Helena is healing with a new sunny disposition, Rick is content. Rick wants to square things with Mr. Begay and Helena wants to get back to painting…but the Squatters are prowling the street. And they don’t trust anyone. Don wants to kill Rick, Owen wants to help him.
Just when things seem to settle down, the Squatters move back in to Rick’s house…making Rick worried about blood on his new carpet. The battle to take back the house continues.
Sometimes things seem to spin out of control even when there looks like the possibility of progress.
Helena preps for facial reconstruction, Rick buys his expensive rug and life looks like it’s going according to plan. But is it? Is there a looming personal banking crisis over some big money gone missing? A savvy theft from ATM’s and a credit balance sending signals of “insufficient funds” are just a few of the transgressions unwrapping in Part 8.
Homoerotic activity was practiced in many ancient militaristic cultures, especially the Samurai. I helped to balance the exclusive effeminate maternal upbringing a boy knew before he was sent to military school. It substituted strong, life-saving warriors for the bunnies and foxes of childhood folklore. It taught him self-reliance and teamwork, and established the man-to-man communication that was lacked in herertosexual relationships
Rick’s trouble with the squatters and an “out for himself” lawyer take him deeper in the destructive quid pro quo battle. He quickly learns that a dog bite can be more lucrative than a gun shot. Rick puts his financial “smarts” to work and the action moves to a Mojave County casino. Things are reaching their saturation point.
