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NOTE: These stories are
intended for a mature audience.

Skulduggery at the Junction
A Guest Quarters story
By
Jason S. Ridler

Headlights from an approaching Ford broke through the dusky New York gloom and revealed the craggy, broken faces of assorted pugilists, collar and elbow, and catch as catch can men fidgeting behind the Steam Horse tavern. Among them stood Paul Barnes, who knuckled out the kinks in his neck from his freight car ride, ignoring the crowd. No matter how good they are, he thought, they'll all be phonies and con men of the ring. I ain't going to lose to them, or their god, Strangler Lewis. 

The Ford was a green six seating monstrosity that coughed black smoke and smelled like burning cash. From the passenger side emerged a thick cut man in purple blazer and a fresh cigar. "Boys," he said, standing in the centre, voice like a dying forge. "I'm Toots Mondt. Manager of heavyweight champion of the world Strangler Lewis, the greatest wrestler of all time." The crowd murmured their awe while Paul clawed his cap.  "We got four seats open for Strangler's summer work camp. Two slots are reserved."

I will humble The Strangler in his secret lair, Paul thought, in the last fair fight of his crooked life. The money the Zybszko brother had paid him to do it was nothing compared to the desire to break the phoney champ.

"Hodge McKinnley?" Toots said. "Where are you, Hodge?"

A big, handsome fella with soft hands strolled to the Ford. "He's no fighter," said a short man to Paul's side with clear, quiet voice. Asian, in dusters and a torn miners coat one size too big. Arms crossed, scars on his face like he'd fallen on a broken bottle.

Paul played along. "How can you tell?"

"Too pretty." The Asian looked up. "Not like us."

Paul smiled and put out his hand. "Paul Barnes."

The little man took it with a steel clasp. "Jun Ronin."

"The coolie knows English," said a clown behind them. Jun's face was impassive as everyone laughed but Paul.

McKinnley sat in the car. "Where is George Romana?" Toots said.

Disgust was thick as pea soup in the air. Romana was a linebacker from the Bears with a bum knee. "What's Strangler going to do with a crippled Bear?" said Jun.

The clown behind him spat whiskey breath. "Bear's make good punching bags. Not like China doll here." More laughs dug into Jun Ronin's back.

"You got a smart mouth," Paul said.

The Irishman seethed. "Try closing it, ugly."

Jun shook his head at Paul, then said, "How about him?" as Romana entered the Ford. 

Paul swallowed dusty spit. "Strong. Balanced, even with the bum knee. Can throw a punch, but wouldn't know a real hook from a fishing line."

"Agreed," Jun said.

"Confucius is wise," said the Irish clown. Jun focused on Toots.

"Alright," Toots said. "Two more spots. You all put your name in this bag going around, so I'm ?"

Paul strode forward. "I'll fight any man for that spot."

The air charged with hisses. Toots smirked. "You got moxie, kid. But I ain't got time for no tournament."

"Then I'll fight you. Toots."

The crowd hushed. Only one man was known to have bested Toots Mondt: Strangler Lewis. To Paul, it was just another lie in a sack of fables that infected the sport like Spanish flu. Toots smiled. "You've gone from fun to stupid quicker than a hiccup. Management don't fight brindlestaffs smelling of hobo shit." He whistled. Two thugs in short sleeves flanked Paul. One bald, one hairy. "Gents, tear him two new assholes quick while I pick someone else?"

Each grabbed an arm-

Paul dropped, yanking on each wrist hard. Above him, heads cracked against each other like wrecking balls. He grabbed the belt of the bald palooka on his left and gave him a hard, twisting, Turkish belt-throw into the other thug.

As they scrambled, the morning light went dusty, but through the grit came the crowd's roar.

Toots sneered, breathless, arms crossed.

The hairy thug charged and Paul ignored instinct and let him hit his gut with his shoulder. Pain flushed through his nerves, but then instinct burned true. Before they hit the ground, his arm snaked around the guy's throat and clenched Paul's other forearm: the reverse guillotine, taught to Paul by a French soldier at the Estiment in Ypres.

As they tumbled to the ground, the hairy thug's head hit first, and as Paul tightened the choke his adversary's gas tank drained to a stop.

He shoved the limp body as a pair of brass knuckles came down. Paul smacked the bald thug's forearm with his own, and the knuckles crunched into the dirt by his right ear instead of his cheek. Paul scissored his legs around the thug's shoulder, gripped the locked arm at wrist and elbow, and popped the joint the wrong way. An unholy scream tore out of the white faced thug as the crowd went dead silent.

Paul cast his foe away and stood, exhaling once and hard. Toots smiled, big and nasty. "Bravo, kid. I surrender. You got a slot. Hell, I'm so impressed, why not pick the last joe for me?"

Paul pointed at Jun Ronin, who nodded and strode forward as if he were a leaf on the breeze.

"An oriental?" Toots said.

"He goes," Paul said. "Or I stay."

"No way," said the Irishman, pushing his way forward. "No chink bastards taking my payday." He spun Jun around like a dervish and threw a clothsline, and for a second Paul thought he'd taken Jun's head off-

But Jun had ducked, gripping the Irishman's wrist like tar as it cut the air. Jun twisted it behind the Mick, forcing his arm into a hammerlock.

"Dirty Jap trick!" the Mick screamed, then reversed it, and snaked his left forearm around Jun's neck in a choke. A long knife crusted in old blood appeared in his right hand. Jun's face was going blue.

Paul moved, but Toots gripped his shoulder. "You picked him, champ."

The Mick pulled back for a killing stab. Jun gripped his forearm, dropped, and tossed him over his shoulder at Toots' feet. Fast as fire, while the Mick scrambled, Jun leapt like a wild beast and stomped on his fingers: every bone cracked with a sick crunch. Jun heel-kicked the Mick's face then throat until the Mick was choking on his own Adam's apple, then passed out.

Jun took the knife and placed it in his dusty jacket pocket. He stood next to Paul. "Thanks."

"Great show, but Strangler awaits" Toots said. "See you boys next year."

In the Ford, Paul and Jun sat in the back, Romana and McKinnley sweated in silence in the middle, trying not to look back. 

"That was collar and elbow, as well as Judo," Paul said as the car started. "And karate."

Jun nodded. "And you were using Turkish throws with Greco roman, Savat, and Jujitsu?"

"You're good."

Jun nodded, then examined his knife. "Do you believe the rumour?"

"Which one?"

"Strangler Lewis cannot be beat."

The Zybszko's warned him how good Strangler was, even if the legend was now as phoney as wrestling had become. It made him sick. The crowd of fighters chased the green Ford and began to fade. "I'm sure we'll find out." Soon.

***

Hours passed from city to country, due north, toward Saranac Lake. Mountains began to appear on the horizons, just below the sun. Paul and Jun swapped stories of lumberjack fights, alley scuffles, and knuckle wages on the rails. Romana and McKinnley talked sports and whores and did not look back. 

Paul didn't want to think about what he'd do after he beat Strangler. It was a long walk back to the trains. The Zybyzkos had warned him of Strangler's dirty hooks, and his one weakness: his own hold, the Sleeper. Wadizlaw had slapped it on him once and the Strangler gored his balls like a criminal and broke the hold, the ref paid to look the other way.

Try it, Strangler, Paul thought. See how far you get.

McKinnley looked back. "Say, Paul. That scar, under your ear. From a knife fight?"

"No. Shrapnel. Vimy Ridge."

McKinnley glared. "You Canadian?"

"Was. I go where the fights are. Citizen of the road now."

Romano shot him a glance. "You served? Me too. Argonne forest." Paul nodded and hoped he's shut up. War stories made him sick. "Stretcher bearer. Never fired my rifle once. Never killed nobody."

"You sound disappointed," Jun said.

Romano shrugged. "All my buddies, they have stories."

"Stories are not worth killing for."

"That so?" Romana said. "Funny, I don't remember Japs fighting in No Man's Land."

"I killed my share of Germans," Jun said. "And unlike the Italians we did not wait to see who was winning before we chose our allies."

Romano's face bristled. "I'm Italian."

"I'm sorry," Jun said.

Paul snickered as Romano's face went plum red.

"Save it for camp," Toots said, chewing on a cigar. "You're going to need it. Trust me."

***

The camp was three log cottages, each bigger than any house Paul had slept in. Nestled on a plateau that gazed into even more rugged and wild mountains than the one they'd chased in the Ford, they seemed torn from a novel. The air was crisp, the sun warm. And Paul recalled all the soup lines, and work camps, and rails he'd ridden, stomach three kinds of hungry, body bruised from fights and bundled on a tramp line as the rivets punched his back and kept sleep away at all costs. The world was drowning in a toilet of misery and hardship, and here he was at the top of the world, nature's splendour before him, and hot meals and warm sheets waiting.

And he was going to destroy it.

Toots stepped out, cigar a mangled mess between his lips. "Move it, meat sacks."

As they approached the far cottage, familiar sounds grew: the groans of medicine balls hitting you at top speed, the thud of fists against bags of sand, and the halted gasps of men stretching each other apart. 

"Ever see the Strangler fight?" Jun said.

"No," Paul said. "You?"

Jun nodded. "Once. A present from my last employer."

"So? How was he?"

"Astounding." Jun was no fool, maybe on a good day even better than Paul. "The room was full. Noisy and smoky, like a riot in a meat plant. He had a presence unlike any I've seen, here or Asia."

"Did he win?"

Jun whistled. "Like a bear fighting a lamb."

"Shut your mud holes," Toots said as they approached oak-white double doors of the main gym. "Time to meet the boss." He yanked the door and the smell of labour washed over them.

A ring of men, like in a lumberjack fight, surrounded a tall, gaunt man with long arms, balding hair, and a bull neck.

"Next!" he yelled. A young tough charged, hooking him collar and elbow . . . and was tossed out of the perimeter like a sack of flour.

"Next, faster!"

One ran, jabbing like a boxer, and ended up hooked over his shoulders and spun until they were a blur. When he stopped twirling, he dropped the man who hit the ground so hard he gagged.

"No puking in my arena," said the bull man, and tossed him into the crowd, who quickly shoved his head in a stained mop bucket. "Next!"

On they went. Catch as Catch Can. Judo. Savat. Sumo. Each man fell to a different style. As if they'd been trained to do it, Paul thought. Another damn fake performance. Fixed, rotten, bullshit.

"Next!"

Soon, everyone was sucking wind on the ground. One man stood, then faced the newcomers. 

The Strangler, black trunks bulky on his frame, sweat barely glistening on his brow and massive shoulders, exhaled hard. Eyebrows caterpillar thick, face of stone with a thin lipped mouth and slits for eyes. "You're early, Toots." he said, voice a lot higher than Paul expected giving his frame. He passed the gasping bodies.

"Hey, that Ford is a magic carpet." Toots laughed. "So we got McKinnley and Romano, as per our original plan." Both men said hello and laid praise and pumped hands. "But I think you're going to like the wild cards here. Hey, tell the boss your names."

The Strangler stood before Paul and Jun. "You oriental?"

"Partly. I am Jun Ronin."

"Ronin?" The Strangler said. "A master-less samurai?" Jun flinched. "Tell me, half-pint, what disgrace did your master commit that turned you into a rootless warrior of the rails? And no bushido mumbo jumbo. If I am to be your new lord, I'd better know if you left him stuffing his own guts back in his body."

Jun clenched his jaw. "He raped a German nurse after the siege of Tsingtao. I . . . arrived while it happened, and only found the will to stop it once it was done. I cut off his head and gave the nurse my katana to do to me what she saw fit. She spared me. But I do not deserve sparing. So I will fight until death releases me from punishment."

Everyone was speechless. Strangler nodded. "I accept you as my worker, Jun Ronin. Though I think we'll have to come up with a name people will know. God bless our audience, but they can be as ignorant as a dead pig. Think of one, ok?"

Jun bowed, and Strangler bowed in return.

"And you?" said the Strangler, wiping his face with a rag.

"Paul Barnes."

"Well, Paul Barnes. What did you do to impress Toots here?"

"Son of a bitch challenged me to a fight," Toots said, darkly chuckling. "Can you believe that?"

Strangler whistled. "Guts. I like that. Did he back it up?"

"He ate up Deyo and Ajax like a starved rat on a sleeping baby," Toots said. "So they're great workers, but ugly as shit, and ugly don't bring big crowds alone."

"I thought winning fights brought big crowds," Paul said to Strangler, who avoided his gaze.

Toots walked over and shoved Paul. "Depends on who's doing the winning, kid." The workers formed a circle around the new meat. "You got no name, a shit face, and no reputation outside of hobo camps and trash heaps."

Strangler patted Toots' shoulder, and Toots backed off as he confronted Paul, eyes glaring at his shoes. "Say what you need to say, chief. I'm a big man. I can take it."  

Paul was ready. "I know you fix all your fights."

The men surged, Toots screamed, and Jun had his guard up, but Paul kept his hands at his sides.

Strangler held them back with a raised hand. "Silence!"

Jun dropped his hands.

"I know you've made this racket," Paul said. "Fixed fights, choreographed like ballet. You and Toots did it, about a decade ago and now here isn't a lick of real competition wearing wrestling tongs at all no more."

Strangler exhaled hard. "Who told you this?"

"The Zybszkos."

"Pollack bastards!" Toots thick fingers tore at themselves. "I'm going to ring those Slavic pukes until they're bleeding out their assholes!"

Strangler shook his head, and Toots swallowed his bile. "You've come to prove them right?"

"Yes."

"By beating me?"

"Any style." The wall of thugs laughed, quietly. "Any time." 

"Sorry, boss," Toots said, standing in front of Paul. "I'll flush him back where he came from." He gripped Paul's arm like the jaws of a mad dog.

Paul's was about to snap, when he found the grip had been broken. By Strangler. "Take everyone out to the lake for a swim," said Strangler. "I'll work this out."

Toonts' fat lip quivered but he swallowed his words like broken glass, then hustled everyone out but Stranger, Paul, and Jun.

"I'm going to towel off so that you don't accuse me of being oiled or greased," Strangler said, turning his back. "When I return, take your best shot, chief." He went to the showers.

Jun looked at Paul "Dangerous game," Jun said. "Why are you playing it?"

Paul inhaled the sweaty air. "Worlds been getting more crooked since the war, Jun. Wrestling used to be pure. Fair. It's all I know and I can't let this go. Do you understand?"

Jun nodded. "Don't be deceived, Paul. He is one of the most dangerous men alive. And even if you win, he has many men at his call."

"You included?"

Jun nodded. "My word is not crooked."

"Even if Strangler's a fake?"

He shook Paul's hand. "Good luck."

When Jun left, Strangler appeared. "Before we begin," said Strangler, "I applaud your courage, grit, and conviction. But they won't help you."  

Paul tore off his shirt with one hand, revealing a patchwork of scars across hard flesh. A tattooed form born on the barbed wire of No Man's Land as shells rained down like falling stars from cruel, faceless foes Paul could not see, grasp, fight. "And you can't do worse to me than I got at Vimy."

Strangler's smug eyes shut and he smiled. "Alright, chief. Here's your shot. Take it."

Their arms tangled, chests touching, bodies so close as to not give up any room for a hook or throw.

Strangler snapped his heel around Paul's knee, making it bend, but Paul fell back, dragging The Strangler's arm, and the giant fell over him, smacking the mat.

Paul kicked up to his feet.

Strangler lay there and clapped. "Congratulations. You threw me. The end."

Paul bounced side to side, guard up. "Not even close."

"You tossed me fair and square. Isn't that enough?"

"You were a real shooter once. That's who I want to fight, not some smart mouth con man. Give me a fair fight, damn you!"

Strangler sighed, rolled up, eyes closed. "Fair? That's what you want?" Paul jabbed and missed, like he was fighting a phantom just out of reach. "Now why would a soldier want a fair fight? Don't you like to have three to one odds?"

"Shut up!" Paul spun a roundhouse, followed by a right cross the Strangler blocked but did not follow up. Instead he took a step back, hands at his sides as if were on a Sunday stroll. Paul closed the distance with a clothesline, and hit a stiff wall that barely moved. He feinted for a ankle hook, then gripped Strangler's trunks, yanked, and dropped to one knee while gripping Strangler's neck with his free hand. The massive man tossed over his head. Strangler smacked the mat, and Paul pounced. He locked a side headlock and, just like he figured, Strangler's legs reached up, did a scissor grip around his head, and yanked him back, breaking the headlock. Paul rolled out of the hold, but it tore his ear. Pain thrummed as he stood.

Strangler followed, scratching his neck. "Not a bad escape. You can shoot. Why don't we sign a contract and call it quits?"

"Because you're toying with me. Holding back."

Eyebrows raised above the shut eyes. "Am I?"

"I have to know."

"What?"

Paul charged like a bull and, amazingly, Strangler snapped him into a collar and elbow lock up as they tore around the room, searching for any advantage, arms slithering for hooks and holds to set up.

Paul blocked each attempt, breath heaving, world spinning. Strangler stunk like a wild animal and kept yapping. "What will beating me prove, chief?"

Paul slipped behind him, drove his hands under his shoulders, then across his neck in a full nelson, fingers locked. "That being good still matters. Being the best can count for something in a rotten world." Strangler laughed until Paul tightened the grip, driving Strangler's neck into his chest.

Strangler gripped Paul's head, dropped, and sent the top of his head into Paul's jaw.

The world swirled with star shells and Paul's arms went rubbery. Next thing he knew, his back smacked the mat.

Strangler stood above him, closed eyes spinning, and held out his hand. "Kid, we need to talk."

Paul gripped Strangler's wrist, then snaked his legs around his arm like duelling Burmese pythons, just as he had the thug in the lot. He pulled the elbow joint out of place, and Strangler dropped to one knee, but failed to scream. Paul wrenched it rotten. The elbow cracked inward.

But didn't pop.

"Impressive, kid," said the Strangler, looking down his disfigured arm. "But I didn't lie, chief. You can't beat me."

 Paul spun out of the hold and onto his feet. "Because you're a cheat? A goddamn fake?"

"Because there ain't no such thing as a fair fight."

Paul's anger froze. Strangler talked, but all Paul heard was the hammer of his heartbeats, saliva tasting of silver. He flexed his hands and they cracked. He dove-

-An elbow to the nose, a gouge of the shut eyes, a knee to the groin, an open hand slap, a shooto knife-edge shot to the collar bone, and a savat to the stomach, a judo flip, a stomp on his fingers, a drop to his knees until he clenched on the sleeper headlock that Strangler had made famous. He dug his bicep into the Strangler's neck until he could feel his meaty pulse. He other hand pulled his wrist, tightening the hold like a wrench. Legs spread out, Paul forced all his weight on Strangler's neck, leaving Paul's groan exposed.

Strangler's pulse slowed, slightly. Paul wrenched deeper. Come on, he thought, take the bait! Do it!

Strangler reached up between Paul's legs and gored him-

Only to find nothing to purchase.

"You miserable, phoney," Paul grunted through clenched teeth, body shaking as Strangler's hands found nothing to grasp. "I'm going to break you with your own hold. Tell the world that some nobody from Canada broke you, fair and square." He cinched in so tight his teeth were turning to powder. "Fair and square!"

Strangler's hands shook . . . then hung limp, swaying like a dead man on noose. The pulse . . . was gone.

Jesus Christ, Paul thought. I've killed him. I . . . I just wanted to beat him . . . not kill, I swore I'd never kill again, just fight, oh god, what have I done.

His breath huffed, the hold eased. . .

Strangler's head snapped out of the hold like a greased weasel. Every moment seemed drenched in molasses. Paul's guard dropped for a sliver of a second, and doom flooded his guts.

Strangler reversed the hold from behind, and iron rivets of pain filled Paul's neck as Strangler forced his back to arch, stretching every muscle like a torture rack. Hard as knotted wood, those arms pressed harder into Paul's neck. God himself couldn't get out of this hold as Strangler ground Paul's ears and throat into mush.

Through his screams, he heard Strangler's voice. "Now that was a show, boy! You truly are one of the best hookers and shooters to grace my halls. Hell, I might have even bet on you myself. But this was never a fair fight. If it were, you'd have won . . ." The words thickened, dribbling over Paul's consciousness like tar as consciousness swam into darkness.

The electric splash of water across his face woke him. He coughed, and pain flared like fire across his neck.

"Welcome back to the land of the living." Strangler sat on a medicine ball, wiping his head with his rotten towel.

Paul's crooked hands shook. "I can't believe I lost."

"Everyone loses."

Paul's lip twitched. "Not me. Not in a fair fight, grappling or boxing or anything."

"What did you win in the war?"

Paul fumed as cold water dripped off his nose. "War isn't a fair fight. How do you fight clouds of chlorine gas, or bullets on the horizon, or shells that turn you into butchered meat? I swore I'd never lose a fair fight again." his pulse raged, then slowed. "Came home, and sure as shit, wasn't even a fair fight in a wrestling ring anymore."

The towel dropped from Strangler's face and the man opened his eyes.

They were as empty as a shell hole. "You're . . . blind?"

Strangler nodded. "Courtesy of a dirty Turk not cleaning his towels. Just when I'd started as a pro. Back when all I knew was a fair fight." He laughed. "I like you, chief. You're noble. And you're as good a hooker and shooter as I've ever seen. But the quest is over." He stood. "I never lied, Chief. I can't be beat. Ever. Don't ask me why or how, I never knew and I don't much care anymore, but it's a fact. No grappler, shooter, or hooker on two legs can best me. Trust me, I looked. Like you, I took on all comers and left them starved for victory. Blind as a stone, I was still unbeatable.

"But sure things are bad business. I keep winning and winning and the crowd gets smaller and smaller. And what's the point of winning every fair fight in creation if it means you're out on the soup line?"

Paul stumbled to one knee. "I . . . don't believe you."

"Because Stanislaw Zybsko told you I fixed wrestling all by myself?" He laughed. "Did he mention I lost to him in nineteen twenty seven at the Gardens so he could get a great pay day, and that he was so unpopular and drawing such pithy crowds as champion he begged me to take the belt from him? Or that his own promotion is as crooked as mine? Sorry, chief. He played you like a violin. Just an old dirty hooker trying to humiliate me because me and Toots draw crowds, because we play this game better than anyone."

Seething, Paul pushed himself up, but weakness soured his muscles.

Strangler raised his hands in surrender. "Before the blood finishes making its way through your body, hear me out. You're a great shooter, and a better hooker. Too few these days can make a guy sorry if needs to, and we need a good hooker who can shoot to keep pretty boys like Ramona and McKinnley in line before they face me. Sometimes, with all the glamour, cash and photographs, they think that they can shoot for real, and we need a policeman on hand who can hook 'em before they get near me and make asses of themselves and us. Hookers and shooters are a rare breed, Chief. We'd pay you top dollar. Kiss riding the rails goodbye."

Paul stumbled back on his ass, shaking his head. "I won't take a dive. Not for you. Not for anyone. Ever."

Strangler's dead eyes turned to him. "Wouldn't have it any other way. I bet I'm the only man in a thousand miles who could beat you."

"I won't . . ."

"The world is changing, kid. Either role with its punches, or get knocked out."

Paul shook. Strangler gave him his hand. "You'll get your fair fights, seven days a week. But I'll need your word you'll keep things Dutch. And a small favour. Or I fear my new Japanese samurai will do something tragic."

*** 

Minutes later, Strangler stumbled out of the gym toward the bathing-trunked wrestlers at a picnic table. "Toots! That . . . that thing in there damn near took my head off." Paul emerged, shirt on, all eyes on him.  "We gotta sign him, now, before Stanislaw gets his hooks into him. This Argonaut tossed me like a sack of flour and I'll be damned if I let him go!"

Strangler and Toots chattered and walked toward the main bunkhouse as the sun mad a slow descent behind the mountains, the rest of the wrestlers followed. The air bite like frosted bullets and Jun Ruk sat on a picnic table, blade in hand.

Paul walked over.

The blade was now sharpened. The knife was calm and still. "You bested him?"

Paul watched the sun hide behind the mountains. "What do you think?"

Jun considered the blade. "I think Shakespeare was right. All life is a stage." He tossed it hilt deep into scrub ground. "Let's get some ice on that neck, 'Argonaut' Barnes. Nice name" Jun sniffled, then laughed. Paul followed until both were cackling like madmen as the sun ditched the sky for good.

END

Jason S. Ridler's fiction has appeared in such magazines as Not One of Us, Nossa Morte, Big Pulp, Crossed Genres, Flashquake, New Myths, Necrotic Tissue, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, and more. "Billy and the Mountain" appeared in Tesseracts Thirteen, edited by Nancy Kilpatrick and David Morrell. His popular non-fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld, Dark Scribe, and the Internet Review of Science Fiction. A former punk rock musician and cemetery groundskeeper, Mr. Ridler is a graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop and holds a Ph.D. in War Studies from the Royal Military College of Canada. Visit him at his writing blog, Ridlerville, http://jsridler.livejournal.com, Facebook, and on twitter at http://twitter.com/JayRidler

Story by Jason S. Ridler, Copyright 2010
Image by Amber Clark, Stopped Motion Photography, Copyright 2010