There is an age-old adage that suggests that life begins at forty. For Dalton McKenzie, his life began the day he got divorced. A young, immature man who married young, for inconsiderate reasons. He had dated his ex-Wife Lucy for five years before asking for her hand in marriage. They where married for nine years. They shared a lovely residence in the city of Milwaukee for the duration of their marriage. Lucy was just shorter than average, with auburn hair that she died from her natural sandy blonde. She worked in the Information Technology field, and was a Systems Administrator for a local hospital. She spent a lot of time at work. She was several years older than Dalton and had a lot more "life experiences" under her belt at the time she and Dalton started dating. She had already moved out of state to "discover herself", attended and graduated college, had been an intern at a couple of businesses and startups related to her technology field, had a decent financial situation for herself for a single person that was her age. Dalton found himself stuck leading a series of dead-end jobs in kitchen as a result of his actions when he was younger. When he met Lucy he was still in local community college, on the grind to get a Masters degree in Business Administration. Serious crimes committed as youth prevented Dalton to ever land a job in his field while attending school. Dalton was always intelligent, and this was proven in all the wrong ways as he was growing up as a teenager. He used his intelligence about computers and the Internet, which was still a toddler when Dalton was a teenager. He commited several acts of fraud, purchasing things online and selling them at school. These acts where not committed for any particular reason. Most criminal acts have obscured truths that make crimes justified in the eyes of the one comitting such an act. This was not the case for Dalton, as his exploitation of other people's credit was done for no other reason other than teenage rebellion. He had no rhyme or reason for his acts. Nothing more other than being pissed off at the world because things didn't turn out the way he thought they would. All these high expectations you have for life when your growing up, and the sad, oh so sad truth of finding out your nothing special when your released out into the world. Your the same as everything else out there. Your common, and so are the other people around you. Dalton always wanted to be something bigger, something special, something to look forward to being. He always went to great extraordinary lengths to prove to others how extreme he could be. How quickly and how easily it was for him to singlehandely take things to the next level. Whether it was impressing people in high-school for how "bad" he could be, or be it impressing ladies when he was trying to get the attention of a female. He would always take things to a new-unheard of level that would rouse the attention of those around to witness it. Overreaction was hand-in-hand with Dalton's extremes. In fact, to those whom where closest to him, or those who had to work in a kitchen with Dalton, or anyone who was in college with him knew for a fact that he wouldn't react to nearly anything, but in the off chance something did garner his attention, he would always overreact. Flying off the handle was as common as not even getting Dalton to look in your direction. He was ice cold that way. He could make you believe with absolute truth that his heart was made of stone. Giving someone the cold shoulder was all to easy for him. It was almost too easy for Dalton to be an icy-cold prick to those around him. He stood six-feet ten-inches tall, but to a vast majority of those who knew him he was the tallest person they had every encountered in their entire lives. Short black hair, which started to get the salt-and-pepper look to it by his mid twenties. Stress. His trademark goatee which was more salt than pepper, wasn't a signature look of his until the last year of his marriage onward. Lucy despised facial-hair and would simply not allow Dalton to have any sort of hair on his face at all. Slender but solid. Not overweight like nearly every other person he worked in a kitchen with. His skin was also running out of empty canvas, as he was getting populated with tattoos. Dalton never finished getting his MBA. He dropped out three years after he started dating Lucy. The fact that Dalton never finished getting his MBA was a layer added onto the weight that ultimately lead to the end of his marriage. Lucy and Dalton where on vacation in commemoration of their fifth year of dating when Dalton popped the question to her. The rest of the vacation of course was in a flurry of sporatic randomoness in the basking glow of the fact that they recently gotten engaged. However prior to the proposal, the night before, Lucy mentioned over dinner that she really did think that if they where ever to "settle down" or get more serious than just dating that it was critically important that Dalton finish school so they could have more a secure financial future. Both a little tipsy off Merlot, they where on vacation afterall. Dalton brushes her concerns to the side about finishing his MBA, due to the anxiousness of planning to propose to her. He did make promises to her that he would finish. Dalton had only worked in kitchens his whole life prior to attempting school. His Grandfather owned a restaurant and Dalton literally grew up on the line in his Grandfather's kitchen. His Mother worked for the restaurant as well. His Father is something that Dalton knows little about. Slowly started making his fading exit out of his life at the age of five when his parents divorced. Dalton's Father couldn't handle the food-industry toll that it impressed on his family so he left to go find himself another life. He would have Dalton with him every other weekend shortly after his parents split up, but that shortly faded into the wind and soon Dalton never saw his Father at all. He wouldn't show up or even give his son a phone call on special days like his First Day of School or his birthday. His Mother was a busy women, her life was pretty much was the restaurant. Dalton spoke with is Mother every single day. While his Grandfather pretty much played the role of Father to Dalton growing up, it was his Mother that he pretty much discussed everything with. Dalton suffered from Only Child Syndrome. His brothers and sisters where those that cleaned up in the pit at his Grandfather's restaurant. The ones that impressed him and stuck up for him, made fun of him, and took when he would call them out. Dalton inadvertently landed himself the job that would change his life forever while he was attending school. A fellow schoolmate of his had a relative that owned a restaurant and needed help. Yes, it was a job in a kitchen, something that was not related to an MBA but the money seemed good at the time and it wasn't until after his divorce to Lucy that the job would have significant influence on his life. He started out as a simple prep cook, which is what attracted him to the job in the first place. The hours where overnight, something that came natural to him. Being up all night. He would always joke around with others that his mind only worked proper in the night hours, and that the sun "hurt his skin if he was exposed to it too long". These where all little white-lies, but he would insist them truth in conversation with others. Just to prove how "extreme" he really was. He would go to work at two or three in the morning and jam out prep work, get an entire kitchen setup to the point to where the cooks just had to come in and stand in the kitchen and just make cold food hot. Dalton was good at what he did. He was very persistent. Had memory like the internet. He could tell a Dishwasher where the last bottle of soap was in the basement, and could equally tell Front of House staff how to make aoili without having to pull down the recipe book. Walking out the door by quarter to six in the morning, all appliances on and ready, cooks walking in the door at 6 A.M. sharp. School by 8 A.M. Wash, rinse, repeat. He started working on the line by accident when one of the morning cooks started fucking off his work. Probably drugs, or probably got deported. Nobody knew and nobody cared. As close-knit as kitchens run at the end of the day, they need a fucking body there on the line busting their nuts in the kitchen, getting the fuck out of the weeds. He'd voluntarily miss a day of school here and there. The "unimportant" days he would tell himself. Ultimately however he dropped out of school, and taken his Vows to the Kitchen and was doing the regular fifty, sixty hour weeks. Absolishing any sort of celebration of holidays or weekends in favor of Life in the Kitchen. It was something that he should have been used too. All his holidays where spent in the restaurant growing up. But he was a mere child and got to hang out up front where all the commotion on the customer side was happening. Not in the back where Front of House staff are getting told to go fuck themselves by Kitchen Staff. Where his own Grandfather is tell one of Dishwashers how he is going to rape one of the Wait Staff with a Cucumber if they put too much paprika on the plates again. Lucy grew tired of the restaurant called "The 7 Sins" that Dalton worked at rather quickly. She didn't really get on Dalton much during their dating time together but once they got married Lucy was constantly on Dalton to limit his hours at the restaurant, and expected him to somehow live a schedule that was nearly impossible for the average food-serivce industry worker. So it was until after they divorced that Dalton really stepped up his game at work and started to gain heavy ground on the professional level. At the time of his divorce, Dalton saw no other reason other than to work all the time. Shortly after splitting up with Lucy, Dalton moved to the lovely city of East Bend so he could closer to the restaurant that he was working at. Plus it gave him a comfortable amount of room between that and the old city that he was living in when he was married. He was aiming to not have to see his ex-Wife at all after the split and he thought being more than thirty miles outside of the city of Milwaukee would be enough of a buffer to keep him in a safe place to start a new life for himself. Lucy was popular within the city having been involved with several sort of city events that allowed people of the city to come together and get to know each other. She was also a member of a citizens group aiming at a doing what Neighborhood Watch programs failed to do, protect it's citizens. Lucy's late-Father was a retired police officer and anything police related was a very sensitive topic for her. She donated money the police department annually when would solicit for help at their doorstep. She wold donate money to all sorts of chartities and she felt herself something of a hero. She gave huge amounts of money to the humane society and was also heavily involved in volunteering time at the Humane Society, helping out wherever she could. She would do all of these things without discussing them with Dalon. When they married it was sort of inadvertently decided that Lucy was going to handle the bills and Dalton was going to take care of the rest. Housework, the cooking and the cleaning. Lucy paid the bills, and worked a lot of hours. If she didn't have volunteering to do after work she would often go straight to the house and shower, slip into the something comfortable and then involve herself with Social Media or Netflix for the rest of the night. Dalton worked second shift at his restaurant so it would be late in the evening before he would arrive home from work. Sometimes he would show up really late and be pretty buzzed up from his complimentary shift drinks from work. This sort of behavior really got Lucy upset. She felt wronged because she longed for days of having a dinner at a decent restaurant, with a few cocktails to pair with dinner. Stuff regular married people did, that sort of thing. Wheras Dalton seemed to think it didn't really matter. Lucy was always tied up with work, and he already worked second shit. His only days off where Tuesday and Wednesday. The only time he would have another day off or on the weekend, is when he would request off of work for their anniversary. It was the one day a year when Dalton pretended to be a normal human being and go out to a restaurant and enjoy himself with his Wife over dinner. The general idea of having a dinner on their anniversary included a flirtatious conversation with one another, a few moments of reflection of the years past, and spewing out ideas of what they had in mind for the future. Lucy was very adament on not having children. Dalton was alright with this idea, he got married in his mid twenties, thinking about children was an afterthought at best. So he told Lucy he was alright with not having children, he more cared about smoking a bowl of marijuana after work and falling asleep with a Xbox controller in his hand, or at the computer desk. Being a Father was the last thing on Dalton's mind the months and years leading up to his marriage. Lucy was so focused on her personal freedom and her own time that having children wasn't even a mild consideration. She liked being readily avaiable for work, being without children gave her a professional advantage she believed. As the years wore on, the distance between Dalton and his Wife Lucy begane to dwindle. She took on more hours at work, letting some of her voluntary obligations fall along the way, and Dalton picked up more hours at work. They stopped sleeping in the same room, Lucy sleeping in the bedroom normally and Dalton falling asleep in his Mancave in the basement of their house. This first happened when a heated argument erupted in the middle of the night when Lucy started violently pushing up against Dalton as he was sleeping. She said that his weazing, caused by cigarette smoking was preventing her from sleeping. She woke him up and said she needed him to "clear his throat" so she could sleep. Torn from sleep and not really thinking, Dalton just stormed out of the room and slept on the couch in the living room. There wasn't a word spoken of this between the two the next day, but that night when Dalton went to bed, he smoked a cigarette just before heading into bed. As soon as he walked into the bedroom, Lucy rolls over in bed and says "Do you always have to smoke before you sleep, I cannot stand the smell." Dalton didn't say a word. He took a spare pillow and blanket and went in the basement into his Mancave and had been sleeping in that room ever since. There would be days, even sometimes going upwards of a week-straight where the married couple wouldn't even see each other. Dalton wouldn't emerge from his Mancave unless it was to go to work, and Lucy wouldn't go in the basement unless she needed to do laundry. This all became commonplace and routine after a while and before long they were sooner roomates than a married couple. Sex between the two hadn't happened in almost four years and it got Dalton's mind rushing through all sorts of scenarios in his head. Of course being locked up in your own personal thoughts with nobody to really relate to other than coworkers, Dalton found himself dreaming up all the most insane and crazy idea of how his relationship with Lucy got to this point. While they where dating he nearly had to beat her off of him, she wanted to have sex so much. But now they don't even speak to each other, and they were afterall married. Dalton was convinced that she was having a go at someone else but couldn't seem to figure out how it was happening. These type of thoughts started happening to him daily. He couldn't help himself with the thoughts he was happening. Sick and twisted thoughts that almost turned into a perverted fantasy. He would have deeply-detailed thoughts about her having sex with people. Part of this behavior was partially motivated by his deep lust and desire to be close to his Wife, but with such a distance between the two, he couldn't do anything other than fantasize about her being with someone else. He'd imagine his coworkers having a go at her, her coworkers having a go at her, the few he had met. How could she wrong him like this? What did he do to her so heroically wrong that motivated her to go back on her marriage vows. During the spring of 2013, construction found itself smack dab in the middle of the road facing the front of The 7 Sins. The business remained open, but a typical service duing the middle of the week prior to construciton would require at least three line cooks if the prep work was entirely done. The kitchen was just that big and had that much volume, and such a strict level of plating that putting it any lower than three cooks just sacrified quality. During the construction, you could easily get away with having a single cook with help from a dishwasher or porter if need be and be in very good shape. Two cooks on the weekend for service, and that got worse and worse as the construction carried on. Dalton was loosing hours, getting off of work early. This could not have come at a more poorly timed moment than now as he had minor to major stints with nearly every recreational drug readily available to a person who works in a kitchen, which doesn't leave much too far out of reach. Cocaine was as common as finding marijuana in high-school. Prescription pills? The prep cooks and dishwashers had a more vast selection of prescription pills than Walgreens on the corner of Happy & Healthy did. Ecstasy seemed to be fading away, as it was no longer the early 2000's any longer. The days of raving and PLUR where long over for Dalton, and he had always feared that if he did partake in any MDMA he would end up committing adultery on Lucy. Because if there was one thing Dalton knew with absolute fact, it was that MDMA made sex, and all sexually related things a whole lot more expansive and enjoyable. Some of the most incredible sex he had with Lucy was when they took MDMA together. Being a more 'straight and narrow' person growing up, Lucy never took many recreational drugs with the exception of a prolonged stint with Crystal Meth while living in the Southwest in her early twenties. It was something she got into and out of before settling down on the college route before coming an Information Technology professional. Dalton grew up rough and tough and pretty much took everything he was handed, swallowing stuff without knowing what it was. Blacking Out and having Bad Trips where the things of some people's nightmares. They where called things like "last Tuesday" or "yesterday" in Dalton's youth. Growing up in a kitchen, being around kitchen staff your entire life, and at your most primal years - there isn't much else that can happen. Drugs where Dalton's best friend and worst nightmare. They where his best friend because they showed him love when he needed to have it most. They where his nightmare because they where really starting to wear down his character. He was beside himself half of the time. The extreme amount of drugs taken, and all in the solidarity with nobody but himself to get caught up in the lost wonders of the Drug World. Normally a person would have someone else who was also on the drugs to share the experience with. Dalton was locked up in his Mancave in the middle of the night, strung out on drugs with nothing but the internet to entertain him. No friends in the real world to account for. Coworkers and local drunks around the bar at work are nothing to be called upon in regards to friendship. So locked aways reading strange things on the internet, psyching out to music on his headphones Dalton found himself lost within himself. It was a Thursday night. Dalton was cut loose from work by the Chef and he headed home earlier than normal. At this point he was pretty much lying to Lucy about how many hours he was working, and she was so far unattached to what was going on in his world that she never really asked. But he never really made it seem like he lost hours in the first place either. He would hang out after work, at the bar, or go find someone who had drugs and get some for later. Smoke up with a coworker at their place or go on a roadie for a while before heading home. He never wanted to show up too early in the night. Perhaps if Lucy was still awake, if she was even home, she would ask why he was there so early. Dalton pulls onto 73rd Street, the street of which he lived and pulled into the driveway. Something someone does without thinking too much about it. So it was until he pulled into the drive that he noticed there was another car in the driveway, parked behind Lucy. Confused and alerted, Dalton quickly turns the lights off in his vehicle but does not power down the engine. He squints and looks at each of the windows of the house. Lucy demanded the drapes always be closed in the house, there was never sun coming in the windows. Their house was always dark and cold. He didn't noticed any of the drapes move from what he observed so he put his car in reverse and slowly backed out of the driveway. He backed out of the driveway in the opposite direction of which he pulled in because the neighbors had bushes running alongside their driveway and Dalton figured he would block out the light of reverse better if someone was indeed looking at him from outside of his own house. Dalton takes the car around the corner and down two blocks down to 71st Street right next to the old Antique Shop he and Lucy would visit every couple of months when they where dating. Thoughts powering through his mind. Should he park the car down the road and walk to the house and see what is going on? Should be park the car down the road and just stare at the house and wait for this person to leave? Should he follow them? What if it's a female? Maybe Lucy is upstairs in his house having lesbian sex with another female? Adrenaline and anxiousness rush through him like a water maine break in an old high school. Dalton decides to park the car down the road and around the corner, just far enough back so with a steady line of vision he could see the faintest outline of the end of his driveway from where he was sitting. Shaking with anxiety, Dalton stares at his house from his vantage point. Five minutes seem like forever to go by. But then it's ten, fifteen, thirty-minutes later. Dalton is convinced whomever is in his home with his Wife must have scampered off when he intially left the house and went down by the Antique Shop. He opens the car door. Shuffles the collar on his hoodie and starts walking up the block towards his house. Just as luck would have it, Dalton isn't even two houses up the block before the mysterious Ford 500 that was in the driveway of his house is backing up without the lights on. Standing six-feet-ten-inches tall, if someone knows of Dalton, they know if they see someone standing that tall at any given place, that it is probably him. He crouches down and pounces into some bushes as the car makes it's way down the road in his direction. Dalton is nearly laying on the ground now, getting all scratched up and poked from the thorny bushes he's made cover in. As if life was in slow motion as the car passed Dalton got a crystal clear look at the driver of the vehicle. It was a female afterall. One who appeared to look vaugely familiar. Dalton recalled seeing her at one of the Christmas Parties Lucy's company had a few years back. Dalton recalls taking a shot with her at the bar. Shot of Tequila. She was wearing red shoes that night, Dalton commented that he liked them. She was sort of easy to talk to, they had gone back and fourth a few times after they had their shot. Couldn't remember the ladies name to save his life. Dalton was terrible at names. Dalton walked back to his vehicle and got inside. He debated on texting his Wife some random message just to see what her response would be. But it had been a few days since they had even texted each other so it would be akward to text her now. It's going on 11 o'clock. The earliest Dalton would have been home had his hours been correct would have been about 11:30 or quarter to midnight at the latest. Lucy would know this and if she's having guests over it would only seem natural she would have them off just before he would arrive home from work. Not a single need for them to see the Husband that is Full of Disappoint. Dalton stalls in his car and debates what to do. He doesn't know where to go, home or on a random drive. Driving around in circles seems pointless, and he doesn't really have anywhere to go. Going home seems like the thing to do, but he does not want to start some angry war at home that is going to further damage what is left of their marriage. A tear drips from Dalton's eye. Swipes it away like a windshield-wiper, as if it didn't happen. He wouldn't allow himself to get upset, even while alone. It was all part of keeping up on that stone-cold persona that he passionately tried to make more and more faceless each day. Dalton decides to go home. He makes his way back into the driveway, now with just Lucy's car present. He parks in his normal spot, and heads into the house. The house is dark and cold, as per usual. Dalton walks to the kitchen, a room he's almost unfamilar with at this point and reheats himself a cup of coffee in the microwave. He figures if Lucy is awake she has to know that he's in the house and that if she wants to talk to him she will come to see him. Microwave makes it's annoying five beeps and Dalton starts to sip on his warmed coffee. He doesn't hear house noises coming from above, so Lucy is either sleeping or doing something on her iPad. He takes his coffee downstairs with him to the Mancave and finishes it while reading his email, before turning in the for the night. He's awoken from noises coming out of the laundry room early in the morning. He hops out of bed and goes to the laundry room where he sees Lucy topless and in underwear getting clothes ready for the morning. He stares at her body for a moment before letting out a quiet "Good Morning" to her from the doorway leading into the laundry room. She jumps and looks back at him: "You startled me!" Dalton apologies but gets no response. "Going into work early this morning?" "Kind of, I'm meeting someone for coffee and a light breakfast before work, but we are discussing work matters." she replied. Dalton was again staring at Lucy's body, falling into something of a daydrem about being with her again. His glare is interuppted by Lucy "You going to just stand there and stare at me?" "Well I suppose we don't have time for a quicky before you have to be off to work?" Dalton says to here with a smirk on his face. Lucy advances towards him and pauses at the doorway. Dalton steps aside and Lucy walks past him and towards the stairs leading to the main floor of the house. Before she heads up the stairs she turns around to look at him. "It would be nice to go out somewhere sometime. Have a good day at work." Lucy goes back upstairs and Dalton goes back to the Mancave. Defeated. Shortly after Lucy leaves for her breakfast meeting, Dalton decided to take a walk around the block to sort of revive himself from the dread of morning that was cast upon him. Northbound from the house, he starts walking towards McKinley Park. Two younger kids are approaching him from the opposite direction. Dalton flicks out his cigarette ash as to not cloud up the children as they pass. When they do however Dalton is shocked to hear the kids who couldn't have been over the age of ten or eleven years old where listening to The Proclaimer's 500 Miles song. Dalton turns to look at them as they pass. Trying to get a glimpse of the screen so he could perhaps recognize the app they where streaming the music from, but it's too bright outside to hope to see someone's phone display. He's bewildered as to how two kids so young where jamming out to a song that old. He walks through the middle path of McKinley and sits on the wooden park bench. Decorated heavily of years of engravings of past lovers. Dalton always thought of carving something in this bench with his and Lucy's initials. He was always falsified in his attempts to be genuine to the world about how things where between he and Lucy. One of Dalton's many tattoos was on his upper left breast, a replica of the "I Love Lucy" logo from the vintage show from back in the day. Lucy had a collection of "I Love Lucy" propaganda in their house. In fact there was a room that intended to be a study or book room in their house ended up being a room full of memorabellia for the "I Love Lucy" show. She had posters, figurines, art hanging on the wall, things that where related to Lucille Ball. Dalton got that tattoo on their first year wedding anniversary. The day before they went out to eat for their special day he got that ink job done before service. Dalton despite being covered in tattoos, always struggled getting tattoos when he got one. This was in part because of his shit diet, equally poor sleep pattern, and fear of needles. The fear of needles stems from the one time he tried injecting heroin into this arm. What ended up being one big bloody mess resulted in Dalton being forever fearful of needles. He did love his ink tho so he would muscle through it when the time came to get a new one. There were deep seeded meanings to each and every one of Dalton's tattoos and he would lie to everyone around him about what those meanings where about. Dalton's diet had always been poor. Growing up and being raised in a kitchen, your diet pretty much consisted of tasting stuff the cooks where tasting, and eating deep friend food or some sort of appetizer while wandering around out front in the restaurant. Never sitting down to actually eat a meal. His Grandfather and Mother practially lived at the restaurant, his Grandfather would sometimes sleep in the dry storage area on a really busy night when he had to be back at three thirty in the morning to get ready for the next day's brunch. This morning was no different for Dalton. Prior to going to McKinley Park, all he had consumed where tobaccoo and coffee. Thick as concrete, dark as night coffee that could fuel a jet-liner. Always extreme. Dalton would wake up in the morning and literally run outside to smoke two, sometimes three cigarettes in a row before even brewing coffee. Nutrionally starved, and wrung out from drugs on the regular, Dalton didn't have much of a stomach for too much food. He would help create some of the most amazing dishes at The Seven Sins restaurant but he wouldn't allow himself the few moments it would require to take in good food for the body for the day ahead. Especially in the busy, fast-paced enviornment of the kitchen. Dalton looks around the Park and deliberates what to do with himself and what he saw the night before. Nevermind the conversation he had with Lucy this morning, for at least there was a legible amount of dialoge and even eye-contact for a few brief moments. There is no possible way he can try to do something on her computer or other internet devices to try and snoop on her. She's an Information Technology professional, she has the knowledge of technology to the point that she could know the second he laid his curious hand any of her devices, and Dalton is positive that she would already such a system in place to prevent herself from being discovered if she was fucking around on him. He tossed around the idea of putting secret cameras in the bedroom or around the house. Unless it was in the bedroom in an obvious place, there would be little chance of him being discovered as he covered all the cleaning and the housework, while Lucy only poked around heavily in the bedroom. But the best cameras would require a WiFi connection in the home, and run themselves at a rather high-ticket price. To Dalton, his marriage is so far gone and lost that the only thing holding him back from knowing this is admitting it to himself. Something he seems like that he cannot do. He's got her ink on him afterall, she swore to him in front of their Friends and Family that this was something until Death Did Them Part, and she's allowing things to get to this point. Dalton knows he's not the perfect person in the world, but he feels like she has a little blame to go on this situation and how things have gotten to this point. Living everyday to try and hide and conceal who he really was to Lucy, and Lucy doing the same in the return. The dark cloud only seemed to be over Dalton's head though. Lucy never seemed to be sad or depressed while going about her life. Dalton was the one disecting his every move in life to try and figure out what was wrong, and he would be mentally and sometimes even physically exhausted as he try and decode this nonsense. Dalton leaves the park with his head hung low and lost in his thoughts. He feels like the world should open up and just swallow him whole. He wants to go away and be apart from this life. He wants to go back to when things seemed better for him, but he has trouble trying to pinpoint when that exactly was. He starts walking back up the sidwalk once crossing through the grass, still fragrant from the morning dew being scorched away from the morning sun. As he approached his house he decides that if there is any chance of him gaining evidence against his Wife he would have to do it the old fashioned way. Without the use of fancy gadgets or applications on electronic devices. This will have to be accomplished by the ways of yesterday. Stalking, prowling, all the things that are looked down upon while done in person but in reality it seemed it was what everyone's mobile phones with doing to them inadvertantly. Dalton on the other hand took the whole Social Media thing with a grain of salt. Of course reserving profiles on all the Major Player sites as to keep a placeholder for his name in the world, because in 2013 if you where not on Social Media of somesort, the rest of the world may very well presume you are dead. As he approaches his house, Dalton's anxiety about the situation hardened into something of hatred. He's motivated to reclaim by whatever means possible his marriage, and he prepared to let this 2013 Sherlock Holmes investigation get underway. Dalton fires up a pot of coffee and gathers essentials for a shower. He takes a quick shower. He Grabs a cup of coffee and pours the rest of the pot in a caraFFE and heads down the Mancave. Dalton stalks Lucy's Facebook and Twitter accounts looking for pictures on profiles or in albums of photos of the Lady he saw leaving his house last night. He's going at it for quite a long time, and he did get sidetracked as he looked at pictures of the past of Lucy and himself that where posted up on her Facebook profile. As where the wedding photos. As many other things in his world, the wedding photos on Facebook remind him of an argument that he had with Lucy years ago when Dalton removed the tags of his name on their wedding photos. Lucy threw up in arms, proclaiming to Dalton that he was "ashamed" to be married to her because he wouldn't allow the photos be tagged back to his profile. This little heated argument quickly escalated into something that ruined a few weeks in their relationship. With resentment that hasn't been resolved to this day. Both of them hold deep-seeded grudges with one another that dial back years prior to their marriage. Finally Dalton finds himself upon the photo album that had pictures of this Lady at the Christmas party where Dalton recalls first meeting her. Her name is Brittney and suddenly he recalls that he did know that before it just slipped his mind. Thoughts about that night suddenly reenter his head. Her trademark red shoes, how easy she was in conversation, almost laid back to the point that she could be considered one of the guys. Thoughts muster through Datlton's mind and he is convinced that Lucy must be cheating on him with this woman. She's got that look of butch lesbian, with her short hair and button up shirt. He is not too suprised at this point, but he had no idea someone this far back would suddenly be at the forefront of this thoughts. The cute little girl-only-girl who is now a wedge between Dalton and Lucy. Dalton logs off his comptuer and pours himself another cup of coffee. Going into his cabinet and pulls out his marijuana storage container and one of his glass pipes. He pops the seals off the storage bin, four of them in total, each of them making a popping metal-on-metal noise as he opens the clips. Daltons looks into his marijuana stash and admires the cystalized buds of beautiful marijuana. He puts a small pinch into his small, personal sized Stop Sign Red pipe and steps over the small window that he opens just a crack. Which really serves no purpose, the smoke never goes out the windows and cracking it open just a crack while smoking a bowl doesn't help in any sort of way with the smell. Marijuana however is the only drug that Lucy allowed Dalton to do. It was the only one she found socially acceptable. She said all other drugs have bad habits attached to them, habits that could turn a man into a monster. Dalton would blindly agree to this sentiment of Lucy's, as he did with most other things. He found it as an open ticket to smoke pot in his own home. Something every American ought to have a right to do. Dwindling around in his mind about the situation at hand, Dalton tries his hardest to hold his hits of marijuana, taking in the whole thing to his head, feeling the care of the situation wash away. He needs proof she's fucking around on him before he jumps to any wild conclusions. Dalton remembers when Lucy and he were on ecstasy that she mentioned "if the right girl" happened to cross her path, she wasn't sure if she would be able to resist the temptation. She had a deep love the gay and lesbian community, whereas Dalton didn't have a problem with gay people at all, but not being gay himself he didn't hold much of an opinion. Lucy had gone to all the Pride Fest annual get-togethers in Milwaukee when it happen each year. She would always beg and plea with Dalton to go with her. Dalton always refused, he would tell Lucy he would be afraid of who would all see him there and Lucy saw that as him saying that he didn't like gay people. Dalton didn't really like going many places, and he places all the blame on his height. He may be the most socially akward person on the planet, but he insists that his height in the reason he doesn't like going places. Someone would "always see him" and he didn't like that. While it is hard to miss someone who is six-ten, the real reason he was afraid people seeing him is because he's afraid who it might be, and what part of "Dalton" they remember. Meddling around in all the underground business, you can run into pretty shady characters and people who may not want to ever run into again. Drug deals gone bad for one reason or another, someone got fucked out of money, that sort of thing. Being afflicted by such a craving for altered state of mind, Dalton has worn many face over the years in his quest for The Perfect High. Faces he may only vaugely remember, faces he may not care to remember. Faces of Dalton's Past. Dalton has the next two days off of work, and with the early release he feels good about having a little bit of time to a little investigative work. Lucy will expect him to be here when she gets home tonight from work, so he doubts she will be up to no good tonight. Probably tomorrow as well. Behaving well and whatnot, playing the part and playing it well. Dalton tidies up his pipe and puts it back in the storage container and puts it back in the cabinet. One more cup of coffee finishes off the carAFFE. Stoned, and at least for the moment not overly angry about last night he makes his way upstairs. Dalton puts his coffee cup and carAFFE back in the kitchen and walks outside in the backyard. Fires up a Marlboro Red and sits down on the wooden swing that is only really used when Dalton comes outside to smoke. A metal pail sits in the grass near the swing where Dalton throws his cigarettes when he done smoking them. Another thing that Lucy didn't like. She didn't like the bucket sitting outside, "killing the grass" as she always mentioned. She didn't like the bucket, and she wouldn't sit on the swing because it, the swing itself "smelt of smoke". She not only didn't like the fact that Dalton smoked, she didn't like anything about his smoking and she didn't hesitate to make it be known. If they for whatever reason Dalton and Lucy happened to be in the same car, perhaps running errands or attenting a manditory family event in recognition of a holiday or a birthday of a relative, if Dalton would have a smoke right before they would leave, Lucy would hold her sleeve over her face for ten or twenty minutes in the car, immediatly dropping the window when the electricy of the car went online, anything to make the smoker feel bad. Dalton wasn't a proud smoker either, no real smoker in the world is. He as so many others where addicted to the nicotine and all the other garbage that Big Tobacco puts in their products. He was a heavy smoker, but not a heavily proud smoker. He would do anything to quit smoking, and he had tried several times in the past. He got close once with the aide of prescription medication, but nearly lost his mind in the process. All the terrible side effects which are now commonplace during a Commerical for Drugs in the United States, loudly and proudly stated as if they are something to be thankful for. All of the terrible side effects of this drug took full force on Dalton and so he stopped taking them. He manged to still stay smoke-free for quite a long time, but when his Grandfather passed away he immediatly picked the habit back up. Finishing his smoke Dalton heads back into the house. Grabs his keys, his phone, and his backpack and heads out the door to his car. As he backs out the driveway he dials his Mother and his Mother's voice takes over the car speakers of his automobile. "Hello?" "Hey Mom how are you?" Dalton says "Good. You off today?" "Yes. Wondering what your up to, seeing if I could stop by." "Of course, I'm just cleaning up a little bit here at the house." "Sounds good I'll be there soon." "Alright Dalton, Love you." "Love you too Mom, bu-bye" Dalton pushes a button on his phone to end the call, and music from his phone takes over the audio. He drives to his Mother's house, but takes the long route. Dalton's Mother, Grace lives in Delafield. The man who Dalton buys marijuana from lives in Oconomowoc. As Dalton makes his way outside the city limits he sends his contact a text message requesting to stop out on the way to his Mother's. Dalton approaches the freeway, his favorite time to drive because he likes to provoke freeway with high speeds. Which is something of hilarity in all honesty because he has nothing short of a station wagon. It may be a Subaru, but it is still a station wagon. But he loved the thing to death, and although Dalton isn't anything of a car enthusiast, he did passionately love his Subaru. Halfway to his Mother's house he gets a text back from his contact. He tells Dalton that he is busy at this time and that he would be around later that morning. Dalton texts him back and says he will be reaching out to him after he done visiting with his Mother. A confirmation text back sets the plans in stone. He continues driving to his Mother's house and vibes out to Downtempo music on his way. He arrives at his Mother's house, which is a now defunt farming lot that used to be used by his Step-Father's family back in the fifties. Chris was Dalton's Step-Father, married to his Mother for nearly twenty years. They met in the kitchen, but only indirectly. Chris was a maintenance mechanic for nearly all things that operated in a commercial kitchen. With his hand dirty in almost every facet of Kitchen Life, if it was broken and plugged in somewhere in a commercial kitchen, Chris would fix it. He had spectacular amounts of understanding of appliances, and even dabbled in doing things like commercial flooring and walls. He worked for himself, he was a proud entrepenAUR. Aside from servicing of appliances in the kitchen world, he would snowplow in winter, and he would work on cars at his house where he had a full-fledged auto mechanic setup in one of his restored Barns. The one his Father used to milk cows in, is now equipped with a hydraulic lift, every tool one would fathom for working on automobiles. Not just impact drivers and stuff like that, but single-purpose tools that you would often have to go and rent from a company for the day, all where within a few paces of a raised car in Chris' barn. With is deep knowledge for All Things Mechanic, and an even deeper understand of How Things Work, Chris' work spoke for itself. Oftentimes if he would get a first-time customer whether or not it was his servicing and maintenance of appliances, to snow plowing or if a friend needed work on a car (his mechanics he didn't often charge money for, for it was Chris' bartering mechanism), people would always want Chris to be the guy they called next because of how dependable he was, and how loudly and proudly his work spoke for itself. The restaurant Grace worked in "Cooper's Corner Bistro", was having their Dish Machine worked on in the middle of service on a Friday. In the lovely state of Wisconsin this would be commonly known as a nightmare. Having your dishmachine fail you in the peak of service on "Fish Fry Friday" which was a huge deal for all placles that charged people money for food in the Midwest of United States. That was the day Chris first met Grace. She was up front talking to Front of House staff, when Chris arrived to service the machine. Always determined to do a proper job, and always focused, Chris can recall how taken back he was by the mere presense of Grace. He stuck around for a beer after he was done servicing the machine, as the restaurant gave him a complimentary meal for his quick response time and quick work of the dish machine. He gave Grace the sort of attention that night while he enjoyed his free meal, that Grace hadn't felt since she was with Dalton's biological Father. A feeling that she enjoyed but had had refused herself since that long time in her past. She had spent her life's work and energies dedicating herself to the restaurant that her Father owned. Something that made her Father really proud of her, and even tho she denied to be the General Manager of the restaurant at her Father's untimely passing, she is the owner at the end of the day and everyone in the restaurant knew this without asking. They knew by looking at all the fine lady did for the establishment. Everyone from the bussers to the highest escheLONS of the kitchen staff looked up to her as a Mother and accepted her every word as fact. This was in part because she was always a straight shooter when it came to telling people how it was. Being encased in a kitchen for a majority of her life as well, Grace was well accustomed to have been lied to by nearly everyone around her. Why they where late, why they didn't do this, that or the other thing. Vendors with their excuses about how or why something didn't get delivered on the last delivery of products to the restaurant. Alcohol vendors being forgetful about fixing last weeks invoice. It didn't matter what it was, Grace had the assumption that if someone was being told to her that she was being told an alternate version of the truth. Her only weak spot was Dalton. Even though, especially while growing up as a kid Dalton was fibbing to his Mother, lying about school, lying about social interactions, lying about what he was up to after work when he was working at the Bistro. Chris however seemed to be a straight shooter as well. He took Grace by suprise with how honest he was even with the strangers at the Bar. She enjoyed his blatant honesty about things, and how Chris seemed vastly unaffected about what others thought of his opinions. Grace had significant influence in the restaurant always reaching out to Chris to fix things in the restaurant when things went awry. Until it got to the point where employees at the restaurant coined the "Better call Chris" phrase in the kitchen. Whenever anything at all went wrong, someone would say "Better Call Chris… he can fix it", or "Better have Grace call Chris to fix this shit." would often be heard coming out of the mouths of kitchen staff. As the months turned into a year, Grace and Chris started formally dating. They dated for a few years before they decided to wed. Over the years Dalton has gotten pretty close to Chris, but having his Father walk out on him at such a tender age, he found it extremely difficult to take anyone in as close as a boy or a man would a Fatherly figure. His Grandfather by in large played the part of Father to Dalton, but it was usually done while cooking in the kitchen. Dalton would turn to him for advice and receive quick off-the-cuff answers to life's biggest questions. Dalton arrives at his Mother's house and parks his car midway down the drive because you never know if someone will show up with a tow-truck to drop off a vehicle for Chris to repair, so Dalton always parked in such a way so a truck could easily turn around and get back out of the drive without having to reverse a truck with a bed or trailer toting behind it. Dalton gets out of his car and pops his trunk to grab a few things in there he had been meaning to to return to his Mother for a little time. Pyrex dishes, copies of recipes that he found interesting in magazines and didn't have to flash into Evernote and set to his Mother digitally. Graces walks out the back door of her house and meets Dalton by his vehicle. "Hey Dalton, how are you?" Grace says to him as she reaches up as high as she can to try and hug her son around his shoulders. Grace is taller than most other typical women, dyed blonde hair with dark roots, but it looks very good. Grace was a very attractive female, and she always rather dressed herself very well despite being stuck in the back of the house most of the time at work. Many of the locals at the restaurant would flirt with her a lot, which was something that off the bat seemingly upset Chris. However Grace would always remind him that even though there are a lot of people that seemingly want to flirt with her and make suggestive comments, where almost always done under the influence of alcohol, and she wasn't really responsive to these advances from men, and she told Chris whenever he would give greif about it, that he was the only one she went home with after all her years in the kitchen. "I'm good Mom, how are you?" "Good, you want me to take that stuff for you?" She says referring to the stuff that Dalton had in his trunk. "No I got it. Do you have any coffee online at all?" he asked "I started a pot as soon as we got off the phone earlier." "Of course you did." Mother and Son go into the house and have a seat in the kitchen, the room most of them felt the most comfortable in. Their farmhouse is brought into the 21st Century with modern appliances, but most of them where discounted or "scratch and dent" models that Chris and Grace got for a cheaper deal than paying for a brand new model of an appliance. Lucy prepares both of them a cup of coffee. Jet black the way most people who worked in a kitchen liked their brew. It takes the least amount of time to prepare, and usually in the morning when your in the kitchen, you simply do not have the time to fancy yourself coffee with sugar and cream. Both of them have a seat around the island in the kitchen. Grace opens one of the drawers on her side of the island and pulls out a glass ashtray, one of the ones the Bistro used to use at the restaurant before the smoking ban went into effect in Wisconsin. She sets it on granite countertop and slides it down the island towards Dalton who sets his wrist on the granite as well to stop it. "Thanks" he says as he reaches into his messenger bag to grab out his cigarettes. Pulls out a Marlboro Red and lights it up. He sets his Zippo on the countertop and it makes a loud click against the granite. His Mother fires up a cigarettes and takes a long drag off it it, exhaling. "What is it you want to talk about Dalton, you had the sound in your voice. What's up?" "I think Lucy is cheating on me," he said while staring at his Zippo on the counter "with another women." Grace nearly swallowed her coffee wrong when Dalton said what he just did. "Your joking, right?" "I don't think so. I don't have any solid proof but the chemistry of our situation would make it seem as much." Dalton said with a sigh "I got cut early last night and got home and someone was there, I went down the road and stalked the house. Eventually some lady that she works with left the house." "That doesn't mean she's cheating on you with another woman Dalton." his Mother said nearly disregarding what he just said "The whole house was dark Mom. It was late, there wasn't a single light I could see on on the ground level of the house. If someone was in there they had to be upstairs. You gotta see pictures of this chick too, she's a lot like that Rebecca girl that used to work at the Bistro." Dalton says as he pulls up his phone and opens up the downloaded pictures off Brittney's profile. "Holy shit, that is defitnitely a lesbian that's for a sure." Grace said. "Yeah, you know that's right." Dalton said. "Your real Father cheated on me." Grace said "Quite a bit actually. One night I came home from work and took a shower right when I got home and while I was dressing I saw from upstairs of that house we lived in when you where born a half-naked girl shuffling out of our yard and into a car parked on the street behind our house. Being discreet wasn't one of your Father's strong suits." She informed Dalton that she would have left his Father eventually for the cheating, but it was the drinking that made her want out completely. When she gave him the ultimatum of choosing the bottle or his Family he quickly chose the bottle and left without saying his goodbyes. "So I'm just supposed to sit here and take it?" Dalton asks his Mother. "Cheating on me with some fucking dike. I don't fucking think so." "Your clearly upset Dalton and you have every right to be if your assumptions are correct. Don't jump to any wild conclusions until you know for sure what the situation is. I know how you get, don't start stalking people and becoming the private dective you always talked about being as a boy. This isn't time for one of your 'secret missions'. If I where you I would just ask her outright. You guys are married not dating, if she is screwing around on you that is definitely something that needs to be addressed and you need to decide how to move forward." "There is no fucking moving forward if she cheated on me." Dalton snapped. "Have you ever cheated on her? Be honest." "I can't believe you asked me that. Fuck no I haven't cheated on her. I have her name tattooed on my chest for fuck's sake." he said rudely to his Mother. He looks at the zippo again, paused, looks back at his Mother. "I'm sorry I'm upset." "Clearly." Grace said, unsatisfied but dismissive due to that fact she's talking to her son. "Not everyone separates if someone has been fucking around. I only asked if you had because your half your Father's blood sadly, and while I wish there parts of him that never became part of you the reality is that those are facts that cannot be denied. Think about it, all the drugs you got into, the ones you may still be into, all that shit is from your Father." "Yeah.." Dalton said with a exhalation of smoke. "I know." "I didn't mean to put you in your cocoon, you obviously need to let some things out, I'm your Mother that's what I'm here for." Grace said to him sterny. "Do you want me to call or text her?" "No, I'll handle it Mom, and I wont go on any 'secret missions' either." Dalton said. "I'm at the end of my rope I dont know know what I'm going to do about the situation. I still love her very much, I don't understand how things go to fucked up." "I'm not trying to make the situation worse Dalton, but according to her your not the most apporoachable person. She used to call me crying her eyes out the first couple years you guys where married. Another one of your Father's terrible traits you have seemed to inherit, your good at playing mind games Dalton. You may have pushed her too far away. You can damage a person so much to a point where it doesn't matter what you do any longer, what you do to change the future, you can even make the future postitive and wonderful but if you have broken a person it does not matter." Grace gets up and walks over to her son. Puts her hand on his shoulder. "I love you Dalton, your my son, but you need to find out what the future holds for you and Lucy. You keep up the way you are you'll turn into who I was when I was still with your Father. Your going to end up breaking yourself. I don't want you to break yourself Dalton. I love you too much, your my heart." "I love you too Mom." He says as he stands up, towering over his Mother, bends down and gives her a big hug and lifts her off the ground and gently sets her back down. "Thank you for the advice Mom, I really appreciate it." His Mother walks him outside back to his car but before he leaves they take a walk down to one of the smaller milk barns where his Mother had prepared some fresh vegetables for him. Stuff he ends up taking with him to work usually because he doesn't really cook much at home any longer, something his Mother doesn't quite fully understand how far unattached from daily routine of normality he and Lucy are. Three cardboard tray liners of fresh produce from the garden are given to Dalton by his Mother. Green and red peppers. Garlic and onions. Both red and white. Two heads of cauliflower, and a few spring onions. Dalton gives his Mother one last hug and a kiss on the cheek before dropping the produce in his trunk and getting into his car. Always pounding down lots of smokes while visiting with his Mother, as with any two cooks having a solid conversation, Dalton stops at the fueling station to get a pack of Marlboro Reds. He pulls into the parking lot and puts the car in park. Before turning the car off he reaches out of his contacts via a text message: "You good?" Dalton kills the engine and walks into the gas station. He makes his way towards the back of the store and heads towards the stand up coolers where all the drinks and beverages are stored. He grabs two Red Bulls and walks up towards the register. The young blonde cashier is quick with a smile and friendliness when she acts "Is that all" "No, can I get a pack of Marlboro Reds as well please?" Dalton said. He hands her a twenty dollar bill and gets his small-change back. As he's approaching his vehicle, he hears his phone make that special noise, the customized message noise for his contact. "Head on over bro, grab me a Red Bull if your stopping on the way out." Dalton responds: "Already did bro, see you soon!" Dalton heads over to his contacts house. Oconomowoc is a boring drive from Delafield to someone who had spent the last several years being a resident of the city. Dalton did grow up outside of the city, but it's quick to get used to things being only a few city-blocks apart from one another. Just as he's about to arrive at his destination, Dalton gets a text message from his Lucy. It reads: "Consider getting together with me to go get a latte or even a short walk in a park? We need to talk about a few things. Let me know ASAP! -L" "Whenever is good for you works for me. Off today and tomorrow" he replies. Dalton's contact lives on the very outskirts Oconomowoc, his property laying right next to the political line for the next city. He's very much an outdoor man, nearly living entirely off the land. One of those survivalist types, with the guns and ammo to prove it. Dalton parks his car in the driveway up close to the house. His contact doesn't like to raise too much suspition from his neighbors. Even though his neighbors are fairly far away from his property as he has a considerably long driveway. He does violate one of the most important rules of selling illegal drugs, and that rule is not to sell drugs out of the house that you live in. It's bad for everyone involved if something goes wrong. His contact has a few rules set into place for those that he sells his drugs too. He's not into selling to random strangers on the street, he rather sell 'larger than normal' quantities to a few close associates that he trusts. And while he and Dalton are pretty close, Dalton doesn't have any real clue as to how much in total drugs his contact sells, but it is definitely enough to pay for his house and all his bills and whatnot. He does not have any gainful employment that Dalton was aware of. His contact, Inon comes walking from around the house and puts both his arms out to his side as he approaches Dalton and gives him a quick man hug. "Dalton, my brother how are you?" "Good Inon." Dalton says "Here is your Red Bull." Dalton hands it to his contact and they head back towards one of three sheds that Inon has setup on his property. The one that Inon didn't get a building permit for, the one on the back of the property just back where the tree line starts. Inon has a fallout floor underneath this shed, which is where he stores his stash of goodies. Not to be taken lightly however. It is fairly secured, and he's not really going inside of the thing while other people are around. Dalton only got to see it because for whatever reason Inon found a lot faith where most people didn't in Dalton. Something that perhaps didn't see in himself. They met at The 7 Sins a few years back, Inon has absolutely no interest in working a kitchen for any decent amount of time, but he would take part-time jobs here and there so everything looked legit for his taxes, being a homeowner and whatnot. He did enjoy being off the grid as much as possible. Very much into hunting, solar power, and living off the land. Only ate meat that was raised by people he knew locally. When most people are trying to impress on others how incredible someone is they say things like he or she are ahead of their time. Inon was seriously behind of their time, but the stuff he know about survival and living off the land was staggering and made the most modern day intelligent person seem ignorant. Inon could survive in the woods for a week without packing a single ounce of food in his bags. He was just that intelligent on all things related to the earth. You would think he was Native American, as many of his traits and charactertistics are completely derived from Native American ways. He would kill muskrats and crack open their skulls and reduce down their brains and use that to tan their hides. The things he has shown Dalton has grossed him out a little bit, but he always did his best to act strong around Inon when he was showing him something. And despite not having anything to do with being a professional chef, Inon showed Dalton how to use a steel and whet stone properly. He showed Dalton how to make beef jerky with the vaccuum sealed steaks by simply hanging them by the hoods over the appliances on the line in the kitchen. Dalton and Inon take a seat on some stools that Inon had made out of a tree stump and some 2x4 boards. He was very crafty that way. If he would make it, he wouldn't buy it. He had mushrooms sitting in baskets everywhere in the shed, the whole shed smelt of damp dirt. Inon always smoking out of the most ungodly huge pipes, pulls out a gynormous glass pipe hands it over to Dalton. "Here you go brother, fire it up. Your favorite Sour Diesel." "Are you serious!?" Dalton exclaimed. "About time something good happened this week!" "What are you talking about?" Inon questioned. "Nothing don't worry about, shit with Lucy, you know." Dalton paused. He takes a hit off one side of the bowl as to leave Inon with half a GREEN HIT as well, returning the honor of allowing him to spark it. "Nothing different than back in the day when you where working at the restaurant. Except I think Lucy is cheating on me with another women." Inon nearly jumps off his stool. "Are you joking?" Dalton shakes his head. Inon walks over the wall off the shed and punches a sling of onions he has hanging from the ceiling. "Hey don't worry about it man, it's all good." Dalton said. Inon points his finger in between between Dalton's eyes as he starts pacing back and fourth. "Fuck no man, that's some bullshit coming out of your mouth right there. That's the result of the MTV Generation making you into a god damn woman. Pussying you out so you think it's okay for her to go against her vows she took to you as a Woman. That bitch wanted to be a Carpet Muncher she should have fucking decided that's what she wanted to do with herself before she gave herself to you." "I love you death brother." Dalton stands up as well. "This is why I didn't why I didn't wanna say anything to you about it, I know how excited you get about stuff. Your old-school and that's a large part of the reason I enjoying being around you so much. Sadly the world isn't finely tuned as you are, and Lucy certainly not." "Those are the words of a conformist." Inon walks over the workbench where the pipe was sitting and takes another long drag off of it and hands it back to Dalton. "I don't accept that answer. I'm telling you this as a friend and a stranger looking at the situation from the outside in. If you have solid proof that Lucy is cheating on you with with ANOTHER WOMEN you must be out of your god-damn mind if you think she's going to be able to get away with it." "Well that's it, I don't really know for sure if she exactly is cheating on me or not. No solid proof." Inon gives Dalton a hard crack right in the midsection, right near the bladder. Dalton pretended it didn't phase him but he didn't see it coming so it honestly did hurt a little bit. "Do you feel it in your gut?" "I guess so." Dalton says, "But I would be a fool to just confront her without knowing anything for sure. I'm going to keep my ear closer to the tracks and find out what's going on before I decide what to do. Wanna see a picture of this chick though?" Dalton pulls out his phone and opens the photos for Inon to see. He hands the phone over to him. Inon looks at the first photo for a very long time. It felt like he didn't blink before looking up at Dalton. Inon tells Dalton to sit down on the stool and offers him up another hit off the long pipe. Confused as to why Inon is showing so much interest in this matter and this lady. "I don't know how to tell you this Dalton. But if you don't know who that lady is then there is clearly a lot you do not know about Lucy, or life for that matter." Inon said as he gets up off his stool quickly and walks over to the spot on the floor that has the opening to the storage area down below. He walks down the makeshift mininiature staircase and reaches out to grab something. He grabs it and climbs back up the stairs and drops the floor back into place. He approaches the bench and tosses a book in Dalton's direction. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Ronald Dahl. Instantly he recognized the book for it was the first of it's size that Dalton read in his own growing up. Puzzled he looks up at Inon. "One of my favorites growing up I told you that at the restaurant back in the day. What of it?" "One of your favorite books growing up. Did you just look at the words or did you really read it?" Inon said with a very serious tone to his voice. "I read it Inon I don't know what you want me to say." Dalton said "I know how it ends if that's what your asking." "What was your favorite book as a youngster?" Inon asked. "Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are by Dr. Seuss. Without question, Lucy's favorite as well. I remember that was one of the first things we realized that we had in common." "Did you pick up on the meaning behind that book?" he asked "Please tell me yes Dalton." "The meaning behind that book is simple, teach kids how to be thankful for what they have. Don't grow up to be greedy little fuckers." Dalton proclaimed. "Anything else you would like to add to that? I'm ashamed to be honest Dalton, I took you as the intelligent type. Aren't you prepared for tomorrow?" Not knowing what else to say Dalton quotes one of his favorite rappers, Vinnie Paz and says "They're ain't no tomorrow I don't have a dime saved." Inon looked a little disappointed in his friend Dalton and for a hard few moments he looks as if he may fly off the handle and start uploading fists or feet upon him. Dalton wasn't sure what to do with himself. He had a height advantage on Inon but that was about it, physically Inon was built like a rock. He has grown up out in the woods and is so in tune with nature that it is beyond the dreams of any Eagle Scout out there in the world. Dalton doesn't want to have to fight his friend and knowing Inon he had all sorts of things hidden in this very shed that could end someone's life without too much effort. He braces himself for impact as Inon walks closer. "You think I'm going to hit you?" Inon says. "No I'm not sure what your going to do, but I wasn't putting it past you. Supposed to be ready for anything, right?" Dalton says. "Then how do you not see the signs all around you. You should have been looking for your Golden Ticket your entire life Dalton and if you haven't started yet, I'm afraid it may be too late for you and your plus three." "What are you talking about?" "Look man, when you go home today, read that book, take it with you but really read it. Read between the lines and try and figure out the real meaning of the story. Also read your favorite book as a child as well. Do that first in fact and you will know why it never became a movie and other stuff of his great work did." QUITE A WHILE LATER IN THE TIME LINE OF LIFE It was something of legend, something of fantasy, something out of a dream of the most sadistic person you would ever have to cross paths with during your lifetime. Dalton spent the next few weeks deeply studying the movie and the book that Inon had suggested that he did. At first it was nothing more than a trip down memory lane. Inon told Dalton to "keep his eyes and ears peeled" for any subtle hints that the stories may be of a deeper meaning. He figured out that there was a deeper to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and once he reached this level of understanding of the book and it's meaning suddenly everything in life around him became unraveled. He started seeing hidden meanings in nearly all the kids movies that he knew as a kid, and he started to become curious as to what the movies made for kids nowadays. The kids walking jamming out to The Proclaimers, suddenly took on a deeper meaning even if they didn't know it at the time. All the conspiracy theory people that Lucy would excuse when Dalton would turn her on to something new he found on YouTube or something ended up being the Truth Speakers and the Genuinely Enlightened people of the world. Lucy respresented what many of the United States have become, knowledgable about the future fate of this fine country but holding a deep and reserved notion deep in their bones that refused to accept this Truth as Reality and wanted to hope that untimely downfall of the country would happen long after her body was put back into the ground. The concept of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was pretty obvious once a proper set of reading eyes took it in. It is a term that Dalton has become familiar with known as NFL. Natural Future Lineage. But what was Natural Future Lineage? It was simple and outright complex at the same time. It was no mistake that the NFL was named what it was so it could coincide with the National Football League. Many terms and words used withing the NFL Project are named and stylized in such a way so they are deeply embedded terms in the psyche of the Typical American. You are supposed to know the abbreviations, and when you stumble upon something that happends to be realted to the reality of it all, your supposed to be dismissive of such things because of how deeply embedded these words and phrases are. For example when a typical middle-aged white male sees the letters NFL next to each other, and even on a deeper subconscious level when they hear three words in a row as for the name of something and they are words that start with N F & L these words no matter what their context will make a middle-aged whie male excited and happy to spark intrest. Many of White America are happy fans of the NFL so when these words excite them subsconsciously and they assume whatever the subject to be as sastisfying as watching a football game. The people who have always held the power of the world knew all of this stuff was going to be happening long before anyone else knew anything about everything. Why else would in America would movies and television shows be so glossy and captivating. Popping with color and full of life, it's hard not to be attracted to many high-end productions on television or the big screen, no matter what the concept. It's just so rich and full of life, your eyes cannot help but look away. What your not seeing, and what many failed to notice was another whole level of Project NFL. With the advent of the internet there where a lot of people in the world who saw it as a device that would change the world for mass communication. And for a while it seemingly was the case. People who proclaimed they stood against the establishment now had a medium to communicate their thoughts and ideas with people all over the globe. You had YouTube pop up out of nowhere and suddenly there were people on the other side of the world who where going viral to show the things that where happening on the other side of the world for America. Unrest in Egypt, things going awry in the European Union. Things always going wrong in the Middle East. What the average person did not know, is that while they where taking their Blind Pride for all things related to Freedom and becoming obcessed with problems very much beyond their reach, the Puppet Masters who run the show in their own country where doing all sorts of dirty things behind the curtain while their docile citizens weep over foreigners on television that they will never meet. Foreigners who by in large would love to see America fall for its lack of care of Earth, and their vanity. Natural Future Lineage is something that arose from the Freemasons. When YouTube started getting reputable people that the Puppetmasters of the world couldn't control, they started flooding YouTube with highly-rich produced, detailed videos and presumingly self-made documentaries by "everyday people" in order to distract people from the truth. They setup puppets with large followings. Mark Dice, The Young Turks, Alex Jones, all the big name conspiracy celebrities of the Internet where all people put in place by the outlining guidelines of the Natural Future Lineage Project. Part of how they alleviate themselfs from guilt about the haneous and dark things they do to the world and it's fine citizens, and esecially Mother Earth, the Freemasons have a process called Plot Misdirection. They drop clues all around the media, the things people see everyday with hidden clues and messages that fortell something of the future. According to their pact with themselves as long as they have proper Plot Misdirection in place they have been absolved from any wrongdoing. To the Freemasons of the world, it is not their guilt or their problem that the Average Citizen has no idea to read into these clues. It is up to each and everyone on their own to expand their own minds, and after eighteen long years of Public School the Average Citizen cares not to expand their mind anymore. Being lied to eighteen years about Life and How the World Really Works, makes one presume life is very simple and has a lot more to do with Money and Retirement than Expanding Your Mind. These higher tied citizens have something called the Nationally Organized Decisionmakers. They where people of power, people of business, people of significant cultural impact, actors, musicians, syndicated news personalities. The conservative ones, the hardcore liberals ones, the straight ones, and the gay ones. NOD had several thousand members, and their organization was setup much as the way of the hierarchy of the Freemasons. There where particular levels of NOD and you had to earn your way into the different levels, and many members of NOD go on thoughout their lives as a member not having any idea what they are really contributing to. The highest levels of NOD where really the ones who pulled the strings. The rest of the lower level members where just there as sort of a way to show a system of organization and have those members think it's how their system works. When the reality is the whole system is a huge system of Plot Misdirection on the very people who think they are somehow "above" the rest of society. The uppermost tiers just needed to control the money of people who earned it outside their predetermined outlines of the NFL Project and as such NOD was setup as a way to funnel those funds and the control of such organizations indirectly. Dalton spent almost all of his free time with Inon after the day he told him to go home and read books about chocolate factories and golden tickets. They spent hours upon hours reading kids books, studying Dr. Seuss, watching high-end produced action movies from the 80's frame by frame looking for clues of Plot Misdirection. Trying to figure out the way to unlock their future. Inon turned Dalton onto a lot of things about all the conspiracies, most of which turned out to be actual fact. The only time they seem to be inaccurate is when you take the Plot Misdirection the improper way. It would seem that their clues are sometimes so vague that you have no idea what you where really looking at until after the fact. It's not all obvious like some of action movies from the 80's. Ones where they flat-out show the storyline about how the World Trade Center went down. The very same story they would sell to the public as truth several years down the timeline. But not too far into the future, any average White American Male had a deeply seeded roots awaken again on their subconscious level, because many of them have seen the high-gloss movie and their right side of their brain accepts it is as fact. Those people where taught by muscular, white men with Big Guns that people from the other side of the world are All Terrorists and All Bad. The proud work of Project NFL. The sheer success of Plot Misdirection. What Dalton learned about Brittney was about as ground-breaking as the things he has learned about the world. What Dalton now knows of the world is this: The United States government in some form or fashion is going to "end the world". They have been dropping clues about this since the early 1900's to their citizens in every facet of Mass Media. Without being involved with the organizations that control this destiny, the clearer facts cannot poke through the clouds. Costco and wholesale retailers sell two and three thousand dollar food supply systems that can "feed a family of 4, three meals a day for five years". "Prepping" has now become a national pasttime to a subculture of would-be Boy Scouts. The deeper levels of the subconscious has now began to awaken in the hearts and minds of the citizens that the Government has been developing since this countries inception. What would be the purpose of ending the world? If you had ever attended public schools in America and read into the pledge of allegiance you would have know this was coming all along. "I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." Nobody really thought much about it, assuming the role of a docile American why the fuck would you? If all you care about is getting through the day so you could do something else other than go to school, you would just stand up and say whatever the fuck you had to. You would never look into the fact that they wanted you to pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States AND to the Republic for which it stood. As one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. The Puppetmasters where joyful and full of glee the day they got their liberal powers to rip God off of the pledge. It was a painful bargain with the People's Republic of China. Back when the Puppetmasters where determining how to shape America they lacked the funding to get the job done in such a quick manner. They knew their slaves wouldn't last long getting worked to death in the fields so they needed cash for more slaves and they needed it in a hurry. China was quick to help, and the Puppetmasters helped gather funds for the process of Project Colombia to begin. The Puppetmasters formed the pledge for a future use on their citizens. And while the Chinese where the authors of the document originally, the Puppetmasters thought without mention of God in their propaganda the King Hating White Men who wanted to leave Europe wouldn't get their point across without the crutch of God to sell it to these men. China agreed but only if at some point down the road in American History they agreed to remove it from the pledge before the abortion of Project Colombia. Project Colombia was a social experiment. Too test the ropes of "true freedom" to citizens who would be afforded a free market, the right to own guns and bear other arms, the right to "vote", which was another whole experiment within itself. They had documents for which they where supposed to obide by in the order of Law but the freedome they where afforded where only set to withstand itself for a certain amount of time. The whole premise of the situation was to discover how long a group or a society would be able to withstand freedom before falling victim to vanity. With constant programming by Mass Media in all it's glorious forms, paper, digital and word-of-mouth the most discreet Mass Media out there. China funded this project as a means to determine if they would be allowed to give various freedoms to their population, as the boundaries of Communism was started to wear on the morality of the society. The poison of the West has started to infect the population of China by means unaware to the Puppetmasters. Red China was fearful of it's project when the population showed interest in Barack Obama. China was proud of it's white man holding onto the resentment that China put in place about off-white people back in the inception of Project Columbia and despite how socially advanced and more free the citizens became, the hatred for all things non-white never seemed to die in the culture of those who wanted out of Europe. They just kept on going with their hobbies and deeper into their interests. They never faltered. They always hated people who where not white. But things started getting weird for China and they felt like the Project was getting out of control when white people starting emulating black people when Rap Music became popular. This somehow happened despite all the race riots the Puppetmasters provoked in the fifties, sixties, and late nineties. The Chinese had enough of watching their experiment and they where ready to abort Project Columbia and initiate the next phase in the NFL Project. Project Columbia advanced technology so quickly in the United States of America that they literally had zombies who where so apt to have their phone glued to their face, or stuck on a high definition television emitting things into their inner most conscious programming them slowly while they enjoy mindless entertainment. Gamers who used to operating most things in their life by the push of a button, and over time literally evolving them into fat, useless labrats that would do just about anything as long as it included sitting in front of their televisions and stationary on a comfortable couch. The idea of ending the world was simple. Pull the plug on the electricity within the United States of America. Without power, the technologically advanced population of the United States of America would destroy itself withing a few years. Whatever was left over was going to be used for a rebuild on America and it's society. The NFL Project was intended to recruit particular citizens of the United States and gets them to seek refuge just before the lights got turned out. These people where not particularily wealthy or of any particular cultural importance, but continuing the gene studying purposes of the Nazi's the United States could hand select particular aspects of society and keep them in something of an incubator until they could be used for reproductive purposes to repopulate the United States with a group of all-white citizens groomed for the purpose of being used as part of the next phase of the NFL Project. Lucy was one of the people that NOD wanted in part of it's hand selected group of people used for repopulation. High rankings in school and never a part of any particular criminal activities during her use as a citizen, Lucy and her deep understand for computer related things where going to be helpful for creating a new society after the lights come back on. Of course the Nationally Organized Decisionmakers simply didn't walk up to people and tell them that they are needed for repopulation after they decide to kill off a vast majority of it's citizens. Most would find the request odd, or outright insane. For it is simple reason that so many groups of interest of the world exist. Organizations for people who love animals, organizations for people who love to read book, organizations for people who like to work with wood, organizations for those who think black people are getting screwed in the world and they need more rights than white people do. All these organizations are part of NOD Network, or part of something else call NODE which was stylized as NODe. They where the Nationally Organized Decisionmakers extension. Groups not created by the NOD network that where ripe for the infiltration and take-over by officially recognized NOD members. They would find a way into your wallet, and take whatever spare change you had left over from the rest of the bills you paid. All money that went back to the people who created the illusion of it in the first place. NOD infiltrated one of the animals groups that Lucy was a part of and installed Brittney in the organization. Trained very well, having never owned an animal before being installed within the organization. She was sent there to befriend Lucy and get her in line with the requirements for the project. Brittney warmed up to Lucy very quickly and the two became friends. Brittney was playing the lesbian card, and she made it seem like Dalton gave her bad vibes so they never really hung around each other much when Dalton was around. She called Dalton a "dike hater" and Lucy would really sing to that tune with her for resentments she already had for Dalton. She would laugh when Dalton would go on his stoned rants about how he wanted to become a Freemason only to figure out what they where up to and so he could expose it to the world. However her curiosity got the better of her when she was eventually proposed by Brittney to join an exclusive secret society of sorts that was only for Women. She pitched it to Lucy as a way to "overthrow the evil men who try and control women". Lucy was immediately drawn into such an idea. And so she illustrated intrest to the idea to Brittney. NOD of course already had such an organization setup, and it was only of the most deeply involved of the NOD agenda. This organization of women where pretty much taught on Hitler levels of hatred towards the men who have been holding them back, programming them to pretty much hate every man that walked the face of the earth. Deeper circles of this organization have taken what is known as "the Eternal Oath" which was getting 'fixed' so they where inable to reproduce children by the evil men who poison their lives and poison their bodies with their evil sperm. Destroying their bodies and destroying their lives without giving anything back. Only taking away. What these ladies where not prepared for is what was actually happening to them when they took this "Eternal Oath". They're put under the knife and told they had their tubes tied but the reality is they had a device installed within their bodies so they could be tracked and found for rescue before the lights went out. And how would they know otherwise? A few of them might end up getting pregnant due to the fact that they haven't really had their tubes tied, but being tracked with something more than a GPS location device, the Puppetmasters could also tell if someone got pregnant with the device they have installed in their selected few women. They would be able to swoop in with plenty of time and make the wrong things right. For it is what they did. Lucy took the Etneral Oath without talking about it to Dalton.