Have you ever seen or been aware of the number 108? If so, is it just a random occurrence? A mere coincidence? A one-off curiosity? What if it keeps happening, again and again, over and over, in an inexplicable pattern of synchronous repetition? Then what? We’ve all experienced the phenomenon…

Written in 1974 while tripping on LSD Author’s note: In 1974, when I was 19, I dropped a hit of Love Saves LSD and sat down to compose this fabulous fable in a single, uninterrupted stream-of-consciousness brain dump. I had no prior foresight into its ensuing narrative, plot, theme, nothing…

POSTSCRIPT: Present day. I’m excavating some musty old boxes buried in my closet that haven’t seen the light of day since I moved into this place years ago. I pry open a few and root around through a jumble of forgotten memorabilia and family heirlooms and silly tchotchkes I’ve held…

CHAPTER EIGHT A couple of days after the “incident” Ray and I were eating ice cream sundaes at the drug store and overheard the town clown cops, Wimpy and Jigs, bragging about the “big bust” they’d made the day before when they hauled in some homeless disorderly drunk who’d been…

CHAPTER SEVEN Ray and I would spend hours after school playing pinball at a local joint, feeding the buzzing, ringing beast of a machine all the quarters we could scrounge up from our piggy banks, from begging our parents, and even from devising this clever little machination of attaching a…

CHAPTER SIX Yeah, me and Ray, we shared lots of good times and a few bad times, branded with the tattoos and scars of our experiences. We loved our weekends, during the long summer, when we’d spend most of the day golfing, sometimes — Ray’s big money-making idea! — wading…

CHAPTER FIVE About three years ago, we must have been thirteen, nearing fourteen, me and Ray came up with this hair-brained plan to explore the exotic twists and bends of Mossy Creek where it rushes past the bucolic hamlet of Oxbow, population 108, if that. The idea we hatched was…

CHAPTER FOUR Now when I think back on Ray’s mom and dad — Beverly and Walter Haney — the first thing that comes to mind is how downright zany Beverly was. I mean, she was ditzier than a meerkat on speed! As for ol’ Walt (that’s how me and my…

CHAPTER THREE Not to forget, for how could I, our small town escapades also included stealing away to a local nature preserve, though as kids we never really thought of it as that. Slaughters Pond was a murky, mossy large pool of spring water hidden down off the railroad tracks…