Update.
Writing this book has not been easy on me or my family. Two of the Lost Boys have come back.
One of them I won’t tell you about. He carries the filth of Aunt Easy and others on him, and he is so disgusted by himself that he laid on the altar for over three decades. So let’s travel to the hardest spot in the Wasteland for our first hand of poker tonight.
In the Wasteland of my mind, where Artist hovers over dark rocks and all winds blow toward him, is a hard place. To get to it, you have to walk under Artist. He is an 80-foot black man covered in black fur with expansive butterfly wings with tiger fur on them. He is the god of all things here, and he does not let anything go beyond him. Everything in the Wasteland, Guardian’s war camp, Shadow’s broken streets, Servant’s monastery, Adam’s house, Jack and Lenore’s swamp, Thirteen’s cell. All of it is stretched out before him. He watches Assassin’s desert and Prince’s dark tower. He keeps all in order, and all of the lands he creates worship him.
But behind him is the accursed ground, the ground that few have ever seen and fewer know about. Ronin walks it. Shade has been there, Tier rules there and one of the Lost Boys ventured there.
Artist did not stop him.
Rocks get jagged behind the god of the Wasteland. The walking is almost impossible on two feet, and after a while, the size and sharpness of the stones have all travelers on their hands and feet. It is miles before anything can be seen. You lose the ability to even see Artist and then everything slopes up. There is no hill here, just the ground pulling toward the sky, and climbing is almost impossible. You begin to see carvings from the things that crawl around out here that no one has ever been able to find or kill.
Insecurities.
Shames.
Hates.
Plots that can never be moved upon. There is a rat out there with one massive tooth and there is an altar. It is an altar to death and it is at the very top of the world out here. Beyond it is a great void where past events howl and whispering demons scream. The sky is filled here with ghosts of past lives and the prayers of Jesus.
And here on this bone white altar is a single curved knife. Only Tier can wield it. Assassin gave him that curse years ago. The burden was too great for the murderer to bear any longer. Any alter placed here can be sacrificed to this darkness. To date, six alters have died here. No one can remember anything about them. Why they were created or what deeds and promises prompted Assassin to kill them.
Here, The First Lost Boy laid for three decades waiting for Assassin’s mercy. He was the victim of Aunt Easy, and yesterday he came home. He wants nothing to do with the rest of the alters. Maybe time will change that. He found an old blasted out Camaro that used to be royal blue but has been scorched beyond recognition. It lays atop a few jagged stones, tilted and tilting.
The First Lost Boy climbed in.
He only remembers shame. Tier said a name to him that after three decades brought him home. It is not really working. But Bekah and I have plans to find a way to help him.
The Second Lost Boy came out late last night with a sarcastic voice that no one had ever heard before, and he claims to be unable to move. He is paralyzed by some great and terrible event that also had to do with Aunt Easy. None of us know what it was. We have only seen him once. We really know nothing about him.
Of the third, there is no word or sign. Just the knowledge that he is out there and the fear of what horrors he will tell of.
We will call that hand a win.
We went to the Canny Family Reunion that same summer. I was seventeen. It was the summer before my senior year and I was there.
There is a land that most find, but some will never tread. I knew what I was. I knew my purpose. I had a look, an identity, a goal and a plan. The school I would return to knew my name and they revered me. I was ready for what my senior year had to hand me.
I wore a pair of jeans I call my Gunslinger Pants. They were tight on the waist and wide in the legs, and it felt like I was wearing two belts with revolvers swinging from them. I was wearing a chain wallet with the perfect chain. Tied around my hips was the ever present flannel. A baggy shirt that did very flattering things when the wind blew, a black suede vest and brown scuffed boots.
The reunion was nothing like the Mocking Family Reunion. No knives. No talk of ball. No aces or dead kittens, and not a fiddle in sight. Rose had brought Grasp, but he found a corner to hide in and she was glad of it. Less had been kicked out of the house years ago and was not invited. And when we talked of going, we were given an order by Stone.
“You go see your Uncle Child, do you hear me?” It was one of the last times I would hear the power of his command. He was fading fast. The Sons of the Devil were laying down. Naps, books, movies and soaps were his life. And he never stopped thinking of Uncle Child. “He doesn’t have anything and he will not leave that damn town. All he eats are snack cakes and that house is unfit. You go see him and you bring him some money.”
“Okay, Daddy, I will. I can’t wait to see him, to be honest. Might get to talk to him about Jesus.”
Stone didn’t say anything to that, but the Sons of the Devil were not made for church. That is not really fair. Cousin Grin is a Christian. I don’t know about Uncle Hard and even if I asked, no one in that family would tell me anything.
The town was nearly impossible to find. Mumble drove and Rose worked a map. The town doesn’t exist on any maps. It doesn’t really have a name, and the Canny family had told us what cities it was between and what kind of road to look for to get there.
When we had fought West Virginia back hills and won, it did finally give us this town. Beating West Virginia is nearly impossible. If those towns don’t want you to find them, then you just can’t find them, but we found a long patch of low grass and followed it. There were no grooves in the ground.
We found a town so small that there was no gravel. Just a road covered in grass. I had never seen city streets covered in grass, but here we were. We could see a great house that greeted us. A wide expanse of green that turned right. At the curve of the turn, on the left side of the grassy road, sat a store that I could only imagine carried everything.
The town continued deeper past that, but we didn’t go there.
The great big house at the front of the town was our destination. Rose had been given its description. This was the town where the Sons of the Devil had lived. This small bend in the grass surrounded by trees and whatever crawled and stomped them was the town the Mocking family had been born in. And this great big house had been The Devil’s Castle.
When we walked the porch, it whined and screamed at us. The front door was gone. The thing that had once been a foyer ceiling had collapsed and there was no way of walking in. When you tried to look in the windows, they were covered with black mold.
“We came. There is no one here,” Mumble said. “Now we leave.”
But Rose was on a quest of a missionary and she was going to talk Jesus to her Uncle.
“Uncle Child,” she said as she walked along the side of the house. “Uncle Child, it’s Rose. You remember me, don’t you?”
“Honey, no one is here. This house is collapsing. Let’s go.” Mumble still stood in the swing of the open car door.
“Uncle Child, it’s Rose, Stone’s daughter. If you are here, come see me. I want to talk to you.”
From behind the house stepped a man. He was simple in the head, it was obvious to see. He wore a clean blue shirt and clean bib overalls. His hair was buzzed and white. He was tall and not fat, but thick, and he wore no shoes.
“Sorry, don’t know you,” he said with a broken timbre. “Go away now.”
“Oh Uncle Child, you know me. I’m Rose, Stone’s girl, you remember.”
Fourteen years. It had been fourteen years since this man had seen me, and when he had, I had been four. But the moment he looked past my shaggy bangs, and my clothes and size and he saw me, well his eyes lit up.
“Taterbug? Is that you, Taterbug?”
“Yes, it is me, Uncle Child. I wanted to see you, I missed you.” I remembered all the times I had screamed at him for calling me that name. All the times I had yelled and told him I wasn’t Taterbug, I was Tater.
I didn’t have time to hate myself. That would come later. That has never stopped.
“Yes, this is Taterbug. Do you-?” Rose started to say, but he pushed right past her. I held my arms out to him and he stumbled as fast as he could to get to me.
“Taterbug,” he mumbled into my neck. I hugged him as hard as he hugged me. “Knew you would come visit. Knew you would come see me. Taterbug.”
I held him for a long time until a woman showed up with a scowl on her face.
“You his kin?” she asked Rose.
“I’m his niece,” Rose said. She wanted to say more but she was interrupted.
“Where are his goddamn brothers?”
“They are coming to get me, Taterbug. My brothers will be here soon. If I’m not in Daddy’s house when they get here, they will be mad, mad, mad.”
“You’re Taterbug?” she gasped.
“Yes ma’am, I am.”
“God bless, we thought you weren’t real. Where have you been?”
“He is 18. He is still in high school. He can’t do anything for Uncle Child.”
“You don’t call him Uncle in front of me, woman. Not in this town. This is no way to treat kin.” A few heads were poking out of houses.
“Does he believe in Jesus? Has he been saved?” Rose chimed. There was so much pride and righteousness in her voice that I was instantly sick to my stomach.
“We’ve tried, but this poor boy doesn’t have the mind to grasp the idea of God. It just upsets him to try.”
“Taterbug,” he whispered with one arm around me and rocking back and forth. I wrapped my arm around him and whispered.
“Yes Uncle Child, I am your Taterbug.”
“Do you know that he won’t let our men work on his house? Says his damn father will be mad at him.”
“Taterbug,” he said proudly.
“He only eats Hostess cakes. He doesn’t like the Little Debbie cakes, but we can’t be choosy with what gets brought in this neck.”
“Yes ma’am, I know, it’s a shame,” Rose said.
The woman’s hand became a fist and she clenched and unclenched it.
“Taterbug, my brothers are coming to get me. They are going to be here any day. All of them are gonna come take me away. Daddy is gone.” His brow furrowed. “Daddy is long gone. He won’t yell at me anymore.”
“That’s good, Uncle Child, that’s real good.”
“The only room that is even half way livable is that bathroom at the back of the house. There is no access but a window. He crawls in and out of the window,” the woman snapped. She snarled and spit and her fist clenched and unclenched. “The men tried to add stairs to the window. Tried to build a door on the side of the house but he won’t let us. We tried to put a mattress in there, but he will only sleep in the tub.”
“Well ma’am, that breaks my heart. Do you mind if we talk to him about Jesus?” Rose said. “I think a little bit of faith will do him some good.”
“Faith!? You want to give this man faith. Listen here little girl, faith is all this man has. Faith that his brothers will come any day now and take him away. We tried to get a few men to pretend to be his brothers but he knew better. Taterbug and those evil men’s faces is all he remembers.”
“Taterbug is here!” Uncle Child said. He crooned it and more people came to watch. Every one of them looked at me as if I was a dream they were all having. And every one of them whispered, asking who my mother was.
“The ladies of this town clean him and brush his teeth when he will let us. We make sure he is warm in the winter. We keep his clothes clean.”
“Thank God for you. Jesus is love and God is mighty,” Rose said.
“Please stop talking about God to me, little girl. Just keep your mouth shut about Jesus.”
“We brought a little money,” Rose said. “Now it’s not much, but it will help a little bit.”
“We don’t want your money, little girl. We don’t want your money. This boy belongs to us not you. You don’t get to feel good about leaving us with anything. You brought Taterbug. That is all you did for him. You are not welcome. You’re leaving, but not yet. You let that man spend some time with that boy of yours. Then you leave this town and don’t come back.
“When this poor boy is finally passed and at rest, this town is going to tear this house down, all of us by hand, and we are going to burn the pieces. We will rub that Devil and his evil from our town and try to forget he was ever here.
“Taterbug, you spend some time with him, will ya?”
“As much as I can, ma’am. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” I felt such terrible guilt. I had been so horrible to him. Regret from when I was four plagued me and I took his hand and he gripped it tight. “How about we go sit on the front porch and talk for a while. How about that, Uncle Child?”
He nodded with a huge smile on his face.
I led him by the hand and walked away.
“Is that really Taterbug?” I heard spoken behind me.
And I heard her say, “Yes, that is Taterbug. He is still just a kid,” she snapped.
“If he wants to stay with us for a while, he can,” a man said. “We will make room.”
“He can’t stay. He has school and responsibilities at home and we are leaving for Missouri from here. No, you cannot take my boy,” Rose said. She turned and walked away.
I walked to the front porch and sat, and he sat so close to me. He wrapped his arm around me with his other sitting in his lap. I rubbed his hand and smiled at him. “I’m so glad to see you,” I said. “I missed you,” I lied.
Rose walked up to me and pointed her sharp finger. “That woman is not Godly. She may take care of him, but she is not my Daddy, she can’t tell me what to do. Now I better wait in the car. You witness to him about Jesus, you hear me. You know the Roman Road. You can save this man’s soul if you try.”
I glared at her. I tried to love her in that moment. Tried to love all of my family. But if Grandpa Stone, Hard, and Cousin Grin had been there, I would have beat the shit out of them. My rage had to be put away. He started to wilt and mutter.
“I love you, Uncle Child.”
“You mad at me, Taterbug?”
“No, Uncle Child. I am not mad at you.” I looked at the steaming face of my mother, then I looked at the sky. “Do you know what’s up there?”
“Is it Daddy? Sometimes I am afraid that he is staring down, mad at me.”
“No Uncle Child, that is the sky. And the sky loves you.”
He giggled. And I looked at the sky, “Look, Uncle Child. I want you to look at the sky and see how beautiful it is, okay?”
“Okay,” he said. He looked up and giggled.
“The sky loves you, Taterbug loves you, and this whole town loves you. You have so many loves. Okay?”
A man walked around the corner and stopped in front of me. “Don’t know much about you that is real, but you have brought this man happiness. I have something here that I hope you will take seriously. I hope you know what I am giving you. And I hope you remember it.”
I nodded. He handed me a package of Twinkies and a package of Snow Balls. The pink kind of Hostess Cake. A small chocolate cake with a dab of cream covered in marshmallow and coconut.
Uncle Child’s face lit up.
“Can I eat with you, Uncle Child?”
“You wanna?”
“If you don’t mind.”
“You can have the Twinkies if you want them. I don’t have to have them. I’ll give them to you.” His eyes were locked on the cakes and I shook my head.
“No, Twinkies are good, but I love Snow Balls. Do you think I could eat those?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll have the Twinkies then. They are really good. I like them really a lot.”
“Okay, it’s settled.”
“Do you want me to open yours?” he said. “I can open it for you.”
“That would be great. Thank you.”
He scooted over as the porch creaked and he ripped my Snow Balls open. He handed them to me carefully, balancing them on the thin cardboard tray they sat on.
I took it and smiled. “This is gonna be great. Eating dinner with my Uncle Child. I can’t believe it,” I said. Somehow I wasn’t crying. Somehow I was beyond that. I wondered how that was possible but I know now. Lenore was sucking all my sadness away. She was leaving me with only joy and love. I couldn’t have cried even if I wanted to.
I hate coconut. Hate it. But for decades I have been buying those cakes. Every time I pick one up I say to Bekah, “I don’t know why I love these things, but every now and then I have to have one.”
I pointed to the sky when I was walking away. Mumble honked when we were done eating one of my favorite dinners. I scowled at him and I noticed that lining the trees were people. Not a lot of them, but about fifteen. They were hugging each other, many women, girls, boys and men were crying.
I stood and unwrapped the flannel I had tied around my waist. “I was hoping you would let me give you this. Do you like it?”
He grinned and shook his head vigorously.
“I will give it to. Do you want to give me a gift, too?”
“Yeah, I’ll give you something, Taterbug.”
“I know what I want. Can I pick something?”
“Anything you want, Taterbug. You can have anything you want.” He gripped his new shirt tight with a cream-filled grin on his face.
“I want you to remember that the sky loves you. No matter if it is raining, snowing, thundering, or bright like today. The sky always loves Uncle Child, okay? Can you remember that?”
“Okay, Taterbug.”
I pointed to the sky with both hands. And I looked up.
Uncle Child pointed at the sky, too. He laughed and pumped his pointer finger over and over again.
“The sky loves you. I want you to say it for me. Say, Taterbug says the sky loves Uncle Child.”
“Big big sky loves Uncle Child and Taterbug.”
“It sure does.” I looked over the hood and they all were crying now. “The sky loves him. Help him remember.”
They nodded.
“Come back if you can,” a man said.
“I will if I ever can. I promise I will.”
But I didn’t. I never went back, because this memory is so painful and so sweet that it has been kept from me.
“I’m so proud of you. Did he accept Jesus? Did you save his soul?”
“All children go to heaven, mom.”
“They sure do. I’m so proud of you.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” I said.
Back in Waynesville I stared at Stone, thinking of Uncle Child. Rose told of the visit. “He remembered Jesse, called him Taterbug, but he didn’t know me.” Stone looked at me and his face twitched.
“He remembered Taterbug?”
“Yes, Daddy, he did.”
Stone stood up. He immediately walked off the sunporch and into the house. He didn’t say anything to anyone. And he walked faster than I’d ever seen him walk. He had one of his big heart attacks a couple of days later. That’s a story for another time.
I didn’t ever want to talk to any Mocking about my trip to see Uncle Child. But I am telling you now. Because the world needs to know.
Everyone needs to know.
I could have folded on that one. But I stayed in the game and took the loss.
I want to play the hand of the Sons of the Devil when they were young. Let’s deal out the cards of Grandpa Stone, Uncle Hard, Uncle Child, Uncle Mission, Uncle Jesse, and Cousin Grin. Let’s see if I can get another win before this game is over.
Imagine you’re the Son of the Devil.
The Devil was working his number all of his life. He lived in a tiny town, in a small area. How many wives did he seduce? How many happy homes did he leave in shambles behind him? He was a poker player by trade. How many close hands with these same men? How many times did his steaming stare bluff them and make them look like fools?
The men, the women, and kids hated the Devil and they took it out on his boys.
They had to travel together. If one was caught alone, they would be facing a group of how many angry faces? Fighting had to be a way of life for these kids. It had to be. School was dangerous. Walking home was dangerous.
How many times did a beaten and bloodied Son stumble to the house and collapse? Their brothers would gather around them and ask, “Who? Who did this to you?” They would carry their brother inside, set a guard, and the Sons of the Devil would go hunting.
Sticks, rocks, knives, farming tools. Violence. Hate. They would be abandoned in this town for days, weeks where the Devil was out town-to-town winning and losing the money that should have fed their bellies and bought them clothes. They wore ill-fitting clothes. They huddled hungry and angry around three uncooked potatoes. They each begged, prayed for the day they would escape this town, when they would finally be on their own.
They worked what odd jobs they could to feed themselves. They crowded around a fireplace at night in bitter winters in the mountains with little firewood. How many of them had beds? How many of them had friends? Girls were torn from their arms by angry fathers. Everyone knew the Sons of the Devil, and everyone hated them.
God was taken from them. In a Christian town with a church bell ringing constantly the Devil would scoff and threaten all of them if he ever saw them in a church. If he ever caught them praying for a better life, he would rip into them.
Grandpa Stone had a bike for a while. He could get places and collect things that his brothers needed. But the Devil ran out of money and the bike went into the pot. Bad hand, a hate filled man read the Devil’s face that time, and in a game of Five Card Stud the bike disappeared.
How did their teacher treat them? How did the pastor talk about them from the pulpit? These boys had nothing and no one, and all they knew was starvation, violence, and the bitterness of everyone around them. Hate and distrust crowded around them, and through it all, the Sons of the Devil had each other. They had their brother’s fist, his bite, his kick. They had to get mean, they had to stay mean, and they had to obey the Devil.
Because if the Devil’s son turns against him…
Hell hath no fury.
I’ll take that hand as a win for a group of men that all of you are learning to hate. A legacy that broke kids and shattered glass. A way of life that none of you can imagine.
It takes a Storyteller to find the history of boys like these.
I’ll throw LeadBelly on the table.
I’ll take that one as a win.
Maybe a bluff.
Jesse Teller 
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