Part 1

“I’m here because veterans have to come here,” Mason Blackburn grunted. “But I’m telling you, I’m fine. Sure, I suffer from shell shock, but I don’t need mental exercises or drugs that turn me into a goddamned milksop. I’ve got coping mechanisms, and they work for me.”

“Mason,” said Doctor Turner.

“Call me Blackburn, please.”

“Blackburn, you are here, because you attacked those college students in a bar, because they “played darts too loud.” Your PTSD coping mechanism is alcohol and violence. It may work for you, but it doesn’t work for anyone else.”

Blackburn stared at the doctor without expression. His thick, unshaven face and piercing blue eyes focused on the point between the man’s eyebrows. He stared until the doctor stirred.

“Why don’t you pick up a sport?” The doctor lowered his eyes to a notepad and made a note. “Maybe a contact sport, like boxing. That way, you can use your coping mechanism in a controlled environment without sending anyone to a hospital.”

Blackburn grunted.

“Here is your prescription for the next month. The pills won’t solve it, but they’ll help. Please, try.” He handed him the slip. Blackburn stood up, crumpled the prescription into his pocket, and walked out without a word.

He picked up the medication to get free health care through the Veteran Affairs.

Stonewall was a hollow like any other: a church with a graveyard, a volunteer fire hall, three clean buildings – the mayor’s office, a bank, and a general store with post office – and a handful of houses huddled around them. The rest were scattered far and between in the hills and forests. His father called them land mines because you never knew what you could step into.

The Dry Creek Room was on the edge of town, and its parking lot sat empty in the middle of the day. A faint mountain drizzle covered the car window. Weeds grew along the road, through the parking-lot gravel, and around the walls of the building. The black paint peeled, and the iron roof rusted. Blackburn parked the rusty, green Chevy. His broad, rounded shoulders swayed as he walked slowly and heavily through the rain to the bar.

“Wade.” Blackburn nodded to the barkeep.

Wade nodded back.

Blackburn honoured their barter deal – drugs for food – and put the prescription pill bottle on the counter. Wade collected it. Without a word, Wade brought out his usual: a large bourbon, a pound of white rice in a large bowl, a bottle of buffalo wing sauce, and six raw, brown eggs – he wanted to see the eggs and make sure they were brown. He cracked the eggs into the rice. He salted the dish and mixed the cold eggs into the steaming rice. He unscrewed the buffalo wing sauce and smothered the dish in its bright, red colour.

After he slurped down the red sludge, he walked out and slept in his car.

A revving chopper awakened him. In the rainy darkness, it took a moment to remember where he was. Then he slowly stepped out of the car. He put his hands on the wet hood, collected water, and rubbed his face and neck with wet hands. He wet his hands again and slicked his hair back. Several pickup trucks and choppers parked on the lot. On the way in, he passed a group of bikers, the back patch of crossed pistols read “The Hatfield Patrol.”

“What are you looking at?” yelled one of the women. He paid her no mind. “Prick.”

Blackburn was not happy seeing Maddox sitting in the corner of the bar. Two women sat beside him. He knew there would be words, and action items, as Maddox liked to say to sound businesslike. The fact was that he was nothing more than a wannabe hustler. He was too trusting for a criminal and ran when going got tough. The one thing Blackburn liked about him was that he liked to throw money around like he was a gameshow host. Wade put a double bourbon in front of him when Maddox waved at him to come over.