The Company - Chapter 5 - White Knight

Out now

Questions Answered-

Where in Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana or Mississippi does the story take place?

The answer is... yes.

The setting is fictionalized. If you're familiar with the region, the place names will sound familiar but not quite right.

Think of Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha county.

Why is AIDs such a big deal in the story?

The innocence of youth is a beautiful thing. In 1986 there wasn't a bigger deal than AIDS if you were gay. Everybody lived under its shadow and it was a death sentence. Everyone knew someone who died. Anal didn't really become a lost art but, lot's of people either gave it up or cut way back.

I'm glad younger people don't know what it was like. I think the term is maximum suckage.

What' s with all the trucks?

It's the south. Trucks get you to work and work for you. Many, if not most, young men in rural parts of the south, and in the south rural is never that far away and where we work & play, would prefer to have a truck over anything else.

Why doesn't Tom have a cell phone?

They don't exist yet. Neither does the interwebz. He will bow to the inevitable and get a pager and you'll see what fun those were.

The hobby? No shit?

I've heard it called that in some places but it's not universal. In many rural areas with a lot of isolation it worked that way. Take a few belts of moonshine and a toke or two of country boy homegrown, it'll make more sense.