The Dead Baby in the Dynamite Box

On the eastern slope of the Cumberland Plateau there sits a bundle of mountainous topography that tries to hide places like Wartburg, Frozen Head State Park, the Obed, Emory, and New Rivers, and two prisons; the Morgan County Correctional Complex, and Brushy Mountain Penetentiary. From town the Gobey Road descended all the way across the foot of Wiley Arms Mountain to Lancing and the Emory River, which fed the Obed. My grandparents' "home place" was just outside Wartburg on the Gobey Road. My two uncles, Tom and Tim were older than me but just barely. So we boys would venture out in the mountains and stay gone all day sometimes. On that fateful day, they told me to follow then down deep into one of the hollers, that they had something "really special" to show me. I followed right along, worshiping my two uncles as always, who might as well have been slightly older brothers. These were my mother's little brothers. The Sexton family. Grandparents Bart and Edna, Billy Joe, Mary Sue, Betty Lou, John Paul, Ralph, Tom and Tim. Mary Sue was my mother. She used to leave me there for long periods of time. So off they went and well I followed. We left the road in a hair pin curve and descended into a unnamed hollow that was thick with Rosebay and Mountain Laurel. A little, clear branch followed the footpath. After delving deeper into the woods we came upon an old Model T cab of a truck turned upside down beneath which was a wooden dynamite box lodged between it and the earth. What's that? The boys stared deeply into my face and grimly announced that there was a dead baby in the box and turned and ran as fast as they could, leaving me and the dead baby behind to work things out. Terrified, (I was about 5), I ran, too, imagining that that the ghost of that dead baby was gaining on me. Eventually I found my way back to the house where Tom and Tim were eating apples laughing out loud at me. As it turned out, my uncle Johnny has stolen the box of blasting caps from the mines and hid it under the cab of the old truck. Years later, while contemplating these events from my youth, I realized that the "dead baby," was possibly a trope. See, my grandmother had fallen into an unwanted pregnancy late in life and given birth to Debbie, a few years earlier. Tom and Tim would have known or even remembered their baby sister. Debbie was congenetally ill and died at home, shortly after he birth. Probably for the best.

Bout des doigts

Hunting Island

Fully clothed I sank into the Atlantic ocean among the roots protruding from the banks of Hunting Island South Carolina and could not understand why I didn't run away from home when I was a boy.

NENA | 99 Luftballons (Live 2018) (HD)

California's Inhumane Prison Isolation Units

Electrelane - To the East

Nick Drake - Cello Song

The Marcus Twins, Chang and Eng, and David

"Chang and Eng, they were joined at the chest. Chang died of a stroke in the middle of the night. He was always the sickly one. He was always the one who drank too much. When Eng woke up beside him and found that his brother was dead, he died of fright. Right there in the bed." Dead Ringers. I knew a dead ringer. His name was David. His identical twin died before I met him, so I only knew the man who had fallen apart on that account. Later on he would run out into the highway and smack into his own death.

The Cruel and Inhumane Execution of Clayton Lockett

Nick Drake - River Man (Video)

Arguably the most beautiful and complex song of all.

The Gossamer Blouse

The breeze barely noticed piercing puffs through the tiny interspacial loose little rectangular voids in between the spidery strands but blew through anyway, encircling his erecting nipples. Wait. He grew up when boys weren't supposed to like cats. Weren't suppose to try on their mother's clothes. Weren't supposed to tell the truth.

Daft Punk Lose Yourself To Dance

When I was a kid I could not wait until the Soul Train arrived, every Saturday. The absolute corporial freedom of dance.