A cold blast hit him and he laughed at the sting as he stepped outside, surveyed the night sky, and drank deeply. Such a good liar he was. Such a good one. Everyone thought he was fine because he'd camo'd his little problems. He wore a Sox hat to hide the eye twitch. Set his wristwatch to go off every half hour to beat back the dream. Ate though he wasn't angry. Laughed though he found nothing funny. And he'd always smoked like a chimney.

I don't do farm animals. Can't stand hay in your leathers? Or wool in my teeth.

The guy stroked his goatee. "What do you call twenty guys watching the world series?" "The New York Yankees," Butch replied.

He [Vishous] was all need, no ease.

With that, he looked over his shoulder. Blay's breath shot out of his lungs. "Oh... my God," he whispered.

End of the day, the quick and the dead are the same. Everyone's just looking for home.

Destiny was a machine built over time, each choice that you made in life adding another gear, another conveyor belt, another assemblyman. Where you ended up was the product that was spit out at the end—and there was no going back for a redo. You couldn‟t take a peek at what you‟d manufactured and decide, Oh, wait, I wanted to make sewing machines instead of machine guns; let me go back to the beginning and start again. One shot. That was all you got.