To top that off I enjoyed the work and freedom much more on the farm. Some days if I didn't feel like working I could just say screw it and goof off. ...Life was hard but I loved it on the farm.I got home about 45 minutes after I left Joplin. My two kids and their sitter were in the back yard. The kids were playing in their little wading pool while Tammy sat at the picnic table reading and watching them. Stacy jumped from the pool and came running toward me when she saw me. Howard followed behind. Feeling like a teenager about to ask out his first crush, I called up Jill’s number and called. Trying to protect my feelings by telling myself she most likely wouldn’t answer, but knowing in my heart how desperate I was to talk to her.It was nine-thirty back in Miami, and I’d stopped watching their three-person love games just after five their time. So I was hoping beyond hope that she’d not be so deeply asleep that she’d not register my call. From the very first days we met twenty-plus years. Coating every single surface of the great hall were layers of gore so thick you would have no idea what material lay beneath, sticky and oozing blood like syrup wrapped in countless lines of fleshy strands. Wrapped and constricted violently by the strands were their very sources, countless royal servants torn and mangled, the strands their very nerves pulled and extended in some bizarre, unnatural way. Each of them were deathly pale, gaunt with sunken black eyes and hardly a scrap of life. Then the next morning came. Did I really want to risk it all just for a pair of shoes? Yes I wanted. I was determined like never before - even if my heart was beating to my throat since getting up. Finally the time had come, physical education began. As is so often the case, girls and boys were separated, from the gym to the changing rooms. In fact, they were at the other end of the gym. But my plan was brilliant. Or so I thought. At first we always ran several laps in a circle to warm up. No.