In part one, John, Kailey, and others felt impressed to begin a Bible Club at their high school. Dr. Westman, one of the vice principals of the 1500 student school, was fully supportive.

T.J. Adams was a senior at the same school, and in many of the same classes as John, Kailey, and others of the Bible Club members. T.J.’s parents, his father mainly, thought it clever to name their firstborn, and as it turned out, their only child Thomas Jefferson Adams as an irony. No one got it, but fearing historical witticisms, the boy’s mother insisted on T.J. from early on.

T.J.’s father, George, had been a policeman, lasting just under a year in the force. He considered the Fire Department fortunate to have him as a transferee. Had his unauthorized-use-of-weapons charge been ten or fifteen years later, his outright removal would have been swift and sure – no transfer options offered. Responding to a domestic dispute – at a church, no less – he entered the fellowship hall. Hearing raised voices, he had  his sidearm at the ready. An accidentally dropped plate signaled the death of the church refrigerator, assassinated by deputy Fife/Adams. Reluctantly, the Fire Marshal accepted the young man based mostly on his perfect attendance record. And as long as no guns were involved, his aggressiveness was touted an asset. The Police Department was grateful to be shed of their top ranked excessive-use-of-force officer.

Guns were involved at home, however. Handguns were loaded and available at each of the two entry doors, as well as in the drawer of his night stand.

As insisted upon by Mrs. Adams, JeanAnne, the weapons near the doors were secured with trigger locks.

George, though, demanded the keys be zip-tied to the trigger guards. “What good is a locked gun?” George decried. “Uh, excuse me. Mr. Home-invader, would you give me a minute to go find a key to unlock my gun?”

JeanAnne placated her husband by tolerating sufficient training to demonstrate she could unlock the trigger, cock the piece, and shoot it – once, one time, one shot. She refused to practice further.

“But the gun at the back door is different,” George lamented.

“Too bad. Replace it with one that’s the same.”

George knew better than to push the point, satisfying himself with the victory to teach their son marksmanship proficiency.

By the time he was sixteen, the boy could hit more bull’s eyes than the father. T.J. figured it was easy, just imagine his bullying father’s face in the center of the target.

As good a shot as T.J. was, he physically took after his mother: shorter than average, small-boned and angular. His hair was fine and naturally curly when allowed to grow long, unlike his father’s dark brown and coarse hair. George sported a five o’clock shadow by noon.

“Buzz-cut the little wimp,” George told the barber as the eleven-year-old climbed onto the barber chair. “Even if he won’t man-up at least he’ll look the part. Long’s I have any say so,” George half shouted loud enough to be heard by everyone in the four-seat shop. George threw back his shoulders and strutted to a seat after attempting to make eye contact with every man in the building.

“Git tough or die, huh George,” the barber replied, snapping the drape in T.J.’s ear hard enough to make him flinch.

“Damn straight! If it wadn’t for the old lady shootin’ me, I’d set fire to the boy’s head and slap the fire out with a wet towel every month, or so. Her box of rags come out and torch the kid. Every month.” George chuckled to himself, looking around hard enough to force every man to smile or fight.

Outside the barber shop, George addressed T.J. “You better wipe that whiney look off right now. You embarrassed me in there. Small as you are you need your tough look all the time. Might keep you from getting’ your ass kicked. That might help, though.”

T.J. looked at his father, trying to decide whether to shoot him between the eyes or right in his mouth – with his own gun.

“That’s more like it,” George said, approving of T’J.s hateful glare.

Bullying of T.J. at school continued unabated day-after-day, year-after-year. Had it been stereotypical, someone would have certainly stepped in, but it was fairly common throughout humanity. T.J. was the brunt of most every joke even among friends, and the first to be tripped up, or jostled about, among unknowns. T.J. was bullied beyond anyone’s definition of normal, but not quite to the point of intervention. No one watched the everyday goings-on of a school as large as T.J.’s. And T.J. hated himself for his timidity.

+++

Jimmy Orr was new to the school. He was new to every school he’d ever attended. Normally moving in the summer, between school terms, they once moved in September, a month after school started. The single exception to their frequent family moves was between sixth and seventh grades. For sixth he attended Ramona Lane Elementary, but the next year, he was assigned North Junior High – a new school for him with nearly all new kids in his classes. The few he recognized, he didn’t like: a teacher’s pet, a freaky looking kid more shy than himself, a cocky, loud-mouth know-it-all, kids he wouldn’t have willingly befriended even if they were his first cousins.

His motto in high school had become If one kid would ask me my name without following it with a snarky, sneering “Where you from,” he would buy him a Coke. Though he was mistaken in his recall, some teachers had called him by name in class settings, he would have sworn that none had – ever.

Jimmy lived in an apartment building across the highway from Sin City Trailer Park and would have been assigned the same bus as Kailey except he preferred to ride the two-and-a-half miles on his bicycle, dashing his way through intersections, daring motorists to hit him. He didn’t care whether he lived, or died. And if only injured, he’d wage that at least nurses would call him by name.

Jimmy’s mother travelled a lot – obviously. She was an RN, a Registered Nurse who accepted temporary positions through a Professional Temporary Agency. She was excited by the thrills of new experiences, eager to carry her collected knowledge and skills from setting to setting. And her more-than-substantial pay allowed her to be generous with her family, her seventeen-year-old scholar who’d skipped third grade and was the youngest freshman at State College, her middle child, Jimmy, and her surprise daughter, four-year-old Chassidy. She wore out the joke about her baby being named after how she should have been with her third husband, the father who’d skipped upon learning of his eighteen-year commitment as a parent.

Jimmy thought he liked his new Dad, his mother’s San Antonio trophy, a hospital maintenance man and weekend rodeo enthusiast. She’d literally stumbled into him at the OKC General Hospital. Tired of the doctor types, the care-free, macho-manner that Rodeo Bob exuded was energizing, his raw advances hypnotically spell-binding.

“Secret’s stayin’ in the saddle,” Bob said to Julie. “Myself, I prefer bareback.” He winked at her with an Elvis conspiratorial smile. Bob saw Julie enter the hospital cafeteria and waited for her to choose a table before slipping into the seat beside her, edging it a bit closer as he settled in. He felt certain his approach would be welcomed – her Hollywood make-up, and her sized-too-small scrubs. Julie’s noticeable high-beams and absence of a wedding ring spelled rodeo time for Bob.

Julie leaned back far enough to give him the once-over, noting his worn cowboy boots and rodeo belt buckle. “They let you wear those in here?” Julie asked, ignoring his blatant innuendo.

“We’re in Oklahoma, darlin’,” Bob replied. “And you got buck wrote all over you.” Bob displayed a toothy grin.

Despite telling herself not to, Julie’s blush was obvious.

“Now, me, I’d as soon they throw those buzzers out. I’d ride ‘til that beast rolled over, lit a cigarette, and screamed whoa!”

Julie slapped a hand to her mouth a second too late, snorting from her nose as she stifled a guffawing laugh. Finally controlling herself, she spoke. “No dime store sequins on you, are there?”

“Honey, I don’t just order my steak rare, I’d eat it raw if they’d serve it.” Bob winked as he grinned wide enough to show all his teeth.

“Tomorrow. Somebody already asked if I’d switch days off with her. I’ll take her up on it and meet you…”

“Give me your address and I’ll be ready to ride.”

Marriage was inevitable.

Jimmy’s older brother Steve was hardly ever home, spending many nights and most weekends with friends, before going off to college.

Back in eighth grade Jimmy tried out for football. He’d always felt he was athletic and could excel. He had passed on Little League a few years back after watching his brother sit on the bench, game-after-game. He knew that he was faster and stronger than Steve, but he refused to suffer the humiliation of hearing his mother bawl out the coach in front of all the other kids. No way. At football try-outs he learned his name was “Next”. Even if he could win a spot on the team, his heart wasn’t in it. Every other kid had a supporting fan club. And then, to top it off, Julie, his mother, wasn’t there to pick him up that day. The walk home was excruciating with what he learned later was a hemorrhoid. His dream, his last hope at acceptance, was over.

Jimmy tried harder to adopt Bob as a father figure than he had the last one, unsure whether to “Sir” him, or “Buddy” him. What he was sure of, though, was that Bob was there for the ride, not the job. “Saddles seat only one,” Bob responded to Jimmy’s solitary request to go to the arena with Bob one Saturday.

Within weeks of the marriage, rodeo season started. Bob was home on some weekdays, but not many. And none for Jimmy, only for Julie and her bed ’n beer as he joked. Within a year of their marriage, he was gone for good, and they were yet in a new city and a new school.

Baby sister Chassidy was a Day Care child from her one-month birthday. Mom’s little surprise devoured all her adventurous spirit and energy. Jimmy, no longer the sharer of explorations that their various moves offered, had been on his own since she was born. Rodeo Bob offered not even a glimmer of hope, or acceptance.

In his senior year, along with his quest for one soul to speak to him without scorn, the top agenda item was to locate a train track, train stop, or train yard where box cars travelled slowly enough to hop. It became a challenge, that if he were to find one, he’d be compelled to take it that very moment, as though an omen.

He knew he could hitchhike, but figured cops would get him quick. He also figured it’d be easy to get a homeless man to buy a bus ticket for him, a large enough tip as payment. But the train would be his sign, his starting gun, his signal to go.

In his search for just the right train, he saw how easy and certain it would be to jump in front of a train. Watching from an ancient arch overpass, he wondered if he could time it to land midair in front of a locomotive, if it would feel like being fly-swatted. From the same overpass, he saw what struck him with awe – a boy not much older than himself obviously buying a handgun from another youth. Both as black as the gun, he was quite sure that the gun didn’t care about race or age.