March 2022. Riverton, Wyoming, 4:20am. A heavy knock rattles my teeth awake… the meat thermometer sitting by a half-empty bottle of Coyote Gold says it’s ten below zero. I unplug a frozen mess from one nostril and snort a jagged half-gram shard cut with a Percocet blue up the other.
I lurch to my feet, swig the tequila till my throat burns and my eyes water and kick the space heater back on with a bare foot… piece of shit. I throw on my cleanest dirty shirt and stumble toward the door. There she stands, a Kool Filter King dangling from her lips, a shit eating grin draped upon her face. “You look like hell,” she says and blows a smoke ring in my face. I inhale it through the nose and retort, “Really, cuz I feel like shit.”
Hell yeah, she had sex appeal. Lean frame with a plump rump, grin that could wake the dead and skin like mahogany topped with midnight hair. When she fished a bag of green from her lace I figured we’d get along swimmingly… but I don’t think with my pecker contrary to belief. And I don’t like surprises. So imagine my surprise when she started mentioning her entourage of shadow people, dropping terms like “them,” and “they.”
In other words, she was by herself but she weren’t alone.