Chapter 1

A smoky haze covered the two-lane blacktop as Beauregard Damon, recently of the United States Marine Corp, cruised along in the hot, muggy morning time between daybreak and sunrise. There had been a gentle rain the evening before and the heat of the July 1984 Texas morning was climbing rapidly, already making the surface moisture appears as steam rising from the highway. Either Beauregard, or Bo as he preferred, had turned the radio off hours ago since all he could get was gospel stations or some hillbilly country station out of Shreveport this far out in the boonies. His marine buddy Tommy Phillips was asleep in the passenger seat snoring like a chainsaw. The last of his thermos coffee had already made the trip to his bladder and his mouth tasted like shit from the two packs of cheap menthols he had picked up at a crossroads gas station somewhere east of Sonoma. Bo was ready to make a pit stop at the next town he came to that looked alive. Take a piss; throw some water on his face and grab some chow were on his mind right now as well as memories from the last 10 years.

The only other sound was the mellow purr of the dual exhaust from the Plymouth 360 V-8 he had built himself just before he had entered basic training. The 1972 Cuda had been his first and only car. He had bought it while a junior in high school with the money he had saved sacking groceries and stocking shelves at the Piggly Wiggly supermarket after school and on Saturdays. It wasn't much but it sure beat the hell out of pumping gas or toting 100 lb feed sacks at the Co-op. There just weren't a whole lot of jobs for a 17 year old back home in small town west Texas during the mid '70s. The main reason he had originally gotten the job wasn't so much to save for a car, although that was nice when he came across his dream ride and bought it with cash money, but to have a good reason to stay away from the house because of his son-of-a-bitch stepfather.

The Bastard, that was how Bo referred to his step father in his thoughts even though his name was Don Jennings, was pissed at the world (later turned out he was a closet homosexual) and it didn't take much to set him off and decide Bo or his mom deserved a beating. He would come home from work and they just knew it was going to be one of those nights because instead of coming in to eat supper he would walk throughout the property inside and then outside until he could find anything out of place. He had a perversion to dust or dirt anywhere in the house or a closet that wouldn't pass military inspection (that included all shoes polished and lined up straight on the closet floor). This level of cleanliness was especially hard to maintain since they lived in an old rented farmhouse surrounded by plowed fields and dirt roads.

His mom, Patty, slaved to keep her house spotless to prevent her husband from going into one of his tirades while also holding down a full time job to pay her and Bo's part, of the household expenses. Daily all floors were swept and mopped, trash cans emptied, all furniture dusted (and that meant there better not be dust on the top pleats of the drapes either), all dirty clothes washed, dried and put away, and they were expected to be seated at the dinner table with a hot meal waiting when he came in the door. The longer he had to look for something out of place the worse the beatings were going to be. Bo and Patty were expected to stay seated in silence for however long the Bastard took and some nights that could be hours.

Bo remembered one particularly bad night when the Bastard finally came in around 9PM and claimed he had found some newspaper caught in the barbed wire fence on the back property line (300 yards behind the house and not even part of the place they rented). The food was now long cold and he went into a spit-slobbering tirade about why wasn't his dinner fresh and hot. Patty had replied that it had been when he first got home so the Bastard slapped her out of her chair and told her that was her problem and she best learn to deal with it. Bo had stood up, and went to help his mom up and earned a punch in the gut for his troubles. While both of them were sprawled on the kitchen floor, the Bastard has proceeded to paint the walls with the cold food and broken dishes. He then grabbed a hand full of his wife's hair, dragged her down the hall to their bedroom, and slammed the door all the while cussing at how he was a saint for putting up with such a worthless piece of garbage. Bo began to clean up the mess all the while listening to the sounds of his mom's crying and body slams against the walls and door. This was not difficult for the Bastard to do since he was a might over six foot and pushing 260, mostly around the middle while Patty was 5' 4" and maybe 110 lbs.