The Gunslinger

Hello, Just a quick message, since I'm at the library. I went to the plasma place and they are backed up, probably a 3 hour ordeal to donate, and so, since they are open til 7 on Thursdays, I decided to put in 4 hours on the computer, and then I will go back right before they close when the crowd has thinned out and they are in a hurry to get everyone out...I'll use their hurried-ness to my advantage; right now they are taking their sweet time.
I worked on Wednesday, even though I was up til midnight (couldn't fall asleep; thoughts from the past racing through my mind, -thinking about things that happened years ago that still bug me- and that somehow wouldn't stop; even though my alarm was set for 3:36am; that happens a lot, worrying about not getting enough sleep instead of falling asleep.)
I got to the pool and the new dispatcher asked me if I wanted to go "gunslinging."
Everytime they yell that they need gunslingers, the whole crowd backs away from the window and words like "hell no" can be heard amongst them. Apparently nobody wanted to go gunslinging. He yelled "(for me)!," and I went up to the window. He asked me if I wanted to go gunslinging and I thought about how I always wanted to try it, and how in the past, things that other people couldn't handle just turned out to be just plain hard work. I told him yes.
They sent me to the van, where there were 3 large black men already sitting there in the bright green gunslinging vests. One of them looked at me and asked me if I was going to Waste Systems. I said yes. He let out a chuckle.
We got to the place and pulled into the parking lot. One of the black men asked me if I was "scared." I honestly said "A little."
Gunslinging is riding on the back of a trash truck, jumping off, throwing people's trash into the truck and mashing the button so that the "hopper" crushes it, then jumping back on and going to the next, and the next, and the next house, untill sometime before the sun goes down, everybody's trash is in the truck. It can wear you out, they say. (after it rains they can be full of water and weigh 100 pounds) We used to call them rubbish men; used to make fun of them as being the epitome of the lowest form of laborer. "..Better study hard in school, or you'll wind up a rubbish man.."
So, I got there and they assigned me a driver named Cory.
We left and went out to a place in Atlantic Beach. He drove and I jumped out and threw the 'yard trash' into the back of the truck.

"Watch out for snakes!"

Wednesday is yard trash day, and so, all the trash consisted of the products of yard work; limbs, clippings, piles of plants that looked like they were from another planet; thorns, spiders, lizards..but not snakes.
"Watch out for snakes," said Cory.
"Snakes aren't going to move into a pile of brush that was just layed there recently, I know snakes," I said.
"Watch out for snakes anyways."
The worst was a lemon tree that had died and been set in front of a house. The man was waiting there for us so he could warn me about the thorns; talk about thorns -like the talons on an eagle - that tree got me and I carry the scab to this day, course it was only yesterday... I threw the trash as energetically as I could. My side only hurt when I twisted a certain way. We finished early.
The man on the radio called and asked Cory how we were doing. He said that we were finished. The man on the radio said that, then, we did good. Cory said that if he had money he would have bought me lunch, because I worked "real good." He said that his back was hurting and that he usually jumped out and helped a lot more, but that I did most of it. He shook my hand and asked me what my name was before I got out, back at the place. They gave me eight hours, even though it took four.
The labor pool was "down a van," and said they couldn't pick me up for an hour, so I walked back, three miles to the pool and got my check.
I guess my legend grows now, as the big black men will say "He went gunslinging, did good."
"For real? that skinny whiteboy? No!"
"Yeah, man..ran Cory's route, they were done by noontime!"
"For real? No way"
"Word up, nigga!" (they really talk like that)
So that was my experience as a gunslinger, the word itself strikes fear into the labor pool. I had avoided it, and it was the one job that I ever turned down at the pool. But, that was when they offered it to me a couple days after being hit by the car, when I couldn't even sit up to go to the bathroom when I woke up, and had to use a bottle. My side had been better. I sneezed on the walk back to the pool (probably got a whiff of pollen or something) and it was sore but didn't seize up into a cramp like it had been doing when I coughed or sneezed.
This morning was a different story. I guess being a hero and gunslinging wasn't good for cracked ribs, because this morning I had taken a step back in recovery, but only back to how it was a week ago. So, I decided to come downtown and give plasma for 20 bucks and then to try to make another 30 or so with the guitar tonight. We are living on the edge and a broken string could beach us like musical whales, but, I could be ready to go tommorow morning, back to the pool, maybe even go gunslinging...and so that is where it is at now.
Temperatures in the low 80's all week, high 60's at night. I have a bunch of things to do online, so I'll go do them now. Larry wants me to download a bunch of sheetmusic and lyrics. I haven't touched my blog in two weeks, but I plan to post something about being a street musician, a top 20 songs list perhaps. I noticed that nobody answered my last mail, but I guess that means that you all are busy and productive. Hope you are all well, first day of summer is coming soon. I plan to hunker down and have a cool shelter by then, perhaps digging something out and covering it with a lot of palmettos. I'll have to do it because Larry is pretty slow in getting motivated. He's been out of work for about two weeks now. At first, I was glad to be able to pay him back by spending my labor pool money on things and making a better life for us both, but now I feel pressure to work everyday, because I know he is dead broke, but my plasma money will have to do for now, he could at least clean up around the house while I'm gone or something; typical roommate squabbles. Something will turn up; hope it's good!

We Want To Go

WE want to go. We want to go from here, the state which is shaped like what it has done to so many here....
We want to go to the Golden State; through the Golden Gate. The Bay Area has been calling me. I went there once. Maybe it is my destiny to die in an earthquake... I would want the refridgerator to topple onto me, snuffing out my life in that scenario.
Of course, we could go, get jobs and an apartment and not have to worry about Sunshine and orange juice and gator bites. In fact, we would only have to worry about the 49'ers running game, getting hit by a trolley car, and getting sick of rice-a-roni.
We talk about things like this all the time, but I am starting to realize that I am the one who would have to be the catalist because right now we are dragging our feet and in danger of something catastrophic happening while we are sitting here making plans.
Life is what happens to you while you're making other plans" -John Lennon
So I am thinking about what I want to do, and if Larry wants to come along; the more the merrier!!

A Year Ago Today

This post originally appeared on my blog on May 21, 2006

Last night we had our first taste of the muggy weather of which we are going to have a mouthfull of through most of late July and August. It would have been impossible to get a good nights rest, had this been a week-night. I told Biddle that we would have to take the weather into consideration before long.

Chess: Daniel 72-0 against Biddle

Biddle has yet to defeat me on the chess board, and seems to be more confused with each sucessive loss. Here, he grabs a flashlight because he cannot believe his eyes in the available light, because what they tell him is that I have just made a move that he has never imagined was possible; he badly wants to disbelieve it.

June 16, 2006
Am at computer 9.

Last night, rode with Biddle to the beach, drinking hard cider on the way. We explored some areas which I had pre-designated as being suitable for camping, but found them to be unaccessible. The property values and the demand for real estate out there make it so that each acre is carefully watched. We failed to walk down the beach and check out the dunes.

Then, after eating, we spotted the dog track on the way back to Sunbeam, and decided to go in and fetch some fun by each playing one dog and then leaving. I decided upon #3, and Biddle was going to play #8. We got in the place and it was a beehive of gambling activity. The second floor was all poker. I looked and saw people sitting in what I guessed was their "signature" attire, or their "lucky" wear; hats, weird vests, some in sunglasses, feathers in hair...the garb of The Losers. We went and found a race which was to kick off. I played 3, Biddle, 8. The race went off and #3 took off like a rocket and lead the field by about 7 lengths. "There goes your #3, you're gonna win," said the man to my left, who had been guiding us in deciphering the wall of monitors, which showed races from all over the world; all bettable. Dog number 3 lead untill the last 100 feet of the race, at which point he acted as if he had been shot. He finished about 6th. I think the pundits would say that he "faded." Biddle's dog didn't have to fade, because he was never that vivid. "One more race?" said Biddle, and I realized that I knew we were going to play one more race, even as #3 was "fading," and probably because of the fact that, for about 25 seconds, I was a winner, and only turned into a loser at the very end of the run. I played #1 to win.Biddle played a 3-8 quinella, or whatever they are called. (He took my "lucky" dog, and paired it with his "lucky" dog, to arrive at the combination.) I wouldn't be writing this if Biddle's quinella didn't come in, netting him $38.80. I guess I thought that I was lucky for him, or that I was the one who suggested that we stop and each play one dog...I guess I expected him to at least flip me a five-spot to cover my loss on dog #1, who came out slow and then tapered off...but, Biddle pocketed the money and, to his credit, didn't say "One more race?" Now, I try to be productive. I am supposed to meet the Oriental girl who works at the check cashing place to "help me with my homework." She hasn't shown up yet.
June 17, 2006 Today, Biddle and I went down to the Sulzbaucher Homeless place, in the van, to eat the free meal offered at high noon to all the "needy." One needy guy must have weighed about 280, whom I saw. We did this for psychological reasons; to tease those that have not found their way out of that institution, to prove that there is a way out; to flaunt the van (all '93 Expedition of it)...I wasn't sure. The lasagna was alright.
The only guy to beat me in the last year on the chessboard was sitting there, playing chess. I remember the game. I made a rare mistake and lost my queen (and the game) very early on. I continued to play (which is an insult to the opponent; kind of like the knight in Monty Python who, after having his arm severed, continues to taunt the foe, merely switching his sword to the other hand) and the game actually ended closer than it could or should have. He didn't seem to want any part of me on the chess board. We ate, and then Biddle suggested we go out to the beach. I had told him that I wanted to come to the library to blog and to study Java and CSS, so that I will not be so dumb. He started driving towards the bridge which leads to the beach. I had to firmly insist that
I had an agenda, and that I never appreciated when anyone deflects me from the path I have chosen.This is why I am a loner. I think that the more people in a group, the more "watered down" the dynamic becomes.So, Biddle went on his way, feeling kicked to the curb, no doubt. I came to the library. I spent most of my time on my totally private journal, because I don't trust anyone right now. I feel like someone is going to stop me and search my bag; a Jacksonville phenomenon - hard to explain.

Invited To A Bash

This is basically where the live blog begins.
Every post dated earlier than this has been recollected at a later time and then filed away under that dateline.

Ok, yesterday I worked on a demolition ticket, out of the Workforce Labor Pool, demolishing a Holiday Inn, which was way out on Jacksonville Beach.

We went in with mainly (manly) sledgehammers and swung them just about indiscriminately, bashing away.

There were some good hammerers. "Cowboy," or "Wild-man," as he was also called by some, was given stewardship over myself and another worker. He was to direct us in our bashing, telling us what to bash and what not to bash.

When Cowboy had the hammer in his own hands, he became spastic and quite animated, as if he had a personal grudge against the hotel and the objects in it. He was quite an inspiration. With great grunts and groans, he whirled and struck objects repeatedly and in rapid succession, until he was dripping sweat, red in the face and bent over with his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath.

I noticed that he also struck things in the places least likely to produce the desired result of them being dismantled. A lot of times if he had turned an object on its side and whacked it on a weaker spot, I think he would have split them with one or two hits, instead of the twenty or more which he delivered. I didn't want to criticize him, so I just stood back (everyone stood back from him) and let him at it.


It was kind of depressing to think of all the history and memories which were being bashed away, torn down and dropped five stories into a dumpster.
I thought of all the days and nights spent throughout the hundred or so years that the inn was in business.
The honeymoons, the celebrities, the people who knew people who knew people whom I may have met in my life. I had a feeling of nostalgia and wondered what "if these walls could talk..."

Then I grabbed my sledgehammer and started wreaking the place.

The song "Sledgehammer" by Peter Gabriel was in my head most of the day.

I made 53 dollars and change.

Flashback Friday: November, 2002 through March, 2003

When we last left Daniel, he had moved into Xanna's house, (his alternative to jail) where some unusual things had started to occur...
His girlfriend had become convinced that there was a blond haired woman in cohabitation of the house, and having an affair with him. The "blond bitch," as she referred to the woman, had the uncanny ability to remain out of sight.

Chapter 5

Things got more intense, living in Xanna's house.

She was finding "clues" all over the house, pursuant to her meticulous investigations, like what she believed were the initials of "the blond bitch," carved into the back of a stool in the piano room. I must admit that the way the paint had chipped off of that particular piece of furniture did resemble the initials "B" and "S," (perhaps the blond marking her territory...and playing games with Xanna, or perhaps, just B.S...)

I tried to reason with her. After all, our relationship hadn't started out this way at all.
I said, "Xanna,(cupping her chin in my hand and forcing her to look me in the eyes) why don't you believe me when I say that there is no other woman in this house?"

She couldn't believe me, because there was another woman in the house; it was Xanna herself, when she was in her "other" mind.

She had a dual personality, and was jealous of the other woman, who was actually herself, in her other mind.

There were times that I made love to her when she was manifesting her other personality, and when she came back to her original self, she was pissed. She just knew that I had been with another woman; she had left clues. She wanted to kill that other woman.
And then, there was the ghost.
I came to believe that there was actually a ghost in the house.
I wasn't scared at all, though.
I talked to it (her). I was pretty sure it was the ghost of a little girl, after hearing the voice on the tape, which Xanna had covertly made, and; how scared can you be of a little girl?
I told her, one afternoon, as I lay on the bed with the late winter afternoon's sunlight streaming in through the window, that she could appear to me, if she wanted to; I wouldn't mind. All that happened after that was, I heard the distinctive sound of a little girls footsteps walking down the hall, away. I guess that creeped the ghoul out, somewhat.
"I'm not appearing to you, you're weird.."
The thing that I still think about, and you, dear reader might be wondering about is: Were the footsteps the sound of a shod foot? Did it sound like the ghost was wearing shoes?
I have to say, and this is one of the things that makes me think that "ghosts" just might be manifestations of our own psychic energies, that the only thing that registered with me was that it was the sound of footsteps, half barefooted, half shod maybe.
The Stray Cat
Then, Xanna took in a stray cat, which she had found somewhere -a rust colored one 
We kept it until it urinated on our bed.
"Oh, no. That's just plain aggressive behavior. It's being territorial!" was Xannas conclusion.
The rust colored cat  had to go.
I was the only one home when it happened and discovered the cat pee, after I had gone to the main bedroom to use the phone on the night table.
As I sat on the bed, I felt a wet spot in the middle of it. I smelled it and determined it to be urine of cat. I checked the extent of the damage. I was particularly concerned about the pillows, being of the mind that one could never wash cat urine out of one. I was most glad that the pillows were not affected.
I took them off the bed and placed them on the couch over by the window, the one with the tape recorder under it. Then, I stripped off the quilt, blankets and sheets, and put them in a pile in the middle of the floor. The urine had soaked all the way to the mattress, leaving a dampness there.
I went to the kitchen and got some foam spray cleaner.
When I returned to the bedroom, I froze for a second in the doorway, staring in bewilderment at the bed.
My pillow was sitting atop the wet spot. Xannas was still on the couch where I had put both of them, not two minutes sooner.
I was hard pressed for an >explanation of how it got there, being the only one there, as far as I knew ...maybe the blond bitch....but I was starting to suspec that the house was haunted, though it didn't frighten me in the way one might think it should have. Perhaps because it seemed like the ghost of a little girl, though one apparently strong enough to lift Xanna off the bed and throw her out into the hallway...
I continued to hear the footsteps of a little girl in the hallway, on on the staircase leading to "the attic" when the house was otherwise quiet.
I continued talking to it, telling it that it could appear and I wouldn't hurt it. ...just don't hurt me...
Xanna was becoming as haunting as any specter could be, by this time.
After that cat incident, I became a little bit spooked by the house, though.
A couple of nights later, I was there alone; again.
I went to the back bedroom to lie down and try to sleep.
I left the light on, though; because of a slightly "creepy" feeling that I had.

As close to Xanna as I could find...

As I lay there awhile, and thought about sleeping with the lights on, I started to feel like a little boy who is afraid of the "boogy man."
This is ridiculous, I'm a grown man!
With that thought, I reached over to the switch on the wall near the night stand and flicked the light off.
Simultaneous to the room snapping into darkness, something jumped off of the dresser and onto the floor.
I snapped the light back on. It was a comb, which had been on the dresser, laying there on the hardwood floor, now.
I slept with the light on that night..
The Last Episode
We were close to breaking up. Xanna was ranting like a crazy woman.
She had developed a mantra, which she repeated almost non stop. It went something like this:
"That's just disrespectful -coming up in my house when I'm not home! She ain't nothing but a tramp; ain't nothing but a bitch and a whore. Let me catch her in this house one time, I'll show that bitch that I'm no one to mess with!. Coming up in here when I 'm at work...that's just disrespectful...She ain't nothing but a tramp; ain't nothing but a whore.... 

Sometimes when I was trying to sleep, she would seemingly sense the exact point of my driftng off and would then jar me awake by starting the mantra -always the same words, same cadence, same inflection, over and over.
To Make Matters Worse..
I inadvertently added to the confusion once.
I had bought a tuning "hammer" (28 bucks for the darned thing) and was going to surprise Xanna by fine tuning her piano. I worked on it covertly (if you don't count the ghost as a witness) for hours. I wanted to see if she would notice the difference and say something like "The piano sounds great today." But, I made a mistake and turned a wrong peg, unwittingly leaving a string dreadfully flat.
The C sharp that I flattened almost an octave, just happened to be one of the notes of prominence in "The Maple Leaf Rag," which was one of only three pieces that I ever heard Xanna play. She played each of them as if she were taking out her frustrations on the poor piano.
She went into the piano room one evening and attacked the keyboard in her usual way, hitting the "clunker" note at a point in the music which seemed to be a showcase for it. It was the musical equivalent of hitting the listener totally unexpectedly in the face with an ice cold bucket of water, or as if the piano had imploded suddenly.
At that point, Xanna flew into a rage. "Oh, no! Now, she's messing with my piano, now she's really playing games with me!"
It was interesting to note that her reaction to an actual quantifiable wrong (her piano was certainly detuned) was pretty much the same as to her "imagined" injuries at the hands of the blond bitch. If she had any suspicion that she might only be imagining things, the piano would have been a different matter. But she seemed to take the reality of the string being way out of tune the same way as she did the other things, like the initials carved into furniture...
That wasn't the kind of "surprise" that I had had in mind. I felt that I had to spoil it by showing her the tuning hammer and taking the blame for the seventh measure of "The Maple Leaf Rag." I didn't want to give her any (more) reason to think that there might be unusual, unexplainable things happening in her house...
January, 2002
"If you think you might be poisoned..."
I was sitting  at the house one morning, when I got a call from the manager of the Pizza Hut where Xanna worked.
I was basically told  that I needed to pack up my stuff and move out of the house. She said that that was Xannas wish, but she was too afraid to tell me so much, to my face. She was telling her co-workers that I was trying to kill her and take her house from her; she was convinced.
I told her manager that I needed to hear it from Xanna herself and that I would honor her wish for me to leave if it is as such...almost gladly, at this point.
That night, at the gas station, a couple of Pizza Hut workers came by to gas up. They gave me icy stares, and treated me like a guy who is trying to kill one of their co-workers and commandeer her house.
When Xanna arrived at about her usual time, at her usual pump, I asked her how she had gotten the notion that I was trying to kill her and take her house.
"You must think I'm stupid," she said through a clenched jaw. "You were singing a song about poison last night, right in front of me, like you're trying to taunt me!"
The prior night, I was singing a jingle which I had been hearing several times a night on the radio station that I listened to. It was a public service spot from the National Center For Poison Control, or something. The refrain kind of went: "If you think you might be poisoned, and you don't know what to do, call 1-800-222-2222..."
The jingle became "stuck" in my head and I had been walking around humming it to myself, while performing my nightly tasks. When Xanna showed up that night, I was in a good mood and just busted out with the jingle, thinking that she had probably heard it a hundred times on the radio herself. I didn't think much past that at all. She wasn't amused by my rendition. Not exactly.
She Just Died!
By March, Xanna and I were still sleeping in the same bed, but had stopped having sex.
I was making plans (behind her back) to move out of her house and into the tool shed behind the gas station after the manager, who was sympathetic to my plight, offered to allow me to put a cot and a TV back there and live for a while.
He was both concerned that Xanna might get me in trouble with the law by making accusations based upon her imaginings, and he also saw the value of having the assistant manager always be on-site; always available to cover for other employees who couldn't make it in to work.
Xanna and I were at the house. I went to lay down on the bed in the back bedroom.
She followed me there, as usual, and assumed her regular position beside me.
I was laying on my stomach with my arms folded under my pillow and my head turned away from her. I felt her lay her hand on my back; the "cat paw" which I had grown accustomed to.
I didn't drift off to sleep right away, rather, I lay there trying to relax my mind and let my thoughts drift.
I started to become aware of how cool Xanna's hand felt on my back, and how it seemed to be getting even cooler. Within a minute, it felt so downright frigid that the thought occurred to me: She just died!
Now wide awake, and with my heart sped up and a lump in my throat, I turned my head to look at her. She had both her arms folded under her pillow. Her hand hadn't been on my back at all.
Into March...
As fate would have it, Xanna's behaviour at her job became such that her co-workers started to question her claim that I was out to get her.
One night she called the police on another delivery person because that person had taken a pizza off the rack and gone to deliver it. Xanna thought that she had been next in line for it. She reported the pie "stolen" to the officers.
"I think we owe you an appology. Xanna's acting really crazy. At first we didn't know who to believe, but now we're pretty sure that she is probably imagining things," said a contrite Pizza Hut manager to me at the gas station, shortly after that.
I probably would have been out of her house already by the middle of March, but I got a call from my mother in Massachusetts, informing me that my father had passed away.

The Ghost

The gravity of the situation kind of kept us together, bonded by the crisis, and seemed to give Xanna a temporary return to reality, enough so that she offered me her condolences. It was the first time that I had seen her face soften in weeks.
I hastily made plans to drive my Jetta the 800 miles to attend the wake and funeral.
Xanna insisted that I drive her Mustang instead. She came along with me.
She spent almost the entire week that we spent in Massachusetts in the car, wrapped in blankets. My surviving family members seemed to be conspicuous in their avoidance of her and even the subject of her. They kept their comments to her brief and impersanal, them not knowing what to "make" of her, starting with her odd name, and probably extending to a sense that there was something not quite right with her. They didn't ask me much about her.
My mother gave me some of my deceased father's stuff, as I was leaving. His electric razor, his watch (which had stopped at around the time of his passing; and which began to tick again after I put it on my wrist) and a sweater made of a silky material. The sweater looked like it could have been worn by either a man or a woman; a point which would have been trivial, had I not had Xanna as a roommate.
After driving 12 hours from Massachusetts back to Virginia, I had less than 3 hours left before I was scheduled to work my shift at the gas station. I was going to try to grab as much sleep as I could.
I wasn't able to get more than a few seconds in, though.
Xanna started the mantra: "She ain't nothing but a bitch; nothing but a tramp and a whore -coming up in my house when I'm not here; that's just disrespectful..."
She stood almost over me, as I tried to sleep. At the instant that I dozed off, it seemed, she broke the silence: "Let me catch her, just once in this house..."
I tried to reason with her, but that option seemed to be long gone. "I have to work in three hours, sweetie. I have been driving for the last twelve hours. Can you please let me get some rest?"
Sleep deprivation, stress and grief over losing my father combined to bring me to a boiling point.
I jumped up and yelled in her face, cutting her off in the middle of "ain't nothin' but a whore" and told her that I was packing up and leaving as soon as I got off work the next morning."I can't stay here any longer, you're acting absolutely batshit crazy!"
"There's nothing wrong with my mind!!"
I tried again, to get as many winks as I could before my shift at work was to start.
Again, I had just drifted off when I was woken up.
She was standing in the doorway holding the sweater which my mother had given me.
"Who's sweater is THIS!? This is a womans sweater! Let's see you explain this one!!"
I snapped.
I jumped up, flew across the room, snatched the sweater from her, and got in her face, yelling "Are you saying that my father wore womens clothes!? This was his sweater, which my mom gave to me!! You...!"
My fist was coiled, the muscles in my arm were tense. I was one nerve synapse away from letting it fly and pounding her face, I could see it in my imagination, I could feel it in my imagination. But, I held back. I've never hit a woman in my life, but that was as close as I have ever come.
I grabbed some things, and went off to sleep somewhere in my Jetta, for at least the couple hours I had left before I had to work.
The Return Of The Jetta
I knew that I wasn't going back to her house. I would talk to Modou about allowing me to stay in the storage room behind the gas station. More than a year after meeting Xanna, at the same gas station, I welcomed the prospect of being "homeless" once again.
I set up a mattress and a little table in the storage room, along with bringing my computer there from Xannas house.
I was going there to retrieve stuff when I knew Xanna was at work. There were ways to get into the house, even when it was locked, like climbing up on the lower roof and entering through any of the glassless windows of the second floor.
The next afternoon, after getting off of work, I had opted to sleep for the first time in my new quarters, surrounded by boxes full of cigarettes and palettes of soda.
I was just drifting off to sleep when the door flew open and Xanna was standing there, glaring. Her arms were akimbo and her eyes darting around the storage room, as if looking for the blond bitch.
"So this is your little love nest!"
"No, this is where Modou is letting me stay until I find a place."
Looking more closely at her face, it appeared that she had been punched in the eye that I never hit, as it was black and blue and swollen.
After she stormed out of the storage room, she paused to glare at the Jetta, which had been her Christmas gift to me, a few months earlier.
The next time I got in that car and turned the key, the motor started to turn over, and then stalled.
It never started for me again, even though I had several of the best mechanics in Charlottesville, replacing suspect parts, downloading schematics and pulling their hair out over it.
I eventually brought it to the junkyard where all of the newly installed parts had come from and selling the parts back to them, along with the Jetta itself. 

The Return Of Tom

I continued to live in the storage room and to save money.
I saw Xanna about a month after our breakup, after I had bought another car. She was sitting in a black Monte Carlo in a parking lot; with Tom, the guy who had beaten and sodomized her after their breakup, but before their reunion, apparently,  

Flashback Friday July Through December, 2002

The Girl Who (had a house, yet) Slept In A Mustang

Chapter 4

Freedom
When we last left Daniel, he had been bailed out of jail by Xanna who, if the letters sent to the jail were any indication, was now his girlfriend, and deeply in love with him. She took him home.

It looked a lot like this

My greatest concern, after getting out into the free world was getting some sunlight, fresh air, exercise and eating good food.
The 155 days that I had spent behind bars, had me feeling like I was in the worst physical shape of my life, especially after all the honey buns which I had eaten -the ones that I hadn't traded for other inmates food trays.

Xanna took me hiking, my second day out, along a trail which ended at a waterfall which cascaded into a clear pool. I had an out of breath feeling for much of the hike, which was kind of disturbing.

A few days of rest and better food (my healthy diet) and I started to feel better. I started a jogging program, and was dismayed to find that the first mile that I "ran" took more than 8 minutes to cover.

Modou had given me my job back at the East Coast gas station. One of my fellow employees told me that she had heard that, when I had been arrested, I had held the police off in a three hour standoff using some kind of weaponry.Modou had no problem with the rumors, and actually promoted me to assistant manager. He thought that it was great that I had a house to live in.

Xanna bought a van, a Ford Econoline, 1983 model. She said that she had always wanted a custom van, probably planned to travel, and so she bought one.

It was to be the vehicle that I would use to drive the 29 miles to work and back. It got about 12 miles to the gallon, costing me 50 dollars per week..

Xanna and I and the two cats lived and slept together in her house, joined by Emory on the weekends. 
Our sex life could have been better; I was finding it emasculating to have a woman supporting me in any way, and I had pretty much been taken in by her, like a stray animal. This was not a turn on for me. I guess I am the anti-Tom in that regard.

She liked T-bone steaks, and so, almost every night, I cooked one on the grill outside the side door that we used to come in and out. She liked hers very well done. She liked them burnt to a crisp, actually.
I found this out one night after I had fallen asleep and left the steak on the grill. Pulling the blackened remains off, and lamenting the fact that I had ruined an eight dollar steak, I told her that I was sorry; I had fallen asleep and burned it. It was black and crispy. The edges of it were flaking off. It would probably make a crunching sound if bitten into.
She tasted it, and then told me that it was the best one that I had ever made.

I continued to work at the gas station, and to live 29 miles out in the country. The 45 minute drive and the 50 dollars per week in gas that the van burned were just concessions that I had to make for being out of jail.

I still had the trial coming up in October.
The State had amended the charges from "suspicion" to "Falsifying an application for a State license or ID card."
When I had gotten my Virginia ID, homeless and living right down the road from an animal shelter (and the elementary school) and had no real address to give the fine people at the DMV, I had given them the address of the animal shelter -amused over the irony that those people would take in stray animals and coddle them and feed them and shelter them, but if they were to find a human being camping on their property, the authorities would be alerted and the human being would be thrown into cage, like an animal. He would be fed and sheltered, but not coddled-
I  thereby falsified my application for an ID.

The charge carried up to 3 years in prison.

September, 2002

I tried not to stress out over the upcoming trial, but rather, enjoy life out in the country.
I set up a playoff type "bracket" and, starting with all 32 flavors of Fancy Feast cat food, I played them off, one against the other, giving each cat two tins and noting which flavor the cat finished first, and then promoting that flavor to the next tier to compete against another flavor.
Mr. Falls chose Ocean Whitefish above the rest. Mr. Mercury, Turkey Feast.
I went back to investing in the stock market, despite the roaming charges that I incurred on my cellphone in doing so from way out there. I started putting together a 2,500 piece jigsaw puzzle on a large table in the kitchen, and I bought a computer and resumed my long running study of UNIX shells and programming languages.
I had gotten my time in the one mile run down to about six and a half minutes, and life was pretty good, in general.
The First Occurance
Xanna and I  were in the hot-tub together. It was the middle of the month, when the nights in central Virginia chilled down to just above the freezing mark.
Steam was rising out of the tub in thick tendrils, reminding me of a huge witches cauldron. The stereo was playing softly. There were glasses of wine standing on the edges of the hot tub. We had just eaten an excellent meal. Xanna was floating next to me -the best amenity of all.

As I reached out of the water, into the frigid air, for my glass of wine, I watched the steam floating off my arm.
I took a deep breath and tried to let my mind go, as I exhaled. I was staring up at the country sky with its stars so clear and bright, letting my thoughts drift up into space with them. I was just at a point when I started to feel my mind "letting go," similar to the the way it had done, back in February, when I was offering a prayer of thanksgiving, in my hole in the ground.

Just then, Xanna spoke.  
Only, It wasn't her usual  voice that I heard. She had a  thick southern drawl, as she asked me in an accusing tone "Who are you thinkin' about? I know it isn't me! Your mind is a thousand miles away and you're thinking about some other girl, I know you are...I have a sixth sense about these kind of things!"

I was taken aback, both by the sound of her voice, and by the fact that this girl, who up until then had been sweet and soft spoken, smiling more often of late, though through clenched lips, and who usually always had something positive to say, was suddenly sounding jealous and suspicious. It was out of character. I had known her for almost a year at this point.

I assured her that I wasn't thinking about anything or one, just letting my mind idle and my thoughts float around with the stars.

She then, just as abruptly, calmed down and apologized, in the voice that I was familiar with. She blamed it on the wine. 
The incident made me wonder if she had a split personality. There wouldn't be another one like it until "the wine glass incident," about a month later.

Whose Wine, What Wine?
October, 2002
I was at the house. Xanna was at work. I had smoked some fish over oak wood on the grill and was ready to pour some wine to go with it.
After Taking a wine glass out of a kitchen cabinet, and placing it on the table in the hall across from the bookshelf with the witchcraft books on it,  I looked, but couldn't find, the cork screw.
I ran out to my car, and used one that I kept in my glove box.
Returning to the house with the opened bottle in my hand, I absentmindedly grabbed another glass forgetting about the one that was already on the table.
I was eating when she walked in, returning from work, and flew into a rage at the sight of the two glasses on the table, one of which was clean.
"Who did you have over, drinking wine with you!?!" There was no southern accent this time.
I was able to reason with her and eventually calm her down, explaining what had happened and pointing to the cleanliness of the second glass. 
Around this time Xanna had discontinued taking a certain medication which she only had to take four times a year and which had something to do with balancing her hormones. She did this, she told me, because she wanted to give me a baby, and one of the side effects of that medication was that it stopped her from becoming pregnant. 
The Terrible Towel
Incidents began to come closer together, like the contractions of a woman in labor. A few weeks later, "the towel incident" occurred.
I was at the house. Xanna was at work.
I stepped out of the shower into the frigid bathroom and noticed that there was only one small towel on the wall rack. I used that small towel as best I could, and then scooted to a closet in the old hall to get a second one to finish drying with. I hung both towels on the rack, after I finished.
Xanna came home and was soon ranting "Who did you take a shower with! It better not be that blond bitch!"
The Bitch Is Back
We now had a "blond bitch" living with us.
Xanna started to suspect me of cheating on her. With a woman whom she believed to be living in the very same house with us.
The other woman, whom she bestowed that particular title upon (after she found a strand of blond hair on the bathroom floor) was so adept at sneaking around, slinking from room to room and hiding in closets, the attic, and even the crawl-space under the house, that she was able to stay out of the sight of  Xanna (and myself, for that matter) day after day.
Xanna thought that we were carrying on a relationship right under her nose, right in her house. When she was in one room, the blond bitch would have hidden in another.
More than once Xanna suddenly threw open a closet door and rifled through the coats, hoping to discover her. She was never there.
She became frustrated.
She spent time investigating the attic, where she claimed to have found electrical wires that had been tampered with, as if someone had been pirating electricity to power a hotplate or a lamp. Someone blond.
She found similar evidence under the house, where there was a crawlspace with about a 3 feet of headroom clearance.
She started to do things like parking her Mustang down the road, when returning from work, then stealthily approaching the house when I was there alone, to spy on me. She had raked the leaves away from the house, all along its perimeter, giving her the ability to tiptoe from window to window without making crunching noises; trying to catch the blond bitch and I.
By now, I had had my day in court. The judge, after hearing me speak before sentencing, and telling him as much as I could about this whole story, said "I'm not going to put you back in jail, son."
I had that one less thing to worry about; but Xanna was taking up the slack, by seeming to be gradually turning into a witch.
A Pair Of Paranormal Happenings
December was approaching.
It was a Saturday afternoon and Emory was spending it with us.
These times when he visited, Xanna was able to suspend her suspicions and put on a happy (for her) face, making things seem like there was nothing wrong -at least the things that were within her control. 
I was sitting at the table in the kitchen, working on the jigsaw puzzle.
Emory was in the room at the end of the hall, across from the main bedroom, where he usually slept -the one in which the lady had gone crazy and killed herself in.
Xanna was in our room, on the bed, taking a nap (not unusual for a workaholic).

From where I sat, I could see the entire hallway.

Suddenly, something caught my eye.

It was Xanna's body, coming flying out the bedroom doorway and landing on the hardwood floor with a thump as her head bounced off of the hard wood. It appeared as if she had been thrown through the doorway; her body limp like a rag doll, as if sound asleep.

"Are you alright, mom?" asked Emory, in a bored tone of voice, as if this happened all the time.

Xanna came to when she hit the floor. "Yeah, I'm OK; I was just having a dream," She said.

She didn't like to sleep alone in that house, I had gleaned at that point. I later learned from Emory that it was indeed not the first time that she had been thrown out of her bed by "something."

Whenever I would get out of bed to use the bathroom, she would come with me, then stand outside the bathroom door until I came out. She would then follow me back to bed.
She had a habit of sleeping with one of her hands resting upon my body, the way cats do, when they want to become aware of  you getting up to leave.
One night, during one of Emory's weekend visits, he was sitting in his room. he called to his mother in the same bored tone, saying that he had just seen someone looking in at him through the window. He said it the same way he might have said "It's raining outside."

I went outside to investigate. There was snow on the ground now (which had been shoveled in a swath around the perimeter of the house to allow Xanna to continue her spying). What I saw was a set of footprints, coming from out the woods behind the house and across the back yard and ending underneath the window of Emory's room. There were no returning prints.

I lived long enough in New England to know that a person can't walk backwards, placing his feet inside the tracks he made going forward, without leaving evidence of it. There isn't any margin for error, and snow falling off the feet in between steps would give the person away. These were a clean set of footprints that just ended outside Emory's window.

Someone's Playing Games With Me!
December, 2002
Soon, things were starting to move themselves around the house.
Xanna would regularly scream things like "Where's my onyx necklace?!? I hung it right here last night after I took it off! Now, it's gone!!"
She found the necklace, later, on the bathroom floor (where she had found the blond hair...)
Her wallet, which came up missing from under the drivers seat of her Mustang, was eventually located on one of the shelves in the old hallway (where I had gotten the suspicious towel from) between two folded towels  That was after she had gotten a duplicate drivers license and canceled out and replaced her credit cards etc.
Her fits of jealous rage were more frequent now, as Christmas was approaching.
She bought me a car, as an early gift, a white Jetta, which ran fine some days and stalled mysteriously on others.
If she got off of work before me, she wouldn't go to the house. She would park her Mustang somewhere along the way, often just down the road from the house. On cold nights, she would wrap up in the blankets that she kept in her trunk for that purpose. I would spot her car parked somewhere along my way to the house, wake her up and we would both go home together.
She continued to look for clues left behind by the blond bitch, follow me from room to room, and always do "the cat paw" thing when we were in bed.
When Can I See You?
She eventually bought a "voice activated" tape recorder at Radio Shack, as part of a plan to catch me and the blond bitch, which she placed discreetly under the sofa in the bedroom. If there was anything going on while she was away, she was going to capture the audio, and the blond and I along with it.
She showed up at the little booth where I worked that night, and slammed the tape deck down in front of me, proclaiming: "Now I have proof!! Let's see you lie your way out of this one!! I have solid evidence, now. Listen." She hit the play button.
The tape had on it, sounds I recognized; the bed springs creaking; and myself talking to Mr. Mercury, one of her two cats. At one point, the sound of rain through a closed window was audible, then there was a sound like a window sliding open whereupon the sound of rainfall got louder.
Other random noises were on the tape, which only ran for about 20 seconds, but, in the middle of it there was what sounded like the voice of a little girl speaking; saying first:
"Is she gone?," and then about 10 seconds later:
"When can I see you??"

Flashback Friday: February, 2002 - July, 2002

When we last left Daniel, he had been discovered camping on the woods owned by Mr. Woods, and the latter was so cool, that he was going to let Daniel just pack his stuff and move; he just wanted the police to run a quick check on him, "just to make sure you're not, you know, doing anything wrong, out here."

Chapter 4

From Freak out To Bailout
February 19th
The officers of the Charlottesville Police sauntered onto the scene, having been shown the way by one of the wood cutters. Three of them, their radios squawking, slightly out of sync with each other, giving the aural sensation that we were suddenly in a vast canyon.
There was an older one, a Sergeant, a younger one, whom I had seen before, and an even younger one, who looked like a rookie.
The rookie was kind of pudgy, with pale skin and reddish hair. It looked like his biggest obstacle in becoming a cop was probably the physical fitness test; running a 50 yard dash in under...well, running 50 yards...
The one whom I recognized, was officer Thornton.
I remembered him for his involvement with Brenda, one of my fellow employees at the gas station. Brenda had had to file a complaint against him after he tried to barge his way into the trailer that she was living in with her 16 year old daughter and her boyfriend. A neighbor had complained about smelling marijuana "coming from their trailer," and Thornton then lied to Brenda, telling her that an "eyewitness account" such as that gave him the right to enter and search her home.

Brenda knew better, but only after she shouted "I want to speak to the Sergeant on duty; you're not coming in my house!" loud enough to attract the attentions of her neighbors, did Officer Thornton stop trying to push his way past her.

What Have We Got Here?
The officers zeroed in on me, having guessed correctly, right off the bat, which one of us was the land owner and which the one who was living in a hole.

Thornton led the way.
"How are you doing? Do you have any ID?" -getting right down to business.

I told him yes, I did. It was in my backpack, in my dwelling.
As he followed me towards the trapdoor entrance, he asked me if I had any weapons "down there."
"No," I told him.
He insisted upon going down the ladder first, though, not that hadn't believed me...

"Where's your ID, In here?" he asked, as he started to reach for my backpack.

I had been "around the block" enough to know that he was attempting to get me to consent to him searching my backpack. Had I told him that my ID was in the front little pocket at the top, see for yourself, he would done just that, and then continued to rifle through the bag, later claiming "He let me go in his bag; to get his ID; I was already in there." I had seen enough cops in action, and had heard certain questions, phrased the same way, repeatedly.
I was starting to get an uneasy feeling. Thornton didn't seem to be impressed with the marvel of construction that my dwelling was -hadn't said "This is unbelievable!" once.
"I'll get it," I said, reaching for my backpack.
I reached into the pocket, after turning the bag so that it would be facing him, and opening the pocket slowly, and wide enough so that, had there been a gun in there, he would have been able able to see it, especially as he was leaning almost over me, his gaze darting around the pocket of the bag. He would have seen a gun the size of a postage stamp.
I produced my Virginia State Picture Identification card, issued by the government, and handed it to him.
"Is this all you have, I mean, you can get one of these with just a couple of documents. You got any thing else with your name on it?"
I felt like telling him that, if the state had determined that those particular "couple of documents" met their requirements as proof of a persons identity, and I had satisfied those requirements, then, I shouldn't have to furnish additional documents, just to satisfy a nosey cop.
"No, that's all I have, and some pay stubs," trying to let him know that I had a job, at the same time. Come on, I'm just a working man; trying to cut corners and get ahead a little bit...
Now, I was starting to regret not tossing my opened bottle of wine and hiding the Hustler magazines, which were on my bookshelf. The bad feeling was spreading to my stomach.

Officer Thornton shook his head at the notion of pay stubs. Anyone can get those just by working...

"Let's go out there. You go first, and I'll go behind you," he said, pointing to the ladder made of two by fours, which scaled the wall of quartz that looked like diamonds.
While Thornton had been getting my ID, the Sergeant had been talking to Mr. Woods, above ground, about 20 yards up the path.

The rookie had been standing around as if waiting for something to do. He certainly couldn't have been there to run me down, had I decided to bolt. The thought crossed my mind.

A Cheshire-grin wearing Sergeant left Mr. Woods side and sauntered over to me.
"That's quite a place you got there! How long did it take you build that?!?"
I continued in my belief that, since I was guilty of nothing more than trespassing, and since I was a hard working, well liked member of the community -things which would come to light, should the officers merely make a few phone calls- I would eventually be freed to move my stuff off of Mr. Woods land and go about my merry way.

I started to talk about the construction process in my most charming way, sprinkling humor in, where applicable, like telling them that I thought that I'd struck diamonds when I picked my way into a huge deposit of quartz along the wall facing the reservoir. I was trying to get them to like me.

They listened.

Then the Sergeant, his grin still present, took an opportunity to say "We gotta show the Lieutenant this; she'll love it!"

A call was made over his radio, and soon, not just the Lieutenant, a short thirty-ish woman with blond curly hair, arrived, so did more Charlottesville Police officers, plus some officers of Albemarle County.

Suddenly, Mr. Woods, who had assured me that he wasn't going to press charges against me for trespassing was no longer on the scene; only myself and about a dozen law enforcement officers.

"Nobody lives like this unless their on the run from something or hiding from something,"

-was the opinion voiced by the Sergeant, who was no longer grinning.

His previous "admiration" of my construction skills and curiosity about how long it took me to make such a fascinating thing, was put into perspective when he added "Well, we've got him for vandalism; he admitted to digging the hole..."

Then, it was Thorntons turn.
"Is that your car over there?"
"Yes"
"Do you have the keys, mind if we search it, we're gonna search it anyways?" If you're going to "search it anyways" then, why ask if I mind?
I realized that I could have insisted that they get a warrant to search my car, yet, I still clung to the hope that, even if the officers were convinced that "nobody lives like this, unless he is on the run from something," maybe the judge would be more impartial in dealing with a mere vandal.
In hindsight, I should have told them that I was done talking to them and that I wanted a lawyer, as soon as I had heard the word "vandalism." How badly had I defaced Mr. Woods property? 
Hair Raising Suspicion
"Go ahead, search my car, the keys are in between the limbs of that big apple tree!," I said; still thinking that the more they searched, the more they would find that I was just who I was -nothing to fear..
One of the things that I had used my car for, even after I had stopped sleeping in it; was as a  mirror I shaved in front of the side view mirror, and I brushed my hair, standing behind it, using the reflection that the darkly tinted rear window cast. After I finished brushing, I would usually pull a clump of hair out of the brush and drop it on the ground.
The officers found one of those clumps of hair..
I was suddenly handcuffed and told to sit cross legged on the ground, and warned about what would happen if I tried to stand up.
The officer who put the cuffs on me was trembling like a leaf. As he was doing so, I heard one of the officers, an expert on hair apparently, saying "Oh, it's definitely human, because deer hair...."
By then I was being referred to in the third person tense, as if I had been objectified; another bad sign. I was now "the suspect."
"Kind of creeps you out, doesn't it?" said one of the dozen cops, at one point, to another.
Yanked Out

I sat, handcuffed, in the back of one of their cruisers for about three and a half hours, while the officers pored through a book of statues, open on the back of another car, debating over which was the most serious infraction that they could charge "the suspect" with.
During this time-frame, I had the urge to urinate; and had told one of the officers so, who replied "You'll get a chance to" and then returned to the discussion. 
A tow truck arrived with a winch on the back. The cable was run out and dragged into the woods by a guy.
At a given signal, the winch reversed direction, and the cable began to wind onto the spool at a pretty fast rate, and within seconds, I saw my Honda Civic coming up the path at a pretty fast rate; banging left and right off trees, side-swiping all kinds of forestry, and then half hopping over, half smashing through the barricade of brush that I had dragged there, to hide the entrance, and landing with a sound -a combination of "thud" and scraping metal, at the foot of the tow truck, its grill full of dirt and clumps of vegetation, its sides scratched, its front fenders deformed. I hadn't been pulled out, rather, yanked out -Almost implying some personal grudge was at play.
Albemarle County Jail, For Me...

At the end of the three and a half hours, I was transported to the Albemarle County Jail, where I would get my chance to urinate.
Along with me, was brought the evidence: a clump of (my) hair and three copies of Hustler Barely Legal magazine...and the "police report."
I was given a chance to urinate, and then brought in front of the magistrate. (hey, that rhymes...)
This was only five months after the World Trade Center Attacks on September 11th, and the hunt was on for Osama Bin Laden, who, it was widely publicized, was believed to be living in what the news reports referred to as a "bunker," somewhere in the mountains of Afghanistan.
The terrorists responsible for those attacks; it had become known; had fraudulently obtained drivers licenses from both the states of Florida and Virginia, taking advantage of loopholes which each had open in their systems, causing much "embarrassment" and prompting both to change their laws; closing the proverbial barn door after the proverbial horses had already escaped.
This had the effect of making those states become two of the most difficult in which to be issued ID (by installing a veritable "Catch 22," whereby you almost couldn't get an ID without first showing them the ID which had been "lost or stolen").

My Virginia State Identification card, which I had issued to me, after I turned in my Florida (yikes!) ID, only two months before the Trade Center attacks, was as "suspect" as myself.
"They're Gonna Hold Him! "

Could I also have been targeting the

University of Virginia Rowing Team,

which practiced in the reservoir?

The magazines,the clump of hair, the information that I had been found living in what the officers described as "a bunker," the officers assertion that "We don't even know who this guy is," the "location of arrest," annotated to inform that I was 200 feet from the City Water Supply and along the flight path of planes flying to and from the Charlottesville Regional Airport, 5 miles to the north of the reservoir (which the pilots probably used as a landmark) plus the fact that I was .9 miles from a school, to boot;  was enough of an ear full to convince the magistrate at the jail to have me placed into custody.
Officer Thornton, who had transported me to the jail, and another officer, probably there to bear witness to Thornton cantation of the above details, whooped and high-fived each other. "They're gonna hold him!" said Thornton, continuing to refer to me in the third person tense.
On my paperwork, the line reserved for the listing of the crime that I had been charged with, had "suspicion" written on it.
Ms. Dugger, Mr. Digger
I was given a public defender.

Llezelle, November 8th, 2011; Now

City Clerk of Charlottesville

Llezelle Dugger was her name; representing Daniel, the digger.
She told me at my first court appearance that the court was denying me a bond and that "I'm not going to argue it." Apparently she shared the same grave concerns that the State Attorney had about me being released into the community. ...what kind of attorney doesn't even argue for her client?
She showed up at the jail to meet with me a few days after. She was accompanied by another (male) Public Defender. The door to the "attorney/client meeting room" was propped open by a door-stop. Llezelle sat closest to the door, my chair was placed almost in the opposite corner of the room.
A "trial date" had been set for October 8th, eight months into the future.

Albemarle County Jail

I was housed in a protective custody wing of the jail, with mostly other white inmates. This was where inmates were kept, whom the classification folks deemed to be at risk of harm, should they be placed in with the general population. This is also where inmates were placed whom the same folks deemed to pose a risk of harming others, should they be placed in with the general population. I guess I was a little of both, being a suspected terrorist and all..
I was given the nickname of "caveman" by more than one guard. 
The protective custody, wing was furnished with two television sets, one (unofficially) the "white" one (NASCAR and American Movie Channel), the other, the "black" one (BET and more BET). There was a cabinet full of paperback books; I was soon reading 24 of them simultaneously. There was a huge vat of coffee brought in each morning, and a basketball court out of a side door.
I became pretty certain, as my days and weeks went by in that wing, that there was no other place that the jail dared put me, because of my charge of "suspicion." It made me seem kind of suspicious, I guess.
I was twice caught brewing wine, using apples, raisins, orange juice, bread yeast and a lot of sugar. I was never removed from the protective custody wing, though, only "written up."
Letters, Scent
Letters From Xanna began to arrive quite frequently. 
They were written upon black paper, using gold mettalic ink. They were written in calligraphy, every letter almost perfect, done by quill. They were long, averaging 12.8 pages each (I'm estimating) and they all had been marinated in purfume. When the mail cart arrived, wheeled to the food/mail slot by the mail officer, and as soon as the metal slot was opened, before the officer had even called the first name, I could smell weather or not I was getting a letter from Xanna that day. So could the rest of the wing.
The letters expressed a deep and abiding love, and a promise to stand by me, and to wait for me faithfully, and told me that I was in her thoughts every minute of every day. 
Our relationship through letters would wind up being closer than the ones we had whenever we were physically together.
She also attested her refusal to believe "what they said you did to that goat!" "That's ridiculous, I know you better than that!"*
She offered to send money, and to bail me out if it got to be "too much in there," for me.
Not having an understanding of jail finances, Xanna started sending me amounts each week close to 200 dollars.
In jail, a dollar and a half can get one a Honey Bun from the commissary, which can then be traded to someone for their entire breakfast tray, the orange juice included. This is because the meals served by the jail are sugar free, (because some people aren't supposed to have sugar, and rather than go through the trouble of separating those out and giving them special diets; they just give sugar to nobody at all -problem solved) and there are guys in jail craving it like heroin.
Thus, Xanna made me a wealthy man, while I was in there...
A lot of the other inmates in the wing were educated, especially in the ways of Virginia "justice." 
None of them gave me any encouragement while trying to get me to understand things like "Virginia is a commonwealth, not a state, they can hold you for as long as they want, for any reason they see fit!" and "All a woman has to do in this commonwealth is call the police and tell them that you hit her, and they will automatically put you in jail, even if you don't even know the woman; then, it's up to you to hire a lawyer to prove your innocence..."
I was eventually (finally) given a "bond hearing," where a bond was set at $20,000. I probably wouldn't have been given any chance to bond out, had it not been for Xanna "lobbying" for me on the outside. Apparently the grandmother -the one who had bequeathed all the land and money to her and her siblings- had influence in the county, which still resonated in Xanna from beyond the grave... 
I could now bond out of jail, but, I had to give a valid address, where I would be staying while out. I couldn't await my trial while living in a hole in the ground.
Enter Xanna.
She showed up at the jail with $20,000 in cash, and on the form where it was to be listed the address where I would be residing while out on bond, well, that was pretty much academic: I would be staying out in Rochelle, Virginia, on a road so rural that it had no name, only a number; at Xannas house. 
Her will had been done.
I walked out of the jail to see her waiting in her Mustang, to take us home.
As she drove, her lips were pressed together into a hint of a smile.
She had her man.

*When I was in the Duval County Jail (Jacksonville, Florida) in 1999, my cellmate and I both had senses of humor. 
Every inmate in that jail receives, after being booked, a "booking sheet," upon which is listed his charges, along with the exact Florida statute number of the violation, along with his mug shot and other information. 
Some display theirs proudly upon their little toiletry shelf (such as those charged with "aggravated battery," or especially "assault on a law enforcement officer," -these are "credible" charges which gain them instant respect from the other inmates, as a person not to be messed with, or as a "hero" of sorts)..
Others, with less credibility (such as wife beaters) usually flush theirs down the commode, before some other nosy inmate sees it.
My cellmate and I were both charged with very petty crimes (mine was for writing a worthless check, Prevarian's -as that was his name- was for something like disturbing the peace). We both expected to be out in no time (dinner, a hot shower, some TV, a good night's rest, and then back on the street the next day...) and were thus both in good spirits.
As a joke, I took a pen and added a phony charge to Prevarians booking sheet, on the next line after the disturbing the peace charge, along with making up a phony statute number, off the top of my head.
I then said something like, "I don't know, Prevarian, do you really think the judge is gonna let you out tomorrow; this looks pretty serious..." showing him the paperwork.
I had added something like "Assault on a clergyman with a deadly weapon; to wit: a crucifix -F.S. 801-41-038a." We had a good chuckle.
Later that evening, he returned the joke, asking me the same question. Upon mine, he had written "Rape of a farm animal; to wit: a goat -F.S. 123-65-099c (or something)"
The original sheets were photocopied, and it was obvious, well, should have been obvious to anyone, that they had been written over with a ball point pen.
However, after my release, mine got stuffed  into a manilla envelope, along with my other jail-related stuff; and forgotten about. 

In the event of losing one's ID, sometimes the paperwork from the jail can facilitate the acquiring of a now one. After all, they took your picture and your fingerprints...so, I kept my records, just in case.
I guess I kinda sorta should have tossed out the "goat" sheet, though. The envelope was still somewhere in the trunk of my Civic, and the cops found it; amending their report to include mention of it.


Next Installment: Chapter 5: Life Back To Paranormal