7/22 9:45pm

That didn’t go as expected. Last time I wrote, I was ready to kiss the world goodbye.

The suburban blasting the rap drove by twice more, slower each time. I was too terrified out of my mind to realize that didn’t make a lick of sense.

The last time it passed, almost all the moaners followed. Turns out they like the thought of Mexican food just as much as much as American. There were only five or six stragglers, stuck on fences or tripping over their own broken feet in the yard below.

I didn’t notice this. My thoughts had turned to my brother and parents. They’re all gone, probably. Realized that I'd be following them soon enough. Tried to remember the sinner's prayer. Only got halfway. Knowing I was the last DeWitt on the face of the planet hadn’t really gotten to me until that moment, when I realized that taking a full bottle of Mr. Baker’s happy meds would put an end to our family line. Holding that orange bottle, I almost did it.

Then I heard a tinny bell ring under the distant thump of angry Latinos.

It wasn’t an alarm clock bell, or a kitchen timer bell. When I peaked up from my tree, I found out that the bell was attached to vanilla creme handlebars. Attached to the bars was a picnic basket with an ancient dog poking out. Behind the dog followed the rest of a creme two seater bicycle. On the front seat of the bicycle was a grizzled, pot bellied old man, the kind of guy who had seen the Tet Offensive and too many cheap beers in his long passed hay-day.

The dog barked at me.

The owner had by then gotten off the bike, and pulled out a mean sawed off shotgun from his rucksack. He blasted one of the meatsacks face away, and blasted the guts out backwards from another.

I had scrambled down, picked up my thankfully unbroken slugger and dispatched another of the moaners. It was about then the insanity of the situation hit me.

I wondered if I’d actually taken the meds, and this was some sort of drug induced hallucination. My brother told me once about trying LSD. It sounded similar to this.

The man yelled something at me, then motioned to the second seat of the bicycle. The dog barked at me again, then at one of the walkers who was heading toward the cycle. It’s head disappeared in a blood mist, and I decided to get onto the back of the bike and go with this man, his dog, and his shotgun.

Now I sit at the man’s campfire. The mangy dog, unholy union of a schnauzer and a bulldog, yawns indulgently. The man scratches the dog’s belly, and yawns himself. My savior’s name is Dave Calhoun. Crazy Old Man Dave.