Banjaxed

Irish slang used:

Thick-dumb stupid

Banjaxed:Broken

Lad-young man

Mot- wife

Muppet-fool

Bullin- Mad

gobshite- if someone gets on your nerves.

Gammy-useless

That memory was always banjaxed down to small pieces of dirt, to where I never was able to tell everything that happened that day. Some were vivid like others, like how Sawyer went into the next town that we were by and picked up a newspaper. He bought it for fifty cents, and I never could understand why'd he'd waste such valuable money on a piece of paper.

When he rode into camp while holding the paper like it was a torch that you held at night, everyone stood up wildly confused about why he was so excited. "We have a name now!" He yelled as he slid off his horse. "We have a name now!" He said as he ran up to Willie. The older man grabbed the paper and reached into his shirt pocket to find his bifocals. As he put them on he began to read it aloud, as all of us gathered around Willie even the new recruits who didn't have a bloody clue what was going on.

"A whole town was found massacred with the whole population being deceased with bullet holes, it's safe to save these 'Phoenix Runaways' May or may not return again." We all stood gawking at the name we just heard. Martin then emerged from the circle into the middle. "I think it's safe to say that that's our new name." Everyone cheered, while I stood in silence. Why was everyone so bloody happy? We have bigger problems up ahead that need to be dealt with first. If Austin were here to see this, he'd surely say that they all had gone mad. I stood there thinking how thick these men that sat before me. Never realizing that they tore a page out of the wrong book. How dumb, they're getting excited over this? There is no thrill in getting a name, it's what you do that you should be thrilled about. As they all cheered and a muppet I sat in the damp cold morning with a red scarf over my regular clothes. Watching my breath become smoke, I sat there as if I was gonna be kicked by a bloody cow. I stared down the old broken gravel road, to see a white deer standing there. I stood there watching it graze in the center where that was a patch of grass. It was a buck with large antlers. On one a bird could easily have mistaken it as a tree branch.

I stepped to get a closer look not at the deer, but behind him. It was five people one was aiming a rifle at the deer. 'they are going to shoot him!' I thought as I raced to get in front of the deer, the buck was spooked and took off running into the woods never to be seen again. The man with the gun dropped his rifle with his hands up "Was zur Holle Schlampe!" The man yelled another man wearing a tweed hat, that man was Irish, because of the screaming and the hat. "Oi! Don't be bullin at her! She's a wee lass." I walked over to him. "What did you call me you sack of gobshite!!" Abe saw me charging at the five and ran quickly at me. Two of the men, including the one who called me small, stood up in shock. "Aye!" The man who called me small looked up at his friend who was wearing a tweed hat as well but he had a white long dress shirt with a brown vest over it. "She's Irish!"

"Yah darn right Gammy! What the bloody hell were ya thinking? I was you sack of bullshite!" I was more than just pissed off, I was infuriated, which I barely have ever been. When I approached the men they seemed to be weary unlike the other three. "I'm sorry lass, we didn't mean to call you small, we didn't know you were Irish!" the man with vest said. "Aye, we're sorry." I felt my eyes becoming fierce, fiercer than fire. Fiercer than anything I had ever felt before. Even Abe was shocked, "Lydia calm down." It was too late for that I was running on energy that was held inside a box that was locked in chains that were inside of me. I was never able to find that weak link in the strong chain, now I have found it. I have found that link, the one that was unlike the others, and I began messing with that chain, and now I caused it to break. Not like a small break like in a toy or a crack, I broke it to where it will never be fixed again.

"Don't tell me to calm down! I've been fired up ever since Austin died, all the pent up energy I have can finally be released and allow to move freely!, I've been quiet for years. Let me speak." I could feel the presence of Austin. Maybe he was the deer, the unexplained white, Austin had always stood out, but he didn't care about it, he was always happy with himself, even in the darkest days. He viewed himself as normal, even when he was dying, he pretended somedays that he didn't belong to the gang, however, he always knew that if he had decided to live outside of the gang, he'd always would know that he would be welcomed back.

It was hard to even think that Austin was dead, my mentor, my friend, my parent...How I wish that were true that he was my parent. Even when I had blood on my hands the first time we had met. He still comforts me saying "It's ok, it will be ok," now since he's gone, the pillow I had used to keep me from falling down the rabbit hole, has now dissipated as I now feel as if I am falling further than I am suppose to be. Now I sit in the dark with only the light from where I fell to look at. The three Germans were watching me carefully, watching my movements whispering in a language I couldn't understand.

I stood in silence, filling with rage. But yet I felt sad. The anger was more towards myself more than anything. How I dared not to even think about myself as valid anymore to them. The two men stared at me as I began twirling the braids I had stared at the ground beneath me. Abe grabbed my shoulder and I became to being the old me I was. Quiet, shy, and most of all anxious of everything. "It will be ok." Abe said quietly in a tone I had once heard of not from him. I shrugged off his hand and went back into the camp Gun Boy was sitting by my horse. "Lydia, did you snap at those men?" I stared at him, I didn't answer for now I had to wrap my head around every concept and meaning as I once had to before I could speak. I moved quickly over towards Bailey and grabbed an apple from the satchel bag on her. "Lydia, please answer me." I refused his request. I continued to untether Bailey from the tree. "god damnit woman! Answer me!" I began to mount Bailey as I grabbed the horn of my saddle. Until I was pulled down by Gun Boy "answer me right now Lydia!" He said through his teeth. I just looked at his facial expressions was he really that mad that I didn't say anything at all? How mad does one have to be to think that just because someone doesn't feel like talking doesn't mean you should tear down the wall they had built around them and now make them feel insecure. Yet, I already knew how that had felt, both me and Sawyer. We came from the same town, same background except mine had me migrating with my family over here then leaving me for some over sea trip. Funny, they never did come back for me. They left me abandoned with a lad I had never seen before left me with his family. The more I think about it the more I forget as all of the banjaxed memories of the were now.

I sat on the ground in silence as Gun Boy knelt beside me. "Tell...me..." he said in a heavy voice. I stood up and shook my head and mounted Bailey with success and led her away from camp only leaving behind tears that I had as I rode away. I kept thinking to myself as the wind started to hit my face. I kept things how nice it would be to have a normal life, one that would let you see them positive in things rather than the negative. Where everything was working instead of banjaxed like my memories of the day before. As Baileys hooves hit the ground and brought dust behind her I began digging my face in her mane. she slowed down and stopped she swung her head to where she was able to see me. If she could talk she would be asking what's wrong. She only stared until I slid off the saddle and walked her the rest of the way to a tree trunk where I laid down. She stood right beside me. Tears began to flow down my face as I sat in silence, I adjusted my hat to where it slid to the back of my neck. I looked up at the sky seeing the beauty it bestowed and how everyone night stars would come out and shine like a coin. I had been told by Austin that the stars are the good outlaws. The ones who did things for others while they stayed in their gang. He had also told me the bad were the rotting plants that brought harm to everywhere, I always had viewed it weird until now. It showed that the superior were the good so they were the stars that everyone would smile and point out saying there beautiful. While the plants were lower and were cut down because of their imperfections, their rotten personality and no one viewed them as beautiful only rotten. But, only a banjaxed man would tell you that and only a genius would sit confused not knowing what the hell was said. I'm sometimes both the one that no one can understand and the one who doesn't understand. But the thing I can never understand the importance of is life. How the utter sensation one gets from accomplishing the greatest like the man who takes a picture and gets it in the newspaper. Or the chef who finally figured out the recipe. What was my accomplishment? that I lived with a group I call family where else calls them the devils of the west? It better than what I was left for, and that was for nothing.