I choked him until he twitched. The last guy, I drowned in his own toilet. I talked to him very softly about all of people that he had hurt and killed selling his heroin and how I would find him in the afterlife, just to kill him again. When he died, I broke his neck and his arms, for good measure.
I was never caught for these things and was released on time. It was miracle that I wasn't dead. I spent all of my time there gathering scars and becoming a hardened man. That's what this earth wanted of me.
At 20 years old, I left Arkansas. Nothing held me there. My mother hated me and my sister was dead. I had killed 9 men. All of them had it coming. I never killed a man that didn't deserve it.
The next ten years of my life are ghosts of memories. Every time that I started to feel settled, I ran. I made a few women love me, but broke all of their hearts. They always want to know more and are never content with who you are now. They always want then. They always buckle from the weight of my sins. My shoulders are stronger than most people's.
I worked odd jobs on farms, loving the feeling of a hard day's work and my calloused hands. It gives a man sense of pride. Dave spotted that right away. He hired me for spot work to start with; it only took one month and a drunk, shit-stain thief of a lead hand, for me to take his place. Dave welcomed me into the family. He never asked about my past.
I was living in a run-down apartment in town, about 9 miles from the farm, when Dave asked if I wanted to live in the farm cottage. It needed some work and he said that I could live there for free, if I fixed the place up in my spare time. I asked him why he would let me do that. I had only been working there 3 months and he didn't know nothing about me. He said something to me that made me respect him more than any person I had ever met.
He said, "A man is only as good as he is now. It don't matter how he got here. We all got our demons and ghosts. The man that can live with 'em without lettin' 'em kill him inside, is a man worth taking a chance on."
I asked him if he wanted to know where I came from and what I did. He told me that he figured that I would tell him when I was good and ready. I never told him. He didn't need that kind of weight on him. But, I guess that after that was said, I thought of him more as a father, and his family more as my own. I didn't feel the need to run like hell, anymore.
When I got done work, in the afternoon, I worked on his cottage. On my days off, I went fishing and hunting on his property with his kids, had lunch with him and his wife. I built a tree-house for his youngest son. Dave was only 13 years older than me, but I wanted to think that he was my father and just made a mistake by running from me and my sister. I was forgiving the world; I was being forgiven for my sins.
I had worked there for four years, when talk of a land developer coming into the area had arisen. He was buying up all of the smaller farms and paying good money for them.
I walked in on Dave and him talking, in his parlor, while on my lunch break. There were voices being raised and I hadn't ever heard Dave yell. I told you that I'm not easy on the eyes and when I walked in, the other fella kind quieted a little bit. He told Dave that he would change his mind, that he just wasn't seeing the big picture. Dave asked him politely to leave. I guess when there's a guy staring at you like he's going to tear your arm off and beat you to death with it, you don't have too many other choices.
After he left, Dave asked me, "You gonna ask me what that was about?"
I said, "I reckon that you'll tell me when you're good and ready."
User Reviews
Submitted by EatMeCompletely (user info) at 2005-12-01 12:56:25 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Part Two: http://www.ubersite.com/m/80114
Part Three: http://www.ubersite.com/m/80212
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2005-12-01 12:55:42 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Very Cool.
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2005-11-30 21:15:24 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I liked this. Your lead character has a kind of gruff nobility that I dig.
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2005-11-30 14:02:34 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by SilvrWolf (user info) at 2005-11-30 09:35:25 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Shlongy (user info) at 2005-11-29 20:53:24 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I can't believe I liked this.
Submitted by munkeypants (user info) at 2005-11-29 20:46:21 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Excellent!
Submitted by garcon_fou (user info) at 2005-11-29 13:57:32 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Maddog (user info) at 2005-11-29 13:56:36 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Nice
Submitted by TigerLilly (user info) at 2005-11-29 13:49:20 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Excellent work my friend.
Submitted by EatMeCompletely (user info) at 2005-11-29 11:30:36 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
tomorrow.
Submitted by mbstateside (user info) at 2005-11-29 11:27:36 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Good stuff!
when is the next installment?
Submitted by wardy (user info) at 2005-11-29 11:16:26 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
mr. emc, i like your moves. i like your style. let's go pitchforking. don't know what that is? neither do i, i just made it up.
Submitted by HighVoltage900 (user info) at 2005-11-29 11:15:55 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
Yeah it was pretty good.
Submitted by Bigmike (user info) at 2005-11-29 11:13:38 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
This gets what it deserves.
Nice job.
Submitted by EatMeCompletely (user info) at 2005-11-29 11:12:13 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
For you apollo, I'll incorporate foreskin into the story.
Submitted by MyTeeOne (user info) at 2005-11-29 11:10:35 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
The third paragraph felt a bit out of place. Other then that, assuming this is chapter 1, I like it. You've got a good character developing there.
Submitted by scourge (user info) at 2005-11-29 11:08:59 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I liked it.
Submitted by apollo88 (user info) at 2005-11-29 11:02:58 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
needs more foreskin
Submitted by forthewin (user info) at 2005-11-29 11:01:22 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment