I want to tell you a story. It’s a little story about friends, hard work, bad love, and murder. I’m a physical guy. I’m no writer. So getting this story on paper won’t be the easiest thing I’ve ever done. But I’m thinking, how hard can it be? What if I just rock back and fire, like you and me were sitting at my kitchen table having a cup of coffee, shooting the breeze? I don’t see why that wouldn’t get the job done.
Here’s me: Terry Saltz. Six-five. Twenty-six. Smart-ass. Long hair tied back with a piece of leather shoelace. Black mustache that tends to turn down at the ends. Plaid flannel shirts, and the elbows on most of them are threadbare or blown out altogether. Old faded jeans, and I didn’t buy ‘em that way. Work boots.
I’m a carpenter. I build stuff. I like the smell of sawdust. Put me up in the air walking a beam with a hammer in my hand and my tool belt riding low, thumpin’ and bumpin’, and I’m a happy man. Yeah.
My story started like this: Back in the early nineties I hit a rough patch. I guess I let some things pile up on me and I guess I wasn’t handling the stress or whatever. I got stoned and drunk in a bar one night, trashed the place, hit some guys, got arrested, pleaded guilty, and went to jail.
Besides the jail time, I got a big old fine, about a bajillion hours of community service, and a shitload of probation. While I was in jail I lost my job, my wife, my truck, and my mobile home. Losing that truck was the part that hurt the most. It was the first vehicle I ever bought new. I loved that truck.
I thought it was pretty much the end of the line for me. I was a busted, divorced, unemployed loser. Sitting in jail. The future looked like a big ugly brick wall.
