Chapter 1
1-1 Pub 3rd Draft - RH edit in progress
Book 1, Chapter 1 111
Answer this strange question. What fear does a high school sophomore boy hold which is greater than the fear of death?
Roll this question around in your mind. Hold onto your answer. I have answered this question in my mind. I'll share my answer with you. First, allow me to illustrate how I overcame this fear and conquered my goal.
I am a high school sophomore boy. I have a plan. My mission is to capture the best looking girl in the Texas panhandle. Her name is Lariat Prince. She is a freshman, soon to become a sophomore in high school. Lariat is also an athlete. In her small school district, she is a talented member of the freshmen girls' basketball team, soon to be promoted to the varsity squad.
Lariat is a quarter-inch shorter than five feet tall. She has dark hair bouncing off her shoulders. Lariat Prince is drop dead gorgeous with a body to die for. Lariat has it all. She's beautiful, highly intelligent, and capable of walking into a room and turning every boys' head. Her physical allurement is so powerful she also turns every girl's head in the room.
My problem is I don't think Lariat Prince knows I exist. An additional problem is the fact I don't have a face similar to the face of Sam Elliott. I have several problems. I can give you a list. I am not a quarterback on my high school varsity football team. I resent letter jackets (varsity sports lettermen) and have never tried out for high school football. I'm not a varsity anything. One problem heads this list of my negative traits. I feel Lariat Prince is out of my league. She is untouchable. I don't eat at the cool table in the Tulia High School cafeteria. The cool table is the table where Sam Elliott and the high school quarterback dine.
I have a short list of positive traits. I am in shape. I live in a rural community. My father has a never ending desire for building fence to contain livestock. I am my father's posthole digger. This builds strength and stamina. I run three miles, four days a week. Running builds strength and wind.
I had to build strength and wind to maintain my little problem of street fighting. I never wanted to be a street fighter in high school. I became a street fighter and was unofficially ranked in the top five fist fighters in the Texas panhandle. Once a fighter is ranked, he has an Old West problem. This street fighter becomes a gunslinger. No guns were involved. It was slang which defined my young lifestyle. Every bad ass on the street will challenge the high ranking gunslinger to a fight in order to climb his way up the street fighting pecking order.
I have two final traits which I feel are positive. The world may not see these two traits as positive. This depends on the world's definition of the word positive.
I'm a word bender. You won't see the phrase word bender in the dictionary. I made up the phrase. It's almost genetic. My father is the master word bender. I learned from the master. I can turn a phrase. I can command the king's English and bend a conversation in my direction. Of the girls I've loved in my life, all of them were slain either by my verbal or written word. It definitely wasn't a case of another pretty male face. These girls informed me poetry was falling off my tongue when I spoke to them in a loving way. You've heard the saying, "A pen is mightier the sword."? A word bender's written original poetry is a powerful weapon. It will bring a girl, any girl, to tears.
The final trait is a little bit out there. I'm a sensitive. A sensitive is known by a variety of labels. The most common label is psychic. I have voices in my head, both positive and negative voices. As a sensitive, I continually wonder whether it is a gift or a curse. I see it as a gift. Remember, in the battle for a pretty girl, my competitors are Sam Elliott and the high school varsity quarterback. Any high school quarterback. I view my existence on earth as a sensitive as a gift. I will use this gift to conquer this girl. A dark side does exist. As a sensitive, I come into contact with dark forces and threatening entities from time to time.
So far my worst combatant is a spook. Thank God, I have never faced a demon. A demon is the worst case example. A spook lives on the fringe of hell and makes every attempt to work his way into hell. A spook doesn't have the power to kill a mortal. In this case, it's a psychological battle. He does have the power to drive a mortal insane. Driving a mortal insane is a victory for a spook. This victory is one more step earned in the spook's rise to become a demon. I don't know which is worse, death by demon or losing your mind in a battle with a spook. I don't have a helleva lot of mind left to lose. I'm going with the spook.
Now, I can answer my question. Remember the question?
What fear does a high school male sophomore student hold which is greater than the fear of death?
I would love to know your answer. My answer is simple and direct. A high school sophomore boy fears one thing over death.
He fears rejection by the opposite sex.
If you have never been a male high school student, this may sound foreign to you. Why would this fear trump card every other fear a high school boy faces? I don't know why, but it does. I can give you one personal example to validate this fear. In my history as a high school sophomore, I almost dialed the phone number on our rotary dial phone of a handful of good looking girls. I simply wanted to ask these girls out. I have to qualify this sentence with the word almost. In every one of these cases, it was necessary to dial seven numbers. I could dial six numbers without a problem. Following the sixth number, I would hang up the phone. I couldn't dial the seventh number. I couldn't dial it because of the fear of rejection.
How do I overcome this fear? It's a true fear. If I dialed the seventh number and the cute girl informed me she couldn't make a Saturday night date, she was scheduled to wash her cat, I would have been devastated. I wouldn't be devastated a little bit. It could be three months before I tried to dial seven numbers the second time.
I found a way to overcome the fear of rejection.
I live three miles west of Tulia, Texas, a small town of 2,500 people. Tulia, Texas, is approximately halfway between Amarillo and Lubbock. Lariat Prince lives in a smaller town in the Texas panhandle. She lives twenty-five miles southwest of Lubbock, Texas. She lives in Ropesville, Texas. Ropes is a town of 500 people. Ropesville has no paved streets. The streets are covered with caliche rock.
Here's the good news. Ropesville is 85 miles from Tulia. I could devise an intricate plan to capture Lariat Prince immediately following one of her basketball games in Ropes. I could run into her in the lobby or the concession stand of the Ropesville gym. I need only a few minutes to talk to Lariat. If I can word bend her into climbing into my old truck, I will ask her to join me in a romantic dinner of hamburgers and greasy French fries. If my word bending can get her in the truck, my sensitive gift can take it from there.
I feel it's unethical for any sensitive to read a nonsensitive's mind, without permission. I have to do it. I wouldn't be reading War and Peace. I would only read enough information in this beautiful creature's head to know if she is open to a date with me.
What if this intricate plan goes desperately wrong? It's not a problem. This is the heart of the plan. Ropesville is 85 miles from Tulia. This is enough real estate to live through the plan. If Lariat doesn't agree to a date, it's no big problem. Yes, I will take the rejection hit and it will hurt. It will hurt. Who knows about this devastating rejection? Lariat Prince and Mac Hewlett know. The news of my rejection will be minimal in
Tulia, if any news makes it 85 miles to Tulia, Texas. I can leave Ropes, drive home to Tulia, dial six numbers for a different cute girl and hang up.
My intricate plan begins.
