memoir - In The Pines

A soldier in green uniform kneels to hug a small child.

memoir

Fathers, Sons, Soldiers, and Poetry

We both hid a part of ourselves behind a soldier’s body armor and camo paint and when that didn’t work we retreated behind the smile of a beer drinking buddy.

memoir

El Paso

After thirty years how it all ended doesn’t matter. Those missed signals, my idiot roommate, Lorrie’s unrequited crush, a strange new soldier, and the United States Army don’t mean a fucking thing...

A man sits in the fall woods with a shotgun propped on the knee of his camo pants.

memoir

The Squirrel Hunters

It’s a song about a man facing heartbreak who retreats to the winter woods. It’s a song about healing heartbreak on a cold morning with a Browning Auto 5. It took me back to Bienville Parish. It took me back to the first weekend in October. It sounded like my father’s voice.

commentary

Thoughts and Prayers and Thank You For Your Service

...I pity them. I feel genuinely sorry for all of them with their yellow ribbon stickers and “would’ve served but” because I experienced something else during those dark days, something they will never experience for themselves.

memoir

Fear and the World's Greatest Turkey Sandwich

It was little better than prison food. Three slices of cold roast turkey in between two sliced of white bread, no condiments, just a Styrofoam cup of water to wash it down and lime Jello for dessert.

memoir

An Outlaw's Prayer

For a long time I thought there was something wrong with me, that the reason I didn’t have faith was because I was bad or broken. I don’t believe that anymore, but I still don’t understand. How is it everyone I love takes comfort in religion and I find none?

memoir

15 Miles in the Dark

It was on those long drives that I talked myself into asking out a girl for the first, second, and third times and where I dealt with the crushing defeat of rejection and the low grade, lingering pain of being “just friends.”

A 22" red drum sits on a whie measuring board in the lap of a kayak fisherman

memoir

Bayous and Backyards (Crescent City Chapter 4)

Fishing buddies give no quarter and accept none. He ragged me endlessly. I was beginning to think he’d legitimately cursed me. I seriously considered seeing if I could find a gris gris to lift the curse.

memoir

Aggressively Mediocre

I went to a Magnet school and almost flunked out. I was a soldier, but not a great one. I rode rodeo bulls but never once for eight seconds. I traveled the world but never to the coolest places. I died in the dumbest possible way but I survived.

A dingy barracks room with beige walls, tan furniture and broken, stained, white ceiling tiles.

memoir

The Suicide Song of the 2nd Lanai

One by one we emptied our pockets of pocket knives and multitools until there was a pile of edged weapons sitting on Evan’s rug. “Go ahead.” He announced once all the weapons were secure. “Play your fucking suicide song.”

A bearded white man in white shirt and jeans laying on a couch covered with a blue blanket drinking a Coors Light long neck.

memoir

The Apartment (Crescent City Chapter 3)

I never paid a dime in cash but came with offerings of Zapps potato chips, Coca-cola, and boxes of chocolate glazed when the Krispy Kreme "hot" light was lit. In return I got a spare key, a shitty fold out mattress and raucous company.

A dimly lit, sagging, shelf full of liquor bottles.

memoir

Barrooms: (Crescent City Chapter 2)

It was mellower somehow, almost melancholy. It’s only recently that I’ve recognized it for what it was, a type of therapy, a crutch, or maybe a helping hand as we transitioned out of military service and faced our future.