Horace had a big head. So big was his head that it became a thing of legend among his fellow humans. People sneered and gasped and mumbled at its mere sighting. They told funny anecdotes and made jokes behind his back. It was always the same for Horace and as time moved on he grew more and more desensitized with the whole thing. He met a tall fat woman named Suzanne Johnson in an out of town bar. "Nice rack" he thought and fell in love. It was a pleasant feeling. He remembered that. No more lonely nights, no more Jesus at the bottom of a beer mug, just him and Suzanne in a king sized bed listening to the radio, drinking and screwing. Hadn't seen her in over a year now, said she was a mean spirited bitch with a gigantic ego. It felt good, leaving her there to rot, felt liberating. Lit a joint, got in the car, started the engine and poof. No more Horace.

We met in a bar. He came to me and offered a drink. He said "You look like you need it." I nodded and drank my scotch. He told me about his life. How he was raised in a small Baptist town with a Church right in the middle, how he rebelled and scouted America in search of a feeling he neither found

nor understood. How he came back and settled for a life of routine and alcohol. How he met his wife, the lying cheating bitch, and how they had a child, a small beautiful child some punk stole and never returned. He was honest. That was perhaps the only thing I admired about him. No delusions, no self-deception, just a man on the run. We drank and we laughed and shared our stories and when the time came for him to leave he gave me a hug and a suitcase. He said "Son, in there you'll find a new goal in life, you need one, trust me on this." He hugged me again and walked out of the bar.

Home for me is a small country house with a red fence. It has been in my family's possession for about six decades. Grandpa bought it when he first came to this land. And now it's mine. It's old and it's wooden and I live in a constant fear of fire. Sometimes I bring a woman over. She says it's nice. I smile and kiss her. If she returns the kiss we proceed to the bedroom, an old bed with old sheets and a red wooden lamp. If not I show her the way out with the same gentle smile on my face. But either way, I always drink.

There was no woman on that day, just me and the suitcase. In it I found $500, a revolver I knew nothing about and a note. It read: "Consider this a show of good will. You're a drunk, a slob, you hate your life yet you're too much of a coward to change. You spend your days thinking about booze and women. You get very little of either. You're a loser. No money, no nothing. I bring an offer. On August 15th there will be a Mayor's convention in Bismark, North Dakota. A man by the name of Daniel Heinesen will be attending. Your job is to get rid of him. I don't care how you do it, just do it. I don't ever want to see his face again. I don't care about your name or your identity. I'll approach you once the deed is done with a similar suitcase, this time filled with $10,000 cash."

I thought about it. Why not? Things couldn't get any worse. Sure he might be a nice guy with a nice family. Then again, he's in politics. I could, at the very least, meet the man before making up my mind. Yeah, that seemed like a good plan.

The next day. I packed my things. A suit, some money, a couple of maps.

Paid my debts. Closed the shop. Decided on walking to Bismark, nice enough weather. Sure, I could have used what was left of the cash to buy a car, but hey who knows what the future holds. "Plus" I thought, "I can always hitchhike."

"The name they gave me is Iain McAllister Cormack. I saw the light of existence in Fargo some twenty years ago. My father was a musician and my mother a housemaid. She had beautiful green eyes and I can still, at times, recall the way she looked at me as I was growing up. Imagine a kind woman, poor, lonely, putting all her hopes in a small child. Father was a drunk, and though I swear to God he never laid a hand on me or my mother, he was more than content with wasting his life in sleazy bars, talking trash and gulping trash. Mother worked hard, a hundred hours a week. She slaved in backward mansions, taking orders from rich ladies, eyed, mistrusted, observed, analyzed and discussed. She wasn't part of their world. None of us were. Poor Mother wanted me to have a proper education at one of those fancy upper-class schools. She took me to Church on Sundays and we prayed to the Virgin Mary together. I didn't know the words so she had to whisper them. When