"First off, I didn't do it. I don't need none of that. I'm a screw up, but I'm not some kinda sicko. They're gonna say all kinds of bullshit about my record and whatever, but I didn't do it." "Do what?" Luke looked up from the place where the stucco met the cement floor of the porch. "Nobody told you?" "Told me what?" William drank from his coffee mug, hoping it would clear ... +more+
William couldn't remember the last time he liked himself. Sometime during college, maybe. After getting that first A in Anthropology. A scrappy, budding young intellectual. Not yet cynical, not yet tired, merely intimidated. No, he did not like himself even then. He was too fearful, too compromising, too obedient, too good. He ducked out of the bathroom mirror before it could do any more damage and headed to the kitchen. He ... +more+
Looking Hernandez in the eyes is taking a risk. Stop there a moment too long and his dark pupils loose mortality on you and kick your ass. For some it is a high cliff, others a predator, and still others simply that knife from their nightmares. He could never intend this. He does not know why he makes people uncomfortable when they look into his eyes. How could he? In ... +more+
Pickem Sneed picked. First he picked Arkansas cotton, then he picked Washington apples and pears, and in California he picked all manner of crop, apricots, peaches, plums, apples, pears, oranges, grapes, berries, tomatoes and later, picked his own land, picked his own crops, and picked his own pickers. Pickem said, "My Daddy named me Pickem, my Mama made me strong, and I just tried to keep up." So it was that ... +more+
Clara, his ex-wife, called him Will. Hernandez (I'll get to him later) calls him William. Everyone else in town, at least those who knew him as a boy, call him Billy and there's simply no shaking them of it. He never liked Billy, but he admits it feels too natural to change now. William, on the other hand, appeals to his inner adult. The first person to ever refer to him as William ... +more+