TIME AND TIDE



1.

DON’T TAKE YOUR GUNS TO TOWN



South Boston, MA:



Guys that look like me don’t do well in prison.



They just don’t, it’s proven fact. If you’re not one of the blacks or the Mexicans or the skinheads or the chinks, you’re in no man’s land and you might as well kill yourself on the first night because you’d only last two days, maybe a week tops and that’s if you get yourself thrown in solitary. If you’re just an average guy who’s not… Continue

BLACK LAMB

1.



RITE OF PASSAGE



Charleston, South Carolina – 1995:



If the frigid, stifling December air inside the car could somehow allow me to move my hand, the anxiety alone would surely object. I attempt to take just one tiny peek at the three-inch scar running diagonally across my palm, the one that forever connects me to Ryno, Dax, Yaya and Eddie. My best friends in the world, the ones who choreographed me through my most significant rite of… Continue

CHASING THE DRAGON

1.

“Let us depart from this

Lake of the Red Eye,

Let us separate in sorrow

From the tribe that has loved us.” – W.B. Yeats,

The Fate of the Children on Lir





So you fall for a beautiful young Chinese patron at an underground masseuse parlor off of Mott Street.



So you fall in love.



So you find out her mother is the queen of the Black Market, a contractor for professional killers, an all-star in the game of… Continue