Good ole boys 1.

I have been working just to get high. Everyday the salty blessings of exertion baptize me as I do the work of a true man, something I have never considered myself to be. I have a bed and some food, but by the time I get to that fading shack in the woods where we stay, I never really need it.
We all fight over the best scraps to blast us into godhead until we are left hiding beneath the windows, waiting for the morning to come barging in.
I lay under a pealing, open pane, that used to rest cooling pies, curled into a ball trying to remember the warmth of my momma before she became so frigid. My muscles ache waiting for the next punishment, my belly knotting up like play-doh.
There is another boy here, he seems about my age. I think he's educated somehow. He don't say much but when he does it's real good. When he sits next to me in public the women look at us and ask outta their darker eye if we might be twins. I hope he isn't like me.

Eventually, the boss man falls into a funk and the work stops. There isn't any money to be made here in this ghost town, and no more fun to be had.
I go up to the boy, the one that is regrettably like me, and start to talk, "I don't reckon you have much reason to stay here, so I was wondering if you'd like to go with me?"
He looks up, slow to the register, so I continue, "I was thinking that we might go West, look for some new work. Two boys like us that already know we can work together, we have all the chance in the world. You scratch my back you know I'll scratch yours." He still doesn't say anything even regarding the innuendo of it all. A haunted look creeps into my eyes behind my implied bravado, "At any cost, we have to keep moving."
He finally smiles at me, his pencil thin lips parting his face, and says slowly, "That's the golden rule."
We look at the compass that has risen in the sky and start walking.