(Untitled)

[angriestman]

Between high school and finally up and leaving Harlan at twenty, Raylan Givens had mined Kentucky coal. Not sure what he wanted to do with his life, it'd been a good paycheck, even with the danger and long hours. Sometimes, years away from that time, he wakes up with the taste of coal dust and dynamite smoke in his mouth and he knows that those

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[rhymingdevil]

I didn't actually get up to the compound as much as I guessed most people did, if only because Shari's house was a little further out and was almost like living in another place entirely. Still, food was still a novelty I hadn't quite gotten over yet, after spending two years as a ghost, and I found myself eating way more than I ever did when I was alive. It just tasted better, somehow.

I was on my way back out when I stumbled a little and looked down to see it was a person I tripped over.

Real graceful, Nichols.

"Uh, sorry about that. I guess I'm not as graceful as I used to be."

[angriestman]

"Don't worry about it," says Raylan, straightening, tucking his booted foot in more neatly and the nudging the brim of his head back, studying the young man standing over him, his cigarette still between his lips.

"My ex-wife woulda said that that's what I get for makin' the place look all untidy."

[rhymingdevil]

I hadn't ever heard an accent like that outside of a tv show or a movie and while I could ballpark it as southern, I had no idea where. I wasn't about to guess. This guy looked like a cowboy...Texas, maybe?

"I wouldn't know. I've never been married."

I waited for a moment, then I had to just ask. Writer's curiosity.

"Texas, right? With the hat and the accent?"

[angriestman]

"Thankfully, only briefly. Once," says Raylan, taking a drag on his cigarette and pausing for a moment before he exhales grey smoke towards his boots. "In the line of duty. It's Kentucky. I can see how the hat would be misleadin'."

[rhymingdevil]

"Just a little," I agreed, but I smiled anyway. Kentucky. He didn't really sound like the cowboys in the old Clint Eastwood movies and they were always from Texas, so maybe there was a difference. All I could say for sure was that it wasn't California.

"I'm Peter. Peter from California," I said, offering my hand for a shake. "I've never been to Kentucky. Nice place?"

[angriestman]

"Raylan Givens," says Raylan, reaching up to shake his hand, squeezing before he lets it go. Nothing wrong with a good handshake.

"Depends on your perspective," he says, cigarette between two of his fingers. "Always thought it was a better place to come from than go to, maybe."

[rhymingdevil]

I thought about that for a minute. In some ways, I guessed, my own hometown could be thought of the same way. I'd always planned to get out, see something different than perfect beaches and even more perfect tans.

"Maybe that's the way it always is with hometowns. Just a nice place to start and not a good place to stay forever. I know I was ready to get out."

[angriestman]

"You manage it?" drawls Raylan, lazily, flicking ash from the end of his cigarette, and leaning back, looking up at the young guy standing over him.

It's a valid question; just because Raylan figured out the way out doesn't mean that everybody did.

[rhymingdevil]

I shook my head. I never got that chance. I was scared of that chance, if I was honest with myself, but I rarely was.

"No, I never did. I was thinking about heading out east though, if I did. A whole new start, whole new culture."

[angriestman]

"Way everyone reacted to me managing, anyone woulda though I'd pulled a rabbit out of a hat," says Raylan, drily, slipping the cigarette back between his lips.

"I tried that. Went all the way to Miami." He grins lazily. "Didn't really help much. I liked Miami though."

[rhymingdevil]

"I don't think Miami would be much different than where I'm from," I admitted, thinking it over. "I want to get somewhere different, some place away from the ocean. It's just fitting I ended up here, huh?"

[angriestman]

"See, now, Miami felt a long, long way away from Harlan County," says Raylan, and he might smile, but there's no humour in it; he's not over having to go back to Kentucky yet. He rolls one shoulder in a shrug.

"I guess we've all got to make our destiny's now, right?"

[rhymingdevil]

"Guess so," I agreed, liking that way of phrasing it. I liked the idea of controlling my own destiny instead of having it chosen for me the way Shari had. It was just a pity that I didn't do anything with mine.

"So, do you like it here for the most part? I haven't been here long enough to know."

[angriestman]

"Yeah, I like it well enough," he says, with a little nod of his head. Admittedly, most of the reason he likes it is the naked girl still sleeping in his bed.

"It's a long way from Harlan county."