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Atmar Johnston checked himself into the Waco Veterans’ hospital in September, 1964 to get sober. He’d done this before after spending months poisoning himself good and proper with numerous gallons of cheap hooch. Eighteen years, off and on, of hard drinking had left Atmar with a fibrotic liver and dropsy in his gut. The VA doctors held Atmar three weeks, sedating his delirium tremens and laboring over a nasty bacterial peritonitis. Again, they sent Atmar home sober, but this time with a thirty percent chance of living another year. Atmar would soon die for lack of a liver — the one he’d slowly murdered with rotgut booze. (more…)

Michael’s head came up out of the book he had started that morning. “What?” he asked the old Indian woman. “Did you say pourquoi?”

“Poor-qua,” she nodded. “The story of the people, and when God made us. You know the poor-qua?”

“No.” Mike shook his head and closed his book, a finger marking the page. He didn’t know any such story, but he did know the French word for “Why”. Its use by Mary Smart surprised him. His interest piqued, Mike decided to listen. He’d go back to his reading if she didn’t have a compeling Why Story. (more…)