The Hondo(page-2);

        On those rare occasions when Kevin and his brother Tim didn’t attend school, they went hunting together on their dad’s farm located in Raywick. They walked along a country road that ended in a cul-de-sac, where they hopped a gate and headed toward the river bottom, Tim packed his Stevens 410 single-shot shotgun and Kevin always had his reliable Remington nylon-66 .22 LR(rifle). The fescue was about waist high and very close to cutting for hay but about a hundred yards past the vaulted gate up sprang a bird, Kevin in a split second raised his rifle, aimed, and fired and feathers scattered everywhere and the bird was dead before it hit the ground. Tim screamed out, “ you got him!” Kevin grinned all day because it was a real piece of shooting if not a remarkable shot, he in a nanosecond raised his rifle and shot a small bird with a .22 rifle and not a scatter-gun, still humbles his brother Tim to have witnessed this feat,  Jesse James had nothing on Hondo. 

       The element of time expired and whence life begat that miracle it bestowed upon this blessed family. The Hardesty family were proud, honest, and diligent, yet, the only weakness was they were poor though very rich in family values and love. They managed to live in unity, unmoved and undivided by poverty and greed. The farm rearing consisted of watching the life of corn turning Lincoln green in the Springtime that towered above the fence rows toward the sun in the humid Summer and then turning into a majestic death of gold in the late Fall, this consumed their bucolic dull world and somehow took the blow of depression away from the woes of their alcoholic father. 

       The brothers often had chores to do, feed the cattle and mend fences but the very first time Kevin showed any weakness was when Tim and he were cleaning out a matted and vine-riddled fence roll when Kevin became very ill, this scared Tim to death, and he thought, was the cistern water foul and poisoned? But, he too drank from this well, Tim pondered, was it my cooking, yet, we ate the same biscuits, eggs, and bacon. Tim ran for help about a half a mile back home, Kevin was too sick to move, Tim told his dad and they both returned in their 1965 Chevrolet green truck and their dad immediately took action, loaded Kevin up, and headed back to Bardstown, farm work was over with for now, the school opened anyway in two weeks. 

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The Hondo(page-1)

       On a glorious day on June 5 in the year of 1958, the horn of the Hardesty’s abode blared as the family welcomed their new arrival, Joseph Kevin Hardesty. He weighed in as the first boy in the height and shroud of the Hardesty bough and was exalted high above the family tree. The Hardesty tree would grow to seven children, three stubborn boys, and four precocious girls, a well-bred stock of trouble and woe. Time would sprawl past those childhood days, teenage decades, and worn-out years of disappointments. But, first, let's revisit a few of those lasting and unforgettable memories. 

       Kevin was a quiet and reposed kid at St. Thomas school, he was seldom out of character, cautiously optimistic, yet, acutely enthusiastic about learning the secrets of life, and begrudgingly euphemistic in his thoughts always. The sisters of St. Thomas wore their habits in modesty, yet, were  sinister in doling out punishment in wanton pleasure, you could never go to relieve yourself to any restroom before lunch or after lunch, kids would be loading up in their routed buses home in pre-soaked urine stains in their gray pants school uniforms and eventually and ultimately the mothers of St. Thomas finally had enough of this and put an end to this draconian nonsense after the PTA took an affirmative stand, these were children of 5 and 6 years old not adults, this tragically went on for years and the nuns refused, saying, “ this is the way to God!” 

       Kevin managed to keep good grades, kept to himself, and hid away the biggest secret of all, and that was his dad was an existing alcoholic. His dad was brilliant, he knew and forgot more knowledge than most could acquire in twenty lifetimes. But, his dad was an epileptic and a deeply disturbed and troubled soul, he drank alcohol to escape these demons and the throes of these uncontrollable seizures, and who could blame him, when waking up from these convulsions and not knowing who you are and much less the names of your seven children, this had an amazing impact and traumatic effect on Kevin and the rest of the family. 

                                                                1

     

Suicidal Diary

Fraught Friday 

The afternoon rain compounded the remains of the day with an ongoing cumbrous seizure, then realigning, recovering, and reassembling all over again the memories, thoughts, and cognitive reasons of this agonizing reoccurring existence. 

Sedentary Saturday   

The allotted hour lodges upon the softness of the morning as seconds languish by in harried and chaotic disorder, stiff unrestrained drinks stifle the misery in pigments of dark unconsciousness of care, for the hour is very near. 

Sacred Sunday

The owl-lit hours fall into the break of morning. Shall I worship an unbelievable myth today?  Questions seize every mood as culpability maligns every thought as the forgiving sunlight rescues the moment.

Mundane Monday

Habitual recourse after recourse concludes every hour, monotony thrives upon the weak, enraptures and captures the frailty of the didactic reason to trudge through this solitary confinement and the ventral trouncing of self-defeat.

Torturous Tuesday 

The homily despaired curse immediately overwhelms everything, the scurrility searches out every weakness and stronghold, there’s no sidestepping or evading this cursed sickness, you’re your own enemy. 

Withered Wednesday 

This symbiotic conjunction of Thorazine, Valium and alcohol doles out in repetitive grams and shots of grateful solitude is the daily prescribed requirement of staying keel-keened.

Terminal Thursday

The golden hour was at hand when the watchman was away, the undulating throes of resignation overtook the morning, you conquered all your devoted ghosts but left the enduring demon behind. 

* My dad took his life on that memorial day of

   December 31, 1981. 

 

My New Job

 

 

 

I just started a new job today as a motivational speaker at our local funeral home and it’s not 

going too well for some reason.

 

 

Psychopomp

 

If Your God Was Real He Wouldn’t Need You To Argue His Existence

  The man-made writings were written within, 

were written therein, and were written without

truth throughout the Bible of Christians, no god

sent for prophets to prove his existence, why would he?

False as reprobate tin to sell mankind lies, to embellish 

lore as a foreboding truism, to enable fiction as a revelation,

and to bind myth as some preamble repentance for being born

upon this desolate rock of truth; if some lone gargantuan god 

exists, he need not mystery and questionable self-sacrificing 

praise to some master or landlord of debt, he would shepherd

humankind with eternal love, bless his own creation with abundant

caressing, but never persecute them with unending labyrinths, enigmatic

riddles, and purging parables, he simply would be our forgiving father and

make us all gods with immortality. 

©️3/03/2021