The Ol' Outlaw

I got Outlaw blood in me and a Devil on my heels.

Hiss with a flame touching the smoke in my lips. The numbing death shook hands with my breathing tube, not letting it know it was acid in my bones. The sweet thrill of the air was a quicker way to the dirt nap until the horns of Gabriel blow.

                In truth, the pills to drum my troubles back like the Hordes of Hell were deeper stabs to my soul than the bitter smoke.

                Those damn teeth of a serpent rusted my ticker a bit faster than time, but I didn't pay it no mind.

                No need to.

                Death with his dice will roll my name in time. No way of beating it; the house always wins.

                Not with a split.

                Not with a blade or a six-shooter.

                The dice always come up with snake eyes in the end. It's not about how you lose but how you played - that matters, son.

                The smoke lit up the dampen night. The breath of snow hung on the air. My boots stood in the pale light of a backwater diner in the lost roads of the world. My wheels at rest as I huffed and puffed to blow this weariness away.

                Nowhere to go.

                Nowhere to be.

                Not a soul was waiting for me there or here.

                Alone in the dark like the smoke between my fingers, burning slow away like the hands of the skeleton clock. The way it should be if you had to know. The way the angels handed me the dead's man hand.

                With a nod, smirk, I played the cards well.

                I stood there watching the flames burn away another second, another roll when an ol' outlaw came strolling out of the trees. He held his side, a pistol in the other hand, and an outlaw mask around his neck.

                He crumbles into my arms with Johnny Law on his heels.

                We sat against my midnight car, watching the ghost moon doze back to the grave.

                He nodded at me and asked, 'You an outlaw, son?'

                'Not sure what you mean, sir.'

                He grinned -

                'I’m no criminal, sir.’

                ‘Either am I, son.’

                ‘But you’re an outlaw?’

                ‘Oh, son, you think an outlaw and a criminal is the same thing, huh? They’re not, no son, not at all. A criminal think of being a gangster as a swell thing, thug life on the street in the hood, bang, bang, cool kicks.

                ‘But the cutthroats on the Hill playing the game with your rights, laws, and your freedom. Wining and dining behind closed doors to line their pockets in three-piece suits.

                ‘They're the same as they thug kids on the street running the w****s and the meth.

                ‘You see, a criminal needs the system to be them, and by Hades’s b***h of a hound, the systems need its criminals to keep you fearful of the dark. Two different sides of the same silver coin.

                ‘An outlaw, son, is neither. An outlaw is a man who wants to live his life God’s way. Be his own man. He sits on the side, keeping a watchful eye on the flipping coin.

                ‘An outlaw stays calm when the shooting of the New Dogma comes chewing flames at the ol’ ideas of the ol' world.

                ‘An outlaw does nothing until they say you need to take the knee at the tip of this barrel.

                ‘That’s when an outlaw picked up his guns, puts on his hat, and steps up to meet those devils. He snarls in the face of it already and willing to go down fighting.

                ‘He’ll gun down those thug kids, duck it out with Johnny Law, and he might get a knife in the belly for it. He knows the rightful walk is a lonely one to the gallows, split blood in the politician’s face -

                ‘Shake the hands of the Holy Man -

                ‘Kiss his gal farewell -

                ‘and go to those ropes with a smile. He knows where he’s going - home to God’s land. Hopefully, the Almighty will place him on the edge of Heaven, where he sits on his porch watching that coin be flip into the flames, and wave at the Lord as He strolls on by to taste the ol’ outlaw’s wine.’

                The hounds of Johnny Law rung out from those pitch trees and this ol’ outlaw place his mask in my hands -

                ‘Take these,’

                He spun his six-shooter to me.

                ‘Run, son, be a true outlaw, walk alone, but walk right. Johnny Law will come, but we're condemn anyhow, born in sin, die in it. It’s the way of life.

                ‘Be God’s man.

                ‘Be who God wants you to be and tell those with the silver coin - “Go to Hell!”