A hard call. The fella in me who ain’t a friend of reason wanted to hoist the black flag. The wiser part asked me to slow down and do right by the folks counting on me. This one’s about knowing when to swing and when to walk away clean. Two wolves. Both still in the room.

Back in Duwali Bottoms,

A fog-thick morning on the Bong Song plain, 1966. Carl Sr. hears something in an empty village he can’t unhear, and the choice he makes there will follow him into the dark. Back home, a jail cell, a swollen eye, and a Papaw with a foot of beard and a full head of steam.