This is what I want to post.

A Bit of a Rattlesnake

I heard an old story from an Arkansas friend that reminds me of him. A woman was about to cross a road when she saw a rattlesnake curled up nearby. He looked up at the woman and asked her if she would carry him across the road so he wouldn't be hit by a passing vehicle. She declared firmly, "No, you'll bite me!" The rattlesnake hissed sincerely, "I promise I won't. Please, please take me across. I don't want to die under the wheels of a truck!" He looked so pitiful and vulnerable and pleaded so insistently, she decided she would do it. He bit her the moment they reached the other side. As she was dying, she asked, "Why did you do it? You promised not to bite me." He answered, "Well, you knew I was a rattlesnake."


Miguel was tall, slender, muscular and brown. His back, chest and arms were covered with tattoos. He got them and his well developed frame in prison. He grew up in LA, but he was born in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. His ancestry was part Tarahumara, part Spanish and that heritage was clearly visible in his face. He lived by the gangster code which permits crime and violence, but requires respectful treatment of women and non combatants unless they pose a threat or provide temptation, of course.

He had just served a ten year jail sentence for armed robbery when I met him.  It was hard to imagine this desirable man locked away in a cell with only other men for company. He had only a smattering of education and his English was ungrammatical at best, but he knew just the right words to endear a woman to him. He had a voice so seductively deep and resonant that although his flirtations were obvious, he could conquer women with a few well chosen compliments. He was aided by his good looks and his skill at making himself seem helpless and in need of love.

The women he sought had to be strong as well as attractive. He needed them to support him financially and emotionally. An ex-con and a drug addict, he had a hard time getting jobs that would pay for anything more than his alcohol, cigarette and heroin supplies. Having been viciously beaten and mistreated by his stepfather as a child, and having lived through who knows what horrors while incarcerated, his mental health was fragile. Paranoia was his constant companion and like most who suffer that way he believed his fears, no matter how irrational, to be completely justified. Like the rattlesnake, he never pretended to be any better than he was, but his very existence was a threat to any dream of true love.

When It Ended

Abigail felt old and tired. She looked in the long mirror and saw the body and face that Adam had left and she just wanted to cry, but her eyes were dry.

Adam had gone to Alaska to work on a fishing boat and make money, a lot of money, so they could be comfortable and he would not have to go to work each day, but instead by the miracle of three months of hard, dangerous labor which was very well paid he would be free. Free to do what she had wondered when he first told her? To sleep. to play video games, to drink coffee, to drink beer, to smoke hundreds of cigarettes? What was his goal?

That's when it came to her that he wanted to be free of her, of their life, of obligation, of any future at all. She had asked so little. Her brown hair was cut sensibly, she wore no make-up, she bought her clothes at Goodwill, yet, it was not enough. She would have to become no bigger than a dot on a page to satisfy him.

So she stood there, thinking how sad she must be, when suddenly it struck her, she was free. Free to buy a new dress, free to go out and have a drink, free to stay up late. She didn't ever have to worry again about being too much for him, she could be so big that she could fill the whole apartment with herself alone. Her hair could be long, her lipstick could be bright red, her jewelry could be ostentatious. She could speak loudly and no one would know. The smallest trickle of true joy began to flow in her newly awakened bloodstream.