The Homecoming of Keith Boyd
Chapter 20

Copyright© 2017 by MysteryWriter

Fred Boyd his brother.
Alice Boyd his sister in law.
Nephew John 15
Niece Gabby 13
Jo Anne Wall old girl friend
Windy Wall her ex husband.
Lewis and Ellie Keith’s in laws.
Sarah Marsh retro hippie
General Briggs rd
Doris owner of the consignment shop.
Jo Anne Joyner Wall : Keith’s first girlfriend. Three girls 16 13 10
oldest daughter ginger
Mr Jessup buyer of Keith’s scooter.
Rebecca Avondale deacon and keith’s client.
Marsha stylist to Rebecca
Gulfcrest hotel/casino
Elanor,Mark and Simon family being stalked
Sylvia Amos sheriff’s detective.
Willow goth chick. Computer nerd
Abdi arab family victim of arson.
Ginger Moss Willow’s mother
Mr Serpico client in motel.
Liam Amos hunter.
Jasper Amos Liam’s son
Jerry Geyser first separated man to stay in cabin/tent.
Lou Anne Mason justice dept
Jill one of the federal cops.
Ashley Marcy’s friend.
Nurse Jane at hospital in grenada
Rodney Markham and Marcus Wilbert Deacon’s attackers
Sylvia Simmons (Marcy’s client) aka sonya
Mark Wilson sheriffs detective.
Lisa Preston mother of delinquent cook
Mike preston catfisherman and cook
Agent Rogers Doj
Marsha Edwards the girl who had a drug reaction in one of Keith’s cabin.
Debbie Schultz my first trailer rental not in danger.
Barbara Matros photography community college instructor.
Sally Rider and Teddy Martin his first bride and groom.
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The day after the meeting with my faculty adviser, I gave serious thought to giving it all up. Why I would just give up would be hard for anyone who hadn’t been there to understand. Barbara asked the question that I asked myself, but never admitted. Of course I never admitted I even knew he answer.

“What the fuck are you looking for in this school?” Barbara put it into words for me.

I didn’t need any more money, so that wasn’t it. I gave it a few hours thought, then shut the question down while I played tug with Chisum. Chisum gave up and fell asleep on the carpet in front of my bed. Three hours later I was exhausted and staggered off to bed leaving my clothes on the floor.

I tried to forget it and drift off to sleep. The problem was I was finding it impossible to relax enough to breathe. Without being able to calm down, I couldn’t relax enough to sleep, let alone enough to figure out the answer to the questions.

As humans usually do, I drifted off to sleep while my mind was wrapped in cotton wool. Just as I drifted into unconsciousness I saw the face of Phil Polish. He was the airman 1st class who was on the gate post with me. For no reason at all my mind just shut down and it was all gone again.

The next morning before I did anything, I tried to remember what I had thought about Phil. I couldn’t for the life of me remember what I thought or why. That day had been a blank since the British supply truck exploded and hell became real. Phil turned into a red mist. He had been standing in front of me and just dissolved in front of me. He was just gone in a second. That image I had never admitted seeing especially to myself.

Why after all the years had I remembered how I felt that day? That was also one of the questions that needed to be answered. Something had caused me to remember. They were not real memories just images. Like images on the view finder of my new digital camera. The images were terrifying, as I tried to make sense of them and what they meant.

Some of the images weren’t terrifying. Those were just disconcerting. Some of the images were lost inside the confusion that was my scrambled mind. One that didn’t seem related to anything was an image from the sand box. It was the image of a soap mug and shaving brush set. When I got the chance over there, I used them for shaving. I hadn’t shaved at all since the accident. I hadn’t owned a razor of any kind since that day. I did own a set of barber’s electric clippers to keep my head and beard mostly free of hair.

The flash of that image of a shaving mug, a Schick single edge razor, and a tooth brush spread out carefully on a raw two by four filled my mind. The image was also included a large broken piece of sheet glass mirror leaning against the vinyl wall of the circus tent. I made the image in my mind real. I lit the image with two candles burning inside a clear but dirty glass holder. I had rescued the glassware from a yard sale months before. At the time I purchased them, I had no idea what I would every use it for.

I shot the still life over three days. Some images were from the evening, some from the morning, some from the failing light of evening. I ended with half a dozen which would do, and two which I felt were superior. One of them was good enough to have printed as a gift, and I had one made small for my own wall. That image seemed to calm me down.

Over the weeks it took to get that image completed, I found that some images were calming and some were upsetting. Either way the inanimate objects had great power over me.

Not to mention the power I found in the camera. I found the camera I wanted to use for the deacons party after researching every camera with a four star rating. I also wrote people who were in the business. What I didn’t want was a back pack full of expensive cameras and lenses. I wanted a camera, with a zoom lens, which also had enough resolution for the images to be manipulated in a post production setting. I wanted it capable of being cropped and still enlarged to twenty by thirty inches.

I’m sure there were plenty of cameras that would fill the bill, but I chose two Panasonic hybrid still cameras. One was four hundred dollars and one was six hundred when purchased from large on line camera stores.

The smaller of the two was used for my two still life images. The one in the contest, and the one in Fred and his estranged wife’s home, were both shot with the cheaper of the two cameras. I used it only because it was lighter in weight and easier to work into small places. The more expensive one was better for control and stability. The plan was to use it on a quick release tripod for events and portraits.

Then of course I decided that I needed a faster computer for processing the images. I found that I had obviously not thought the amount of work and expense though. I very quickly had two grand invested in photography. I found I had made a fifty dollar return on my investment. Not exactly a great overnight success, I thought.

I even carried the small lighter weight camera with me up the river. I found the it was more than enough camera for tourist shots. I even shot a couple of deer standing on the banks of the Yazoo river. I got that shot on the first time I trusted myself with the camera in a Kayak. Running up and down the river was just too dangerous with the good cameras, so I only made a couple of runs with even the cheapest one. After a close call I switched back to the retarded phone for my shots on the river.

I worked around the campground and the Gatehouse while I waited to shoot the Deacon’s birthday party. I rode the scooter from the Gatehouse to Deacon’s daughter’s fancier house the morning of the party. I helped out some while waiting for the Deacon’s daughter’s house to become and event venue.

The plan was to have the party at her place beginning at 4PM. I had arrived early to be sure that I was there on time. Since I was there, I helped Marcy and Ash set up things. I wished I had invited Alice along. She knew more than any of us about organizing a party.

I began shooting candid photos when I arrived. I walked and shot photographs for and hour then sat down on a chair for a ten minute break. Ash came over to talk to me. I checked to make sure Deacon was in conversation with one of the local cops while I socialized with Ash.

“So you want me to fix you a plate?” she asked.

“No thanks. I’m going to stay alert. I might grab a roll with some pork bar-be-que on it later. You know after everyone start to leave,” I explained.

I made shots of Deacon with everyone I could. A few were candid but most were candid portrait shots. Those are casual portraits, but I got to control the lighting and the backgrounds. Also I made sure the subjects looked respectable. No hands on their partner’s ass kind of thing.

It was 10PM when the party came to an end. The food was all put away and the rented tables and chairs packed away by 12PM.

“I’m headed over to that motel out on the Greenville Road,” I explained to Marcy. “I’m going to be headed out in the morning.”

“I had planned on you staying with us,” she said with no particular expression.

“You sure about that?” I asked.

“You are already here. Riding across town in the dark on that scooter is not even close to safe,” she said. “If anything happens to you, Ash would never forgive me. Discussion closed.”

“Alright heaven knows I’m a skinflint,” I agreed with a smile.

I checked into Marcy’s version of a B & B then sat in her fancy kitchen drinking iced tea, made from real tea leaves until 3AM. Then I went to bed alone, which lasted an hour before Ash joined me. It was five in the morning before I fell asleep for three hours.

Since Chisum had been with Alice and Gabby, I didn’t have to hurry back. I did call before lunch to be sure they were doing okay. Once I knew for sure I headed home on the Greenville Road. The newer, stronger, faster, scooter made shorter work of the trip. Yes it still took five hours, which was three hours longer than the slowest auto on the road would have taken. But I was home by sunset, which was the most important thing.

Alice and Gabby brought Chisum home and he almost licked me to death. The difference between Chisum and Hondo did not go unnoticed by anyone present.

“He is the most loving dog I have ever seen,” Gabby said.

“He doesn’t love me more, Hondo just didn’t know how to show it,” I said quietly. Yeah I missed that sad old dog. Chisum would never be as independent as Hondo, but it was a small flaw, I decided.

By the time I finished with Deacon’s images it was full on spring time. All winter long I had put off Jasper’s request that I open an addition to the campground. He wanted a minimum of two more cabins. I already had enough room in the campground, if I built a duplex unit on the second trailer space. Since I had never rented it for a trailer even once, it made sense to use the space for a cabin tent.

I paid Jasper to help the man who had helped me build the two existing cabins. We planned to add two more outside toilets to the pod. That brought their number to four. We also added one more outdoor shower unit, bringing that number to two. The bathhouse was the same PVC pipe and used heavy advertizing banner construction as we used for the cabin. The PVC frames made sure that any repairs would be simple and inexpensive, so I decided to continue using the same construction methods and materials.

The buildings had been in the plans all winter, so the materials were on hand. The construction was like another huge Lego game. It took the three of us a complete weekend to accomplish the project.

All of the cabins had gas heat and exterior grade electrical services even though they were inside a tent type structure. Even when the cabins were empty the bath house pod required some heat in the winter. But only on freezing nights. There was some costs, but it was minimal since I controlled the utilities from my almost smart phone. When we didn’t have any customers, I drained the lines to the bathhouse pod. Which eased the cost of the utilities during cold weather.

Since it was late spring, we got the four cabins ready to rent. Willow came in and did an addition to the website including the cat fishing expedition advertisement. It was an all in one package which Willow and Jasper collaborated to flesh out.

“Come on Keith, it’s a natural. You include a Kayak to use in the river as part of the package. Getting it from here to the river is up to the customer. They know going in that they have to transport it to the pubic access. You just buy the roof top carrier.” Jasper said.

“Bullshit, I’ll buy the Kayaks and roof pads, but everything else is their problems. Jasper, if you want to hold their hands that’s fine by me. You organize the excursions and pay me. Otherwise I’ll organize them and pay you to guide them, if they insist on a guide, but I doubt they will,” I explained.

When Boar season opens, you will have room for twice a many hunters on those really busy weekends,” I explained. “For that you won’t have to invest anything but a few hours labor.”

During all these improvements, I was still having flashbacks. I was surprised that the flashbacks helped me regain some of my memory. It took me days at times to figure out what the images meant. I usually made a still life from the images that I saw in my head. I figured I would make a show and call it trip through a diseased mind.

It was in June when Alice called me. “Keith how is my order coming?” she asked.

“I got the Boar Sausage and almost all the catfish. I should have it all by this weekend. If not I’ll recruit Jasper or one of the other hangers-on to help. Why are you worried?”

“Not really, but I have an urgent request from a client,” Alice informed me.

“What is so urgent?” I asked.

“Sally Rider is getting married for the third time in two weeks. She is doing her own reception. Actually all her friends are doing a pot luck dinner after the wedding,” she said.

“That sounds like fun, but not for you of course,” I said.

“Well she wants some photographs of the wedding party and a couple of shots at the reception. She asked me if I knew anyone,” Alice explained.

“She does have enough money to pay for the pictures doesn’t she?” I asked.

“According to her she does,” Alice said.

“Okay then why are you calling, and not her?” I asked.

“She wanted me to help since she is marrying Teddy Martin. She was afraid you knew him from high school,” she said.

“Did you explain I have traumatic amnesia?” I asked.

“Yes but if you see him, you will probably remember him,” Alice said.

Alice didn’t even know about the flash back images I had begun happening.

“He was Jo Ann Walls ex-husband. He isn’t her kids’ father, just her first husband.

“Jeez, I think everybody here is inbred,” I said. I thought a second then added, “Tell her to call and I’ll give her a price.”

We were still working on the campground when Sally Rider’s wedding happened. It was held at the 2nd Baptist Church of Washington County. The service was due to begin at 4PM. It started about twenty minutes late. It was my first wedding as the photographer. I should have realized that the late start was a bad omen, but I didn’t worry about it at all.

 
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