A Life is given to every individual by some unknown entity and that, many people think is a Father in Heaven, that is : 'The God', and then, many others who think life evolved by itself and they refuse to recognize existence of that creator. At that time of going through those rapid and unexpected calamities, nothing was farther than the subject of a Creator or who's the Controller of my future, and if is a Man, a Woman or could be like me-a man trapped in a woman's body. I am not a religious person because in our life filled with strife and struggles, there never had a place for a religion. A thought of accepting the unfair God; one who practices favoritism, and gives the wealth and power of unimaginative limits to few, demons, while condemning unfortunate majority of poor and struggling population of the world, did not arise. We all are familiar with this discussion among the humanity and I don't need to repeat it here.

Today, when I look back at the world and my personal life, I am much more comfortable with the idea of fate than was during my youth. Then I had hopes, some writing skills, imagination, and a stoic upbringing to tackle anything that the fate was throwing at me. Now at middle age, I am better educated in the University of Life, and all those teachers, from the Street-life, who were experts in survival skills, deserve the credit for my street smart wisdom. The other self-education also came from my Pappy's legacy of love for the books. After reading the classics, gradually I got interested in the non-fiction works and believe me, many among the homeless were the true philosophers of streets of this country who did mot write one quotable sentence in their life but created volumes of treaties and Gnosis; all that work falls into the 'Oral Teachings' of the unknown Socratic geniuses of the streets. They shared the knowledge and experiences when I too become a citizen of that realm and learned much about European and Eastern thinkers they had read and studied. It's a difficult to believe this fact of life that a person who explained to me Nietzsche's "Amor Fati" was a street dweller in Hollywood, California. The 'Love of Fate' the German philosopher's doctrine became my outlook towards life. Enough of my rambling about my inner thoughts and let me tell you about the exit from Taylor Mountain, my Pappy's resting place.

If you can't recall the past episodes of my brutal beating of Walter, and subsequent brush with the law, let me bring you up to date with the story. Walter discovered my secret place on the bank of Kanawha river behind the Electric Plant, stole my undies and bra, displayed them like a trophy and caused humiliation and pains to me. Next time when he came behind me to same hideout, he and I got into a fight and I beat him unconscious. I got arrested for battery and was saved by Ms. Alice Holland my court appointed Attorney. Instead of facing jurors in an adult court, she got Walter's family to drop the charges out of fears that he could be charged with an attempted rape. After that, I returned home to find Pappy dead and buried and with that his daughter (My mom), came with her man to claim the Mobile Home, and the plot of land.

That night after waking up, I remained in the bed in the pitch dark room. I didn't see necessity to venture out. What was there to wake up and go about except for eating and to performing the necessary functions of body. I hadn't spoken to anyone since several hours and had no person I wished to reach out to. I felt like my world had shrunk to a baseball size and it had closed all doors on me. Unconsciously perhaps, I felt it was my fault for the condition. In the past, I had not taken this path; I had Pappy to unburden myself and get his wise advice. I imagined him sitting out in the corner of living area on his Lazy boy sofa, but knew he was gone for good and with that realization, I began thinking about what he would have said to me. My conversation with his spirit went like it always had:

"Pappy! Are you busy?"
"I am, but that can wait; come on out, let us find a solution."

I used to wonder how did he know what I was going to lay on him? Then I would bare my troubled mind, and he would help me find a solution by directing me towards rationalism and pragmatic decision making. He would either recall an episode from the war and how he faced decisions and what he did under those conditions to take a quick decision and act; some stuff I think he made it up just to show the Zen way. In one way of looking at my education, I think how to be a self-sufficient person when it came to make decisions came from those exercises.

Later I began gathering thoughts to ask him appropriate questions as if he was going to respond in person. When that inquiry became cohesive in my mind, I began with a statement:
"Pappy, my mind is dull, and brain is functioning with impaired thinking. Everywhere I see nothing but closed doors. What should I do; how do I open at least one door that set me free from this nightmare?" I received replies which I of course knew were not coming from him, but I believed it did anyway, came from my subconscious ego. The spiritual aspect of this phenomenon perhaps was all this happened in my dreams and sleep talking stage. Pappy had explained his way in these words:

"Most of the time people create their own nightmares when they are facing the adverse situations. I say so by personal experiences. Getting shot down or shooting down enemy fighters, depended upon individual pilot's ability to avoid adverse situations at all cost, and if forced into one, use all the training and experiences a pilot got and make the decision and act to get out of it as soon as possible. With the skills learned in training, strong will power, and with unperturbed presence of mind, many returned to bases with battle scars. Life is full of dogfights and the survival depends on same skills. Do the analysis of your problem and actions if you have taken before. Study the causes of those effects which you have experienced and seek preventive solutions, if you have a chance; if not, find ways to minimize the damage. Learn from mistakes and adopt the winning processes and make changes in the operating principles for future conflict. Try this first and if you still have unsolved issues, we both can tackle them."

I owe him that calm and collected attitude about life's crisis and yet I dealt with Walter with an uncontrolled rage; caused by the volcanic eruption of emotions. That was a colossal error on my part. For a while, I had put that incident out of my mind, but now, it came back to put more pressing issue of what is going to come with this new living arrangement. Moving with mom and her man meant losing the freedom of independent thinking, and taking decisions. I couldn't imagine a Mother-Daughter interactions and wondered how I would deal with it. The Walter affair had shaken my faith in stoic thinking and it had put me in a self-doubting state. I began the analysis of events, the outcomes and its effects. I was accustomed to do in the past and now I am facing a new challenge of living with two people I didn't know.

The 'what if' analysis I think, should be done after the crisis are over. It has to be for the understanding if another option was available and ignored. The alternative that has a minimum risk of damage and has a corrective action that is simple to adopt for the future conflict of similar nature. Any analysis is totally useless during the crisis because it does not give the urgently needed solution for coming out of the adverse situation and interferes in the escaping plans. Thinking in line with this advice of my Pappy, I started reconstructing the episode. What happened to me physically, was easy to reconstruct, but how and why I reacted in that animal like ferocity, I could not analyze. Why a human, who supposed to be a rational and sapient specie becomes a demon, even for a moment, then I couldn't fathom. After all I was still legally a child and inexperienced in the wide world affairs at that.

Today I am a well-read person in the subjects of human behavior, brain functions and causes of violence. I have, for the first time recognized how the starting of that event must have appeared to my psyche: a crisis that I must stop, and it must have triggered the often-heard phrase, "Flight or Fight" mechanism of the brain. That night sitting alone in the bedroom, I could not have succeeded in resolving the mental crisis. Only possible good came out was I became aware of my physical strength and a tendency of serious violence if provoked beyond endurance.

Well, for moving on beyond that period and concluding the Taylor Mountain saga, I will skip the details of drama that took place and give only the pertinent parts of the event here.
As I mentioned before, Ms. Holland took me to hearing after briefing me about how to present myself as a defender of a possible sexual aggression and the fear of getting hurt, which of course was not the real scenario but a possibility. I performed well, got off with Home Schooling, Anger Management and related counseling trips to professionals of that field. Nothing came out of that because within two weeks we left the Taylor Mountain for good. I had informed Ms. Holland about the issues of inheritance and Mr. Roy's position and involvement in this affair. She declined to take that business as it was not her job but agreed to speak with him and give an unofficial legal advice to him but not to anyone else.

"I am not your personal attorney and cannot advise you under the current contract with the state. As a friend however, I can suggest you what I think is a best option from the multiple are presented to you."

She did that, and Mr. Roy as a Trustee of my property and welfare until I become adult under the state laws, acted accordingly. He advised me to sell the Mobile Home and land and give part of the money to my mom for moving expenses, and rest to be in a escrow account for me until I can handle my affairs independently. It wasn't much to make my life independent, so I agreed, and we moved to Anton's house with a garage. It was waiting for me to begin another phase of my life to begin. At 14, I had become a prematurely grown woman and I did not mind it at all. As it is my body and face had lost the child's personality and I did not miss my childhood; it just wasn't attractive without my Pappy. His little library and the memories were left for me to carry into the uncertain future. Mom was excited with the prospects of a wedding Anton in a Church that neither of us ever visited. The irony in such a desire of using the house of God is, most do not seek His blessings of their union, but do it with an ulterior motive of achieving that appearance that the bride and groom are a part and parcel of the mainstream, respectable and thoroughly commercial society. Mom wished such affair of grandiose nature but then, that Amor Fati, I spoke about before, had to be in favor of her to make her dream come true. I will tell you about all that in my next chapter; I have to prepare it from the notes I made few weeks after we moved.