Colby "Lotto" Lewis

I've never led a normal life. I've lived it only in my imagination but I just let that ride since it seems so real to others that if I claim otherwise I'm immediately scoffed at and rebuked. But my true life in actuality has been spent on the fringes of society, anonymous and unnoticed. And while I know my misbegotten peers also live off the scraps of the world I know there's a difference: they were born to it.

I tagged along once to a party of beautiful people. They were vibrant and alive with all their friends, fucking and fun, the doors of the world opening wide to their desires. In self-preservation, I kept to myself, my inadequacies quite obvious to anyone who bothered to see. But it did give me the unique opportunity to peer into this forbidden world and have answered the question that's always consumed me: how did they plan to keep their souls alive and still fit in?

The answer? They didn't. What I heard in their voices was plenty of rationalizations and reasonable sounding reasoning they fed themselves on how they could sell out and still keep their integrity. No better than my sorry ass. At some point no longer would they be having their cake and eat it too, they'd be out there just trying to survive - like me.


Survival is a bitch and comes in many forms, bringing you to your knees, praying for a way out, for anything to hold on to. In an upper class neighborhood one can hide one's secret god quite well. How easy to discard the malevolence of money with a full belly. But in a shelter - as I've told you before - there's no hiding, your life is exposed, the scars of your soul on display for all to see.

But the beauty of that shared vulnerability creates a sense of bonding no gated community can ever know. It's an unspoken law not to taunt the scars of another lest you be burned yourself - and the reprimands can come swift and sharp (though trust me, mockery does happen). You might hear some friendly teasing sometimes over a particular quirk and if so, you embrace it for the act of love it is: "I see your scars and accept you in full."

I can tell you, those moments may seem like any other to the casual observer - but they are ones you never forget.

So after this rather lengthy lead-in, I introduce you to Colby "Lotto" Lewis, the man with a Lotto ticket-to-ride. He never bought more than one ("Takes only one to win!") but he never had less than one either. From what I could tell, he hadn't missed a drawing since 2006. "There just has to be more to life than this shit" his husky being optimistically opined, and with his perpetual ticket in hand he hoped to invoke the divine intervention his faith demanded.


The problem with little quirks like these is that you never know when it's going to go too far. Yes, it was undeniably true - "I have a chance!" - and that was the trick Lotto Lewis used to hang on, to keep plodding forward into the miserable morass of his life. He was nowhere, going nowhere, believing somewhere was out there. So he kept dying and trying day by day. But for how long?

Secretly we also called him "Loser" Lewis. How could we not? I liked LL, he's a quick buck artist like I am: do what you need to do to get money then get the hell out. Work that doesn't contribute to your soul doesn't contribute to anything else either. In that, he had no illusions and I respected his clear-eyed determination. But like all us long-termers he was bent - or broken - in his decision making. Yeah dude, I feel there's a better way too but that ain't no solution you got there.

I'd always wondered how the frustration never got the best of him in that godawful bipolar existence of his. One day the high of buying a new ticket, the next the crushing defeat of the inevitable loss. Like a burned out race car driver, his teeth grinding in the ever increasing need for speed, the lows sank him deeper and deeper into despair. I was one of the few in whom he'd confide. "I just know it, Harry. There's no doubt in my mind and I say it with God as my witness: we don't have to suffer like this. It's not meant to be and we contrive it all, every last bit of it. I asked: what is life? And I found the answer - and I'll never let these bastards take it away from me."


This part here is tough. Really tough. It's one thing to see a person's body die but to see the spirit go and the body remain...it's like an eternal knife in your belly. Colby's outbursts from losing inflated to the point of mania, lashing out wildly as it slowly dawned upon him the futility of his endeavors. Dear God, it was hard to watch. Then one Sunday morning they took him away...

The Colby I saw afterwards was not Colby. His feelings for life were nil. Both his despair and optimism were gone, medicated and legislated to oblivion, the baby out with the bath water. Never again did I see the glint of life in his eye. But in my heart I'll carry his words to my grave: "I'm so damn happy. I know what life is, Harry! Life is...love."

Never have I heard those words again...

_____________________________

21st Century Kool-Aid: Love Is Not The Answer

See? They're real, Daddy!

Every year that's started with a 2 (in this era) has been a complete waste of time - except to reveal ourselves as a duplicitous and corrupt nation. And we know what the future holds for that pathway. Most people's lives end up unfulfilled, leaving them forever longing for fantasies unrealized. This is a very powerful unacknowledged need and can be tapped into by tricksters - or dreamers. But we say love is just a dream and the tricksters are reality - so tricksters we get.

It all started in 2000 with a mythical beast: the illusory compassionate conservative (devius maximus). It's a wonderful idea - evil that cares! If only it could be! So we close our eyes and pretend real hard and fantasy becomes reality. See, we're not losers after all, we do live the fantasy life! We live in a world of unicorns and compassionate conservatives and if those are true so is everything else we make up. Yippee!

I know what you're thinking. You say I'm a Cossack partisan, lying for my own "benefit" like all the other liars of the world. You say I'm bitter in my life for wanting to take away your beloved unicorn. You say whatever you see in the mirror! One thing I do know: only a nation that wants to be lied to can be led by a liar. That's why we don't officially sanction the anti-Christ who betrayed us, letting the evil one roam free, because to do so is to admit we believe in unicorns and other self-deceptions.

Like Dorothy, we're on the yellow brick road of wishful thinking - a path we can never leave without first admitting our mistake. Let's see where that leads...

"Don't you want to believe I love you!"

"Everyone, including the children, was told to line up. As we passed through the line, we were given a small glass of red liquid to drink. We were told that the liquid contained poison and that we would die within 45 minutes. We all did as we were told. When the time came when we should have dropped dead, Rev. Jones explained that the poison was not real and that we had just been through a loyalty test. He warned us that the time was not far off when it would become necessary for us to die by our own hands."

Affidavit of Deborah Layton Blakey of Jonestown

The need for approval - like the need for fantasy - is also powerful to the point of death. The tricksters know this and love this. Once they saw the "good" American people fell for the first fairy tale they knew how desperate such morons would be for approval due to that self-loathing.

"We must have war or we won't be safe! Come serve your country! Pass the loyalty test!"

Since nothing is so terrifying as to believe we're being led into war by a liar, we took another gulp of the Kool-Aid and declared the truth a lie and comforted ourselves with our most favorite of all fairy tales: that every war is like WWII!

The tricksters - whose agonized souls were already poisoned with lies - jumped for glee to see so many others sharing the same fate. A war waged for stealing resources, for greed and power and control - all done in the name of life, liberty and justice! The tricksters knew what a truly serious dose of death that had been inflicted on the prideful swallowers. "They're in too deep now! They'll never admit they've been deceived!"

"Work will set you free!"

"The latest survey of Consumer Finances ... released by the Federal Reserve shows that the rich continue to account for a disproportionately large share of income and wealth in the U.S. Economy. The rich are in great shape financially. ...We like companies that sell or service the rich. Asset booms, a rising profit share and favorable treatment by market-friendly governments have allowed the rich to prosper and become a greater share of the economy in the plutonomy countries."

From Equity Strategy, Citigroup, March 2006

I can just imagine the conversation. "Let's feed them even more Kool-Aid! With every dead soldier, the greater our power. Hell no, we ain't armoring no damn Humvees! We need Mommy and Daddy saying, 'Our child died for a good cause' so our support grows stronger. But hell, if they'll let us kill their kids I bet we can rape 'em too!" Gurgle, gurgle slurp the good people who do not question.

Now America has always been a greedy bastard but we at least had a sense of shame about it, a tacit acknowledgement of its wrongness. But when it came time to choose between giving up our shame or giving up our greed, guess what won? Greed! Yeeehawww! No one wants to give up the fairy tale of America the meritocracy, that we are still beholden to our Puritan principles. So yes, we believe in hard work for the poor, reaping rewards for the rich and only the best greediest rise to the top.

Ah, if only I could put those Kool-Aid drinkers to work in a chicken processing plant!

First we applauded the plan's criticism,
then we applauded the plan's enaction!

The problem with propping up myths is that like any addiction it takes more and more to get the same high. Soon, there's nothing left to give. So as "Morning in America" finally became "Mourning in America" the cry for change was heard. But not to get rid of our hallowed fairy tales. Not that - not ever! We can always go on being greedy! We just wanted a change in the storyteller, someone to blindly trust, a new Daddy. Don't stop drinking the Kool-Aid - just change the flavor and irresponsibility will change to responsibility.

And with a final fatal gulp, we sighed a sigh of relief, and let go our last remaining grip on reality. Everything's gonna be alright now, in fact it's a gas! Our bad wars are now good wars. Our economy is saved. We are passing laws to make life good again. Everyone's riding the mythical unicorn once more! Time to pat ourselves on the back and declare ourselves good - lies we can believe in.

*****************************
Deborah Layton Blakey, a Temple financial secretary and one of Jim Jones' most trusted aides...went to the American Embassy, where she sought refuge. About a month later, she issued a longer affidavit with more details on her earlier allegations.

The affidavit became an important document in the campaign of the Concerned Relatives to bring attention to their cause, and helped Congressman Leo Ryan in his decision to go to Guyana six months later. For the same reason, the affidavit – and its author – became anathema in the Jonestown community.

Stick this in your trophy case!

This my affidavit against America. I quit! I unmask the unicorn of greed. I decry our wars to destabilize the world for "profit". I abhor the wishful thinking of toxic lies. I despise perfidious conservatism lacking faith in the salvation of truth. I condemn the blackmailing for food, shelter and health care. We all know what the truth is - and also that first initial lie that sets us down the path of doom: "Love is not the answer".

Behold the unicorn's true face!



__________________________________________

And you know you cannot leave her
for you touched the distant sands

101 Words Of Illusion

"What shape is the world?" "Rhomboid!" Why rhomboid?" "Because I like that word!" Approving applause laughed, "Such a witty! So pleasantly self-serving!"

"Me eta," claimed the visiting barbarian. His Japanese hosts silently sneered, eta were reviled Japanese untouchables. "See, take two hairs, lay before you. Which more important?" "Who can tell! But surely you don’t mean the life of a garbage man is as important as a leader’s?" "Is to garbage man."

"Damn, that’s loud! Will you stop doing it?" "Stop doing what?" "Biting your tongue!"

"You speak of reality you wish to be
"Rarely the reality you know to be."

________________

Kodokushi (Lonely Deaths) Rise In Japan

Autumn's leaf blows lost;
Through a forest and darkly.
Was it ever here?

_________________________



In the 1990s, Taichi Yoshida, the owner of a small moving company in Osaka, Japan, began noticing that many of his jobs involved people who had just died. Families of the deceased were either too squeamish to pack up for their dead relatives, or there wasn't any family to call on. So Yoshida started a new business cleaning out the homes of the dead. Then he started noticing something else: thick, dark stains shaped like a human body, the residue of liquids excreted by a decomposing corpse.

These, he learned, were kodokushi, or 'lonely deaths.'...The people die alone, sprawled on the floor beside crumpled clothing and dirty dishes, tucked beneath flowery bedspreads, slouched against the wall. Months - even years - can pass before somebody notices a body. On occasion, all that's left are bones. "The majority of lonely deaths are people who are kind of messy," says Yoshida. "It's the person who, when they take something out, they don't put it back; when something breaks, they don't fix it; when a relationship falls apart, they don't repair it."
_________________________

world shakes her head
ridding of the dead
dandruff from her bed

In Japan, kodokushi, a phenomenon first described in the 1980s, has become hauntingly common. In 2008 in Tokyo, more than 2,200 people over 65 died lonely deaths, according to statistics from the city's Bureau of Social Welfare and Public Health. The deaths most often involve men in their 50s and the nation's rapidly increasingly elderly population. Today, 1 in 5 Japanese is over 65; by 2030 it will be 1 in 3. With senior citizens increasingly living away from family and a nationwide shortage of nursing homes, many are now living alone. "There is a kind of myth that older people in Japan are living in three-generational families, but that's not so anymore," says Takako Sodei, a gerontologist with Ochanomizu University in Tokyo.

_________________________

I've lived a Xeroxed life
with relationship fascimilies
and painted on families

Japan's two-decade economic slump is not helping. The collapse of the bubble economy after 1990 shrunk the size of Japanese firms and led to a restructuring that is still playing out today. The percentage of the workforce employed in part-time, temporary and contract work has tripled since 1990, forcing workaholic Japanese businessmen, many of whom never married, into a lonely early retirement. "Their world has evaporated under their feet," says Scott North, an Osaka University sociologist who studies Japanese work life. "The firm has been everything for these men: their sense of manliness, their social position, their sense of self is all rooted in the corporate structure."

_________________________

Hungry is the farmer
who plants his seeds
in the dust of the moon

Several years ago, Tokyo's bustling Shinjuku ward began a lonely-death awareness campaign. It hosts social events to draw people from their apartments, distributes a newsletter to the elderly and monitors their well-being by, for example, checking to make sure they're taking out their trash. Other wards have followed suit, but as accurate lonely-death statistics are often unavailable, success is difficult to measure. "If you live alone, it's inevitable that you may die alone," says Yoko Yokota, assistant supervisor of the ward's senior-citizen-services division. "What Shinjuku ward wants to do is increase the chance that people will notice."

_________________________

Little Miss Muffet sat on her tuffet
Eating her curds and pain;
Along came a spider
Who sat down beside her
"Now it's ME you must entertain!"

Ichinose speculates the kodokushi trend might be connected to Japan's contemporary cultural habit of ignoring death, and a possible avenue of research for the Institute of Death and Life Studies. "I don't know why," he says, "but people don't want to see a dead body and, in general, they don't want to talk about death."

_________________________

Having lost the beauty
of my youth
Who yearns for the beauty
of my truth?

_________________________

Baker Hotel (Photo Essay)

Mineral Wells is about an hour west of the DFW area. It became famous in the late 19th century for its "healing" natural mineral water. This from the Mineral Wells Chamber of Commerce:

Founding

In 1877, James Alvis Lynch, his family and 50 head of livestock left Denison, Texas, and headed west for a drier climate--and thus relief from malaria. Both James Lynch and his wife, Armanda, also suffered from rheumatism. When the family got news of Comanche attacks further west, they decided to settle down where they were, in a valley tucked among the hills of Palo Pinto County.

Although the location the Lynch family decided to settle in was quite beautiful, it was four miles from the only water source, the Brazos River. By the summer of 1880, a well driller named Providence agreed to drill a well in exchange for some of the Lynch family’s oxen. At first, the water’s funny taste worried the family, so they watered their livestock with it for a time to test its safety. Soon after the family began to drink from the well, they found they were feeling better.

News of the “healing” water spread quickly. Neighbors began trying the water, and within a month strangers were showing up on the Lynch property, asking about the water. Almost immediately people were coming by the thousands to try this magical drink. Lynch’s well produced 100 gallons per day, so he was forced to have guests sign a declaration affirming that they were sick and in need of the water. With the popularity of the water spreading, the town of Mineral Wells was laid out in the fall of 1881, with Mr. Lynch naming himself the first mayor.

Mineral Wells Mineral Water

Health seekers drinking from a mineral water fountain,
courtesy of the Palo Pinto County Historical Commission

Several wells were drilled soon after the city was laid out, but the most famous mineral water well brand was the Crazy Water from the Crazy Well. The well is currently located at the Crazy Water Retirement Hotel. The well received its name because, the story goes, a demented elderly lady drank from the Crazy Well twice every day and overcame her illness. The crazy lady story could well be true, because in Mineral Wells most of the mineral water wells have a significant amount of lithium, which is used to treat various mental and mood disorders today.

Stories of Mineral Wells' healing waters brought tourists from around the world in the early part of the 20th century. Soon bathhouses, drinking pavilions and spas began to open to cash in. The trains that brought visitors also helped the mineral water companies distribute their products outside of the area. Entrepreneurs found more a more efficient way to ship the waters--namely by shipping the minerals only in crystal form. Those who bought the crystals could add them to their water and instantly have Mineral Wells mineral water.

During the Great Depression, mineral water companies suffered due to the luxury nature of their product and a trip to Mineral Wells. On top of this, the Food and Drug Administration began to closely monitor medical advertising, which limited the claims local water companies could make about the water. During this time there, were also many medical advances, lessening interest in natural healing. Most of the water companies closed by the 1940s, but one company still remains, the Famous Mineral Water Company. Founded in 1904, it is the only place in Mineral Wells where you can sit at the bar, order a mineral water and enjoy the taste that built this city.



Pretty cool shit, huh? Mineral Wells was quite the fad place to see and be seen in back in the day. It drew an impressive list of celebrities and even maybe a couple of outlaws. And to house such esteemed patronage a grand hotel was needed and thus the Baker Hotel was born. When I was a drug courier back in the 90's, part of my route led through Mineral Wells and I'd pass by this noble, rotting structure wondering just what the hell it was. Seemed obvious to me it had a story to tell and if you click on the link above you'll see it has quite a tale to tell.

A few tidbits:

Work began on the hotel in 1926 but was stopped after Mr. Baker made a trip to California. He had visited a hotel with a swimming pool and decided the new Baker Hotel must have one in the front of the hotel. The hotel site was then moved back and the existing structure of the basement was kept and the swimming pool was placed on top of the site where the hotel was to be built. This allowed the area under the pool to be utilized as work areas for the hotel and also a changing area for guests was placed under the pool.

The pool was an Olympic sized above the ground pool to be filled with the curing mineral waters. It was the first swimming pool built for a hotel in Texas. The Baker Hotel was to be 14 stories with 450 rooms for guests and was the first skyscraper to be built outside a major metropolitan area. The hotel was said to be a "Spanish Revival Commercial High Rise."

Mr. Baker had many modern ideas for the hotel such as circulating ice water for the guest rooms which he used in many of his other hotels. The hotel was to be fully air conditioned which was a novelty during this time. Also the lights and fans were controlled by the key lock on the guest's room doors. When the guest left the room and locked the door the lights and fans went off. Valet doors were also installed so the guests might place clothing to be cleaned in them and not be disturbed by the employee that came to remove the items for cleaning.

The Baker Hotel official site has that along with a wealth of other information. The hotel was closed in 1963 and that's when it started its downhill slide into its present condition. As you can tell from the top photo I took, it's currently for sale and I ran into a couple and a mom while I was taking photographs. The girl told me it would take $25,000,000 to restore the place and I believe it. She said she often went into the Baker in the seventies and even then it still retained much of its former glory. The reason they were visiting that day was to show it to her mom. That's when the other reason the Baker is famous came up: its ghosts.

The mother said she was at Sunday school in the church just across the street on the day the mistress of the hotel manager committed suicide by jumping from the seventh floor. It is said the woman haunts the place to this day. The story of that and other ghosts was strong enough to lure in professional ghost trackers who claimed to find all sorts of ghostly evidence. These stories, however, are not enough to scare the local teenagers who continually break in and vandalize the place. I don't blame them, though, the place is like a magnet, just begging for exploration.

And even after all these years, it has drawn me back as well. Entering the city limits we have the fantastic luck to come across Woody's and the "Best hamburger in Texas":

Mineral Wells also offers one stop shopping strip malls like many small towns in Tejas:

Along with the prerequisite tractor store:

But it's the Baker that dominates the, uh, skyline:

We go up the steps:

And onto the surrounding walkway:

We find a door with a hole to stick our camera through!

We find this little gem:

We travel back down to find an overpass connecting to the pool area:

Pool area:

From other angles:

We go around the outer wall to the backside:

From under this tunnel you reach the back loading dock area:

I could have easily made it over the wall into here:

The exhaust pipe takes us to the roof:

Heckuva perch there:

A solarium was built on the roof:

But this sad little sight sorta summed it all up for me. Who knows what past glory this entryway had, possibly to a glamorous bar where many famous feet once stood:

Click here if you want to see the entire photo set.
________________

Here's a fascinating and compelling video walk through in 2009 by some hopeful restorers:



A couple of comments I gleaned from another Baker Hotel video. You Tube has quite a few actually.

[bevykona] i lived there the summer of 1969 in a suite on the 9th floor, after our house burned. i have seen places in this hotel that many have not. it was a gorgeous building until those "in charge" in mineral wells, allowed folks to come in and remove fixtures and the very molding with sledge hammers. idiocy has run amuck in mw as long as i have know about the town. and i lived there a very long time. so now, the baker is an albatross full of wonderful memories... but trashed by ignorance.

[texasangel27] I actually worked in the hotel for 2 yrs several years ago when the bottom floor was open to an antique shop and a restaurant. Yes it is VERY haunted. Not a day went by that we didn't see something and yes Bonnie and Clyde stayed there along with John Wayne, the 3 Stooges, Marilyn Monroe, JFK and anyone who was anyone then. It was after all the very first resort hotel in the country.

Sacrilegious Thoughts On An Easter Morn

God has a marketing problem. Crucifixion is a tough sell. Hard to find many takers! Turns out people want to live and be happy. Painful, agonizing deaths? Not so much. Seems God is out of touch - they say age will do that to a person - and not giving the people what they want.

And yet, the marketing plan remains: show up, be a good person, do unto others as you'd have them do unto you - and then suffer betrayal and horrific death. Even Jesus wasn't keen on facing his fate, sweating literal blood in anticipation. So that's your plan, God? Really? You can't do better than that? Really??

Now there's a lot times when I've the seen Bible misinterpreted for one reason or another. I suppose people think that keeps them safe from the Word. But God is amazingly in touch at times - making the whole crucifixion bit just that much more perplexing.

"The Bible promotes slavery!" I've heard breathlessly gasped. Reality is what the Good Book wrote is that if you asshole motherfuckers can't do any better than to enslave one another then you goddam well better inject some equity into the situation if you hope to come out alive. See? God knew what he was talking about there as here it thousands of years later and we’re still as much as slaves as ever, denouncing anyone who doesn't embrace our creed "In blackmail we trust".

I got your damn healthcare!

(I know, I know - you all think you're so "clever and classless and free". We proclaim "Human greed must be served!" on one hand then bitch when the greediest bastards are the ones who win out. Chains are chains.)

Now one can talk about the nature of responsibility and the karmic position mankind has placed itself in, but to the poor bastard on the cross he just wants the here and now to be fixed. Life is just a shitty deal. Speak truly and get shot or speak falsely and lose your soul. And all this shit is reaching a head. Great time to start a family!

If there were 1,000 people on this globe and 999 of them were Jesus and the last one an evil twit, all 999 of the Jesus's would be killed. The evil guy doesn't want to hear what any Jesus has to say! That's why the Good Book says to kill the evil among you. It takes only one to poison the communal well. But we've perverted it to be the reverse.

Democracy is the only viable way a society can grow and prosper. But it's no guarantee. Evil elected to power is just as damaging as evil that takes power by force. So in a land of popularly elected evil, who's going to be one to say we're on the wrong path? For while it's true it only takes one person to poison the well it also takes only one dissenter to point out the ship is sinking to ruin the party for all.

No dissent here - or truth either!

Now I don't have to tell you what's going to happen when the guy who interrupts a greed fest to announce that that lack of responsibility has left the ship in disrepair. We've all been shot down one time or the other speaking our truth. The protests are mighty and the retribution swift and unthinking. "If we can just shut up the truth we can keep the party going!" Hella plan that.

But this leads back to my beginning here, doesn't it, about people wanting to live. If ya ain't gonna fix the ship, ya ain't gonna live. You can toss the truthtellers overboard and declare "This is the only way we can live!" but your sorry ass is still going to end up in the cold dark waters and you haven't saved yourself at all. Turns out wanting to live and choosing to live are two different things.

So the ones truly wanting to live are thrown overboard and the ones wanting to die ruin the whole damn thing - maybe God's marketing plan isn't off the mark after all. It's the plan for those who want life. Maybe it's our own marketing of death as salvation that needs to be scrapped. We've all got garbage in our head that needs be thrown out.

__________________________



I never got the theology of Easter. Still don't - never will. It's all a bunch of hooey - this means that and that means this - whatever. Like politics and economics - it's just bullshit we make up.

What I did get about Easter was the feeling it gave me, like a bright, sunshiney day - the brightest of all living days. It's a feeling of endless life that can only be experienced, not explained. I think that's what Jesus wanted the legacy of that day to be: a gift for all time.

Goupil: Life After Arrest

It had been a time of infamy. Every paper, every media outlet in the world carried the deliciously savory story: "Famous Assassin Caught Naked!" In a world of choking liars, the story of a nude man in a drive thru was titillating enough but make the perp a world class assassin and it's an editor's headline dream come true. Before the arrest, few were those who knew the name Goupil, afterwards, few were those who did not. "I guess he was trying to show off his gun," snorted a late night comedian - and the criminals of the world laughed.

________________________________________________

"Behold! I come like a thief! Blessed is he who stays awake and keeps his clothes with him, so that he may not go naked and be shamefully exposed."
- Revelation 16:15

The nightmares were gone. The feeling was gone. The charade was gone. Why wasn't he gone too? All that had ever been, gone in the twinkling of an eye. When planning a precision hit, one always has a plan B, an escape route if things go wrong. But Goupil had no plan B for being stripped of his identity.

Stubbly faced, Goupil rolled out of bed in a bedroom that spoke nothing of himself - in a condominium that spoke nothing of its owner. He proceeded to the shower stall, swim trunks on in permanent defeat. He did nothing naked now - ever. It was a personal vow he'd made to himself, at least one item of clothing on at all times. In never exposing himself, Goupil hoped to find salvation.

He hadn't learned his lesson yet.

***

With his Icarus wings melted, Goupil sat stranded in a darkened SUV at a nearby park on a burgeoning Spring day. Lazily, his eyes gazed upon the dancing shadows on his hood as the wind and trees partnered in playful chaos, the warm weather drawing in as winter's cold clung to a hopeless fate. What use the world for a recovering assassin, a waster of life? "Or is there no place for me anywhere?" he sighed. On a whim, he decided to sell this stealth mobile of his, it belongs to a past life.

Strange how life can turn on a dime! Had it been inevitable all along? To float between the responsibilities of heaven and the torments of hell was the one guiding force of his life: no love, no hate - a serenity of nothingness. But that was revealed as a madman's dream and the true canvass of his life remained blank. After a lifetime of avoidance, time came to paint his true self at last.

Goupil had hoped to escape life before that moment arrived.

A lifetime of hiding

***

In America - the country of Goupil's arrest - a flasher engenders many times the outrage of a mere killer. The Frenchman chafed at his branding of "sex offender". He reviled the court: "I no rape anyone! I no molest child! You treat me like goat fucker! What is wrong with you people?" That's when Goupil found out assassins come in many forms and take life in many ways. Beware a bad man in robes, all his deaths are thrill kills.

The mandated therapist, seated securely in the knowledge of her moral superiority, sat facing the foreign barbarian and his twisted sexual mores. She explained to the heathen how the girl he exposed himself to was irreparably damaged and likely could need counseling for years to come. Like a dug in tick, she patiently determined she was to bring light to his darkened soul. Goupil balked at facing this Mad Hatter.

"But she laughing whole time! Big smile on her face. She peek of own free will!"

"She's too young to know better. That kind of exposure can damage a young mind's psyche."

"Exposed to what? I'm man! We all have one! What she do on wedding night? Wear blindfold?"

"Sir, it's a matter of consent."

"So I say, 'Hey you wanna see dick?' first that make it OK?"

"No, she cannot legally view a penis at her age. We have laws in this country."

"You joke, right? Pull dumb Frenchman's leg? America lead world in teenage babies! How you think baby get in them? Tooth fairy?"

"It's because of our high rate of teenage pregnancy we need these laws of repression. We protect our children here."

"Then go arrest horny teenage boyfriend!"

"Sir, it's your own sickness we are dealing with here today. Penile exposure is a serious offense and I don't think you realize the gravity of what you did. Your mind is warped and we need to fix it."

"Mon Dieu! I say same to you!"

Despite his brave bluffing, Goupil inwardly wilted in the face of his Salem prosecutor. Like a spaceman whose tethering line has snapped, his hands reached out for something to grasp but found only emptiness, drifting further and further out in deep, cold space. His life of illusion gave him no real guideposts to hang onto, the devil's laughter in his ears at his realization of futility. All this time thinking himself the "smart one" collapsed into a harrowing black hole of despair. Is there any coming back?

***

Goupil didn't know why he hadn't noticed it before, but the blankness of his condominium embarrassed him. No magazines, no pictures of interest upon the wall, no books of passion - just simply his jailhouse Bible. He'd taken the warning of the naked man in Revelation as a personal admonition. Could he find true guidance in this book called The Word? He did not know - but anything was better than drifting deeper into outer space alone and unloved.

"I have no hope! Must you make a man blind mon Dieu?"

The doorbell rang in startling interruption, Goupil instinctively reaching for a gun that was not there. Enemy action! Had to be for such an outcast as he. If reporter I shoot! Dousing the light and sliding to the peep hole he spied two young, white shirted boys with large, dark ties hanging from sweaty necks. In careful reconnaissance, Goupil noted two bicycles leaning against a courtyard tree. Too curious - and desperate - not to answer, he opened the door to an inquisition he would fail.

"Hello, sir. We're from the Mormon church and we want to share the holy Word with you. Is your soul not saved? Do you live in fear of eternal damnation? If so, we have good news for you."

Scanning with practiced eyes, Goupil found no guile in their stance. Perhaps God wanted him to live even if none of his fellow Earthlings did. It seemed too easy somehow but...

"Yes," he admitted. "I live in fear. Please, show me the Way."

Can you spot the French assassin?

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There really is nothing new under the sun