Well

Renewed my concealed weapon permit yesterday.  Not that I had to renew it.  The state of Florida allowes permitless carry.  Just makes me feel better to have a permit.  Makes me feel . . . legitimate, yeah, that must be the word.  This is also the land of stand-your-ground.  I don’t think I need to explain that.  When I visited mama back in December and passed the state line into Georgia a sign read:  Hurry Back to the Free State of Florida.  We’re free, no doubt.  Free to carry firearms without a permit, free to use said firearms to stand our ground and free to execute.  Last year we ranked 4th in execuions with 105.  I remember one time - a news break during a football game - when a judge informed some guy sentenced to death that the state of Florida has not only revoked his right to live freely but to live at all.  Well.  Some folk say that the death penalty doesn’t deter folk from killing.  Well.  It ain’t called capital deterrence.  It’s called capital punishment, so I don’t think its aim is to deter.  Do it, don’t do it.  You have the free will granted to you by God.  Do it.  Sizzle.  Though these days it’s mostly lethal injection.  Die like any common drug addict.  Some states allow a choice:  firing squad, hanging.  A couple states (rumor is many will copy) are using nitrogen suffocation.  Given the choices of electric chair, hanging, lethal injection, firing squad, gas chamber, nitrogen suffocation I would choose firing squad.  See, they set it up so no one knows if he’s the one who fired the lethal shot and I don’t want my death to be a burden on anyone else, not even my killer.  That’s a weird, controversial thing:  cop kills some perp and the media gets crazy - why ain’t he just shot him in the shoulder or leg, why he gotta kill him?  Well.  Police, like soliders, are trained to aim for body mass.  It’s a big target.  Involved lotsa organs.  And the human body is so fucking fragile, fuck up one organ and the rest go in line.  I ain’t the best shot.  Qualified as a marksman.  Barely missing sharpshooter.  So, again, I ain’t the best shooter.  Even if I was, someone breaking into my home, I would aim for body mass, just shoot the fucker.  Stand my ground.  Don’t care about your situation:  poor, hungry, desperate, mental, whatever, threaten me, my family, my babies, my home, gonna fill your body mass with holes.  Well.  That ain’t exactly true.  Ain’t the shoot first ask questions later type of guy.  I’d warn the fucker.  Give em a chance to retreat, back down.  A chance.  Singular, dig?  Yeah, there’s a semi-auto in my glove compartment, two in my home accompanied by an AR, a shotgun and a revovler because it’s cooooool.  At the firing range I like to fire it with the slam-the-hammer method as Billy the Kid must’ve done.  Firing a gun one minute; making sure the squirrels in my yard are fed the next.  Field-stripping my rifle one minute; insulating a shelter for the feral neighborhood cats the next.  Does that make me a renaissance man?  Well.  Read my old field manual then a chapter of the Bible; think about Dostoevsky then cook rice; shower then get all mucky changing the oil of a neighbor’s car (she’s old and poor and stupid when it comes to cars); do 50 push-ups then smoke a cigarette; do 50 sit-ups then hit a shot of whiskey; feed the small, wild mammals in the neighborhood then feed the my snakes mice; promise myself not to get involved with a woman then invite her in; fill the gas tank then drive over a bridge across town for the fuck of it.  Well.  There’s a shit ton of brigdes here.  In fact, it’s the “city of bridges” what with all the water, St. John River, San Pablo River (intracoastal waterway), Trout River, Atlantic Ocean . . . humma humma . . . there’s just a shit ton of water and bridges.  There’s alway some kind of body of water everywhere, in every neighborhood, even if it’s just a damn retention pond (which kids always drown in during the Summer) and I guess that’s Florida.  Water, bridges, firearms, hurricanes, thunderstorms, heat waves (God Almighty, them), icy roads and freeze warning outta fucking nowhere:  swagger around how you please, nope, wait, did you just blink? now you need a jacket, an umbrella, stay the fuck inside and off the roads!  Florida is definitely female.  Never knwo what you’re gonna get.  Love me.  Protect me.  Give me my freedom.  Sacrifice for me.  I don’t need you!  Be loyal.  Fuck off.  Keep me cozy.  Stop making me sweat!  Ain’t you gonna pay?  I don’t need your money!  Ain’t you gonna drive?  I can open my own door, thank you.  Well.  You want me to cater to you or you want me to fuck and forget you because you’re independent enough to forget about me?  Either way, sweetheart.  No resistance from me.  But I don’t want an argument from you, dig?  Speaking of which - sissy called me for shits and giggles.  My niece has a new friend who’s mom is a colonel in the Air Force which is no more than a captain in the Army.  Her last name is Moose.  Colonel Moose.  I said, “Hell, how high do the airmen have to salute to acknowledge her antlers?”  which resulted in another female angry with me.  Well.  Shit.  I’m tired of giving a shit.  Be pissed because I went to war instead of staying with you because I took you to the opera and didn’t start a romantic relationship with you because  I didn’t cry and beg you to reconsider when you broke up with me because of whatever reason.  I’m a working class man who depends on his paycheck and I own guns and I don’t eat meat and I’m a card-carrying Republican (and to the Republic for which it stands - reads our Pledge of Allegiance) and I don’t want females on the front lines of combat and I worship the Christian God and I stop to help strangers and I enjoy alcohol and cigarettes and I relieve myself of rock-n-roll with opera and I it’s important, vital, to me to be physically strong and I prefer a book to a movie, a conversation to a fuck, a fuck to false promises, death to empty life.  Well.  Prefer me or reject me.  Whatever.  I will lay you down or lift you up.  But not shirtless.  Because it’s rude to be bare-chested in the company of strangers in your home.  Tailgating is another situation.  I will open the door and pull out the seat not because I think you are weak but because I think you are worth the chivalry.  If that abuses your feminist beliefs . . . well . . . fuck you.  Or, probably, not.  I like to keep my body strong and my mind strong enough to recognize my body’s strength.  That’s what I’ve got going for me (ignore the face, the neck, some of the chest) and I know how to take advantage.  I take advantage of Wounded Warriors Project, headquartered here in Jax on Belfort Rd which I pass back and forth to work.  I get my therapy there.  Worship there.  Contend with my ugliness there.  Funny thing.  Ain’t no women there.  Well.  One of the therapists was a female.  A pure blessed unadulerated unblemished panty-hosed skirted female.  She’d cross her hosed-legs, feet in heels (yeah, hump a mile in them, sweetheart, then fall into an offensive posture with your rifle then breathe grains of sand then  . . . ) so I’m going to surrender to this rant.  The whole damn block of it.  I’ve slept app. 12 hrs in the past three days and I mean a dead to the world kind of sleep.  When my second job ends in mid-February it won’t be such a snatch it when you can deal with sleep.  Well.  Unless I decide to get another second job.  If I get restless I might drive down US 1(miracle mile) that leads on down to Key West.  I drive a portion of that miraculous mile every time I drive to work on the docks.  The closer to work, the saltier the air.  Salt air.  Ocean air.  Well.  Estuary air.  Where the ocean has an affair with the river.  Know what?  Totally out of nowhere - if a beautiful woman showed up naked and said “do whatever” I would have her get in my bed and I would get in beside her and have her massage my head.  Lord, the ache, Lord, the physical hassle.  Ache ache ache throb throb throb sting sting sting pierce pierce pierce where relief relief relief?  Wouldn’t even have to be actual.  A narrative.  Yes.  A soothing narrative. Massage with relieving words.  A written massage.  Well.  Permit is in my wallet.  Firearms are where they should be.  Snakes are comfortably toasting under their heat lamps.  Tarantula is being what it is.  Safely and with all its God given beauty.  Rabbit is being an asshole.  Cute furry fucker.  Gonna punish him with head scratches and belly rubs, yeah, bunnies like that.  And since I have no company I am and will remain shirtless, half-naked, comfortable in the Florida chill.  Pour another.  Hug a pillow later.  Snug.  And wake to tomorrow, to what it brings.  Well?